Our final project of the year was for hallmark. They wanted us to design a line of stationery, giftwrap or cards for men, including lettering. I started doing research into hand lettering, which I have am particularly interested in since going to see ‘Sign painters‘ – a documentary about hand painted signs by Faythe Levine. We had all been given free tickets by the university and had been invited to go to a talk with Faythe after the screening. The film itself was fantastic, It gave such great insight to the art of hand painted signs and gave me a new appreciation for typography. It was also really good to hear from faythe about what inspired her to make the film as well as get to know about some of her other work.
The signs I was looking at to start off my research were almost all american, for motels, diners, casinos and so forth. I decided to hone in on diners, as I was looking for more signs I was coming across some unusual phrases, which turned out to be slang used by diner wait and kitchen staff in the 50’s. Calling ‘Adams ale hold the hale’ to the kitchen would get you a glass of water with no ice, ‘Adam and eve on a raft, and wreck em’ would produce scrambled eggs on toast.
I combined the diner slang with the shapes I had been producing in my sign drawing to produce patterns for tags and gift wrap;
Marigold 