Traditional Signwriting

At Flair for Signs, we use Traditional Signwriting techniques and tools, such as brushes, mahl sticks (the stick we use to keep our hand off the sign surface) and paint rollers. We don’t use masking tape or spray masks that way our edges are perfectly sharp and clean because there is no bleeding.

Depending on what the sign requires we can use signwriting enamel or acrylic paints to get the best colours and finish.

A good signwriter should be able to reproduce your artwork or logo exact to any scale on any surface.

Traditional Signwriting has been around for centuries and can still be used in areas that modern signage can’t be done like rendered walls, canvas, grass etc and in most cases will outlast modern digital print signage.

A Traditional Sign writer doesn’t rely on technology and can mark out or what we call tick out a sign by eye, they strike two chalk lines top and bottom of the line of text then proceed to mark out the lettering with chalk this is to work out width of letters, spacing between letters and overall length of the text. More complex sign writing like logo’s may require a pounce to be made, this is where we draw the artwork out on paper and make a series of small holes along the drawn lines. The pounce is held in position, on dark backgrounds we use white chalk dust which is wiped over the holes leaving a dotted outline for us to follow, on light backgrounds we use charcoal dust.

We use special brushes which are Quills, Strokers, Dagger liners, Fitches and Mops.

The paints we use are sign writing enamel’s and acrylic’s. In most cases enamel is used for a longer lasting signs.