Another slightly unusual vehicle to livery, but eye-catching despite its size is this Smart Car used by Zeytin Restaurant in Knaphill.
 

 
Vehicles are economical ways of using your advertising budget.
 

 
This catches attention from every angle.
 

 
The smart car is easy to park and inexpensive on tax but is not at all racy. Motor racing is certainly the theme for the William Bray pub in Shere owned by former Formula One driver and wearer of a famous white helmet, Julian Bailey. The facilities have been used prior to the British Grand Prix for TV shoots and now a special Private Dining Room has been created echoing the theme of Monaco. Pointing up the stairs is an homage to the old Monaco Street signs.
 

 
This is an original.
 

 
One Wall had a circuit layout painted on.
 

 
The wall blackboard area had information about the circuit and motor races.
 

 
Other areas reflected text in the main bar and restaurant.
 

 
The Monaco font was based on period posters which adorn the walls.
 

 
These were created by Georges Hamel, who signed himself Geo Ham.
 

 

 
Amazing simple timeless images from the 1920s and 30s.
 
This was also used on the door in gold leaf.
 

 
As I am interested in period commercial vehicles, I was pleased to find this photograph of a Delahaye which was designed by Geo Ham.
 

 
He obviously influenced the style of this 1937 Delahaye roadster as well.
 

 
I’m sure his motorcyclist illustrations also influenced the animators of the pop video for “Take on me” by A-ha, which is in turn brilliantly spoofed on “Family Guy” see YouTube (Family Guy: Chris as a-ha “Take on Me”). You mighty also like to check out Commuter (1981) by Michael Patterson.
 

 
Another recent gilding job was a simple classic Roman numeral for Grosvenor Square. This had a black outline.
 

 
This journey to London added a hanging sign to the Buckinghams Mayfair laundry and some further West Cornwall Pasty Co. outlet at Euston.
 

 
We recently visited Bluewater to paint some lettering onto a glazed tile surface for Harry Ramsden’s
 

 
We have also been very busy recently for our friends at Wellington College, Bearwood College, Reading Blue Coat School, St. Joseph’s College and Eton End School.
 
More seasonal was work at Riverways Farm on the Old Bath Road at Twyford who provide eggs and laying hens, but who also have Reindeer “for hire”.
 

 
Riverways have a kiosk opening up soon, call in when passing or check out http://www.riverwaysfarm.co.uk

 
Recent work in the home village of Bramley includes a revamp at Memories the Antiques, Collectibles and curtain outlet which I have signwritten several times over the years. http://memoriesantiques.co.uk
 

 
Also work on the former Wine Bar for Patrie Thai Restaurant.

 
Find out more about Patria the patron and The William Bray at
 http://welovefood-itsallweeat.com/2012/10/16/patrie-thai-grill-and-delicatessen-high-street-bramley-guildford-surrey-gu5-0hb/.
 
You will also see higher quality images by John Powell AVS – Albury Visual Services, with links to The Silent Pool and a mystery of Agatha Christie’s disappearance.
 

 

The Bakery Shops are now able to Pedal their Wares with this Pashley delivery bike

 

This is not the first delivery bike we have worked on, if you go back through the blogs to April “Signwriting Horseboxes” you will see a picture of Don Bennett by his classic milk lorry and his bike for “Ambarrow Farm Dairy”

 

This week we visited Mayfair and Duke Street to give an established dry cleaning company Buckingham’s a revamp. Using gold and black vinyls to good effect on the windows recreating a traditional feel.

 

 

This was a corner unit, so the lettering was on two aspects with the opening times and a guardsman to the door.

 

 

The interior had traditional gold leaf gilding to the headings on the cabinets.

 

 

We have just supplied a sign to Academy Sport in Reading which is made from 8 individual 8ft x 4ft sheets, 4.8m x 4.8m square.

 

 

Earlier work on this site had been interior panels about the services offered, mainly with relevant images digitally printed and with pockets for leaflets and clip frames as poster holders.

 

 

We also added text to the Reception area, vinyl graphics, cut and printed applied to the painted wall

 

 

Check them out at www.academysport.co.uk

 

 

Our friends at The Bakery have just acquired a new marketing toy in the rather unusual shape of a Nissan Figaro.

 

 

We were pleased to add graphics all around the vehicle

 

Whilst the curvaceous rear proudly proclaims “The best buns in Surrey”

 

 

All of the logos match the text of the shop fascia panels in cream and tan onto the black bodywork, with their familiar tag line “feed Your Day”

 

 

The generous but demure bonnet suggests “Love Bread, Love Life” with a suitable digital print.

 

 

Keep an eye out for this car as it may be involved in special promotions.  See www.thebakeryshop.co.uk for details

 

We have just finished supplying signs and graphics for the West Cornwall Pasty outlet at London Bridge station at the base of The Shard. www.westcornwallpasty.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter is coming and the shorter days and dampening conditions give us even less time to complete exterior work, so it is nice to have plenty of  inside jobs. Over the “summer” school break we had lots of regular honours boards to update. Sometimes refurbishment work enables us to recreate extremely individual hand lettering from the past and such was the case re-lettering some hard to read Memorial names from both World Wars on oak panelling. The capital letter A is particularly hard to decipher.

 

 

Hopefully somewhat easier to understand and extremely interesting to read was the text on the historical plaques which we recently installed at Reading Blue Coat School in the new Richard Aldworth building explaining the history both of Aldworth and the former buildings on the site.

 

 

Further work at Wellington College recently has included further designation of the Howard Gardner inspired Eight Aptitudes within the redeveloped Mallinson Library which, prior to his Olympic Ceremonial appearance, had been visited by Sir Tim Berners-Lee creator of the World Wide Web.

 

 

Other work at the College included stainless steel lettering within the waterfall of the Princes’ Quad and a visit to the Wellington sponsored Academy in Wiltshire allowed the installation of sign assemblies to the dormitory block echoing their sister dorms at the original establishment.

 

 

 

Visits to London facilitated work at Guy’s Tower for the Dental School, fixing within Covent Garden piazza for Pylones and signage at High Holborn in the shadow of Gray’s Inn for the West Cornwall Pasty Co.
Interior work at Surrey Science Park meant literally “going around the bend” by painting lettering in the reception area around a 90 degree bend.

 

 

I mentioned recently to an old Crowthorne resident Aubrey Vaughan that I had sometimes thought of asking some of the longer established local businesses if they still have pictures of their old vehicles which Allen Thrower had worked on. I was obliged to receive the following photograph in the post which he dates back to 1968. Allen worked on both the sign and the vehicle which although it is not obvious in the photograph was gold leaf gilded. I re-panelled and re-lettered the sign later, possibly more than once, certainly for John Nicholson.

 

 

We have added graphics to more horseboxes at JMB Horsepower in the last couple of months. Branding them with the “Virtue” insignia added to the leaping horse design, zig-zag side stripe  and flying crescent of earlier vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

The London Olympics are fast approaching and, although we do not expect to have a major role in the events, it is nice to be involved laterally. So it was a pleasure recently to add some typographical adornments to a tool box to be used by a farrier attending to some of the equestrian participants.

Gold leaf was the most fitting material for a dark stained wood and teamed with a bit of black shadow you have a timeless combination.

 

 

The headlines are all about the Torch Run and the weather. These combined when we were working in Windsor recently where a new West Cornwall Pasty Co. premises is taking shape in the shadow of the castle walls. As we were working on the windows the crowds were gathering to view the event, sadly the clouds were gathering too and both the torch bearer and tourists were drenched in a downpour. This prompted Her Majesty to enquire of the torch bearer “Did you get wet?” and a fair proportion of the masses to cram themselves under the very small overhang of the shop premises and attach themselves like clams to the windows we were trying to complete, darkening the already overcast day like a solar eclipse.

 

The Moss End show was under threat of cancellation for the first time in known history because of the weather as we completed another Virtue 3.5 horsebox for JMB HorsePower on the Friday before the event, the decals being a smaller version of the light blue box shown here previously. Hopefully some pictures will be available soon.

 

Another equestrian link requiring a marathon effort was the arrival of “Copenhagen” at Wellington College. Copenhagen was the Duke of Wellington’s favourite horse and who was famous for carrying his master throughout the Battle of Waterloo. A representation of his head has been beautifully crafted in bronze by Nic Fiddian-Green, pictures can be seen at www.nicfiddiangreen.com and at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-18626960.

Whilst Fedderer and Murray were making the headlines at Wimbledon, I made use of the very short-lived periods of dry weather I took the advantage and made some headlines in Guildford on a patch of wall in Bury Fields.

 

 

The spots of moisture on the lens prove that the authorities at Wimbledon were wise to have the sliding roof installed and closed for the final this year.

Also dodged around the weather were some signs for Peaslake Village Stores, produced to a design by local designers resident nearby. The chosen font had some interesting “glyphs”, this is a conjunction of two letters into a single form. This was shot during production. We look forward to seeing more exterior photos once the sun is shining in the beautiful Surrey Hills.

 

 

 

Meanwhile at the end of June, a delegation representing our home village of Bramley visited the German twin town of Rhens. The German news clips are featured on YouTube at “Wir in Rhens-Folge55″,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFlwChXMSUE those of you who are German speakers will appreciate this most. Simon’s lettering art on a presentation notice board features at 10:13/45.01 for anyone wishing to fast forward.

 

 

If you would like to see some video footage of  Traditional Signwriting, please take a look at this film made by Adam King as part of his University work https://vimeo.com/41291884 called The Sign Writer, hopefully this will soon be linked to the main website.

This past month has seen various projects connected to the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Along with local village activities whereby they will be celebrating at the Bramley Village Fete on 26th May selling commemorative souvenirs designed by local youngsters and with Bramfest 2012 an outdoor Music Festival at Gosden House School.  The music will be taking place in the Garden of Dreams and I was interested to see a photograph on their website of some signwriting that I did there. www.bramfest.co.uk

 

 

I have painted various sections of text and quotations onto the (mainly white rendered) walls and these have often been linked to Shakespearean themes because of the link between The Globe Theatre in London and Gosden House School. All of the pupils join in productions which move around to various parts of the site as the performance continues scene by scene, I believe the dress rehersal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream was taking place with hoards of costumed youngsters streaming by. This must have been 2007 as we also provided the plaque on the left hand side marking the diamond jubilee of Gosden House School. Inside the buildings the pupils have an interesting display about the history of the buildings and I have found a link to it here  www.gosden-house.surrey.sch.uk/pdfs/history200.pdf

 

Other parts of the building have links with former productions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We mentioned aeroplane nose art previously. Here is a picture of the Italian First World War fighter pilot Francessco Barracca which aertoons.com feature in their history of aviation “nose art”. It was the black prancing horse on the yellow background which Enzo Ferrari decided would fit perfectly with his concept of thoroughbred sporting motor cars.

 

People have always personalised planes and cars, motorbike and HotRod enthusiasts favour lining and striping which was common on much earlier modes of transports, coaches and horse drawn buggies. Although coachlining on production cars is very limited these days we are sometimes called upon to recreate the effects particularly on Bentleys and Rolls Royces. These often have a bit of lining on the wheels, the contemporary version of cart wheels. The lining on this horsedrawn milkfloat was already there, I was drafted in to add the signwritten lettering and supply the wooden header board in the style of the original Caterham cart of the photograph.

 

 

Adding colour and design elements can make your QR code stand out from the crowd.

This is our own new bespoke QR code:

 

 

 

We can now help you to get a QR code made to order in your own style and colours, possibly including your logo.

 

Compare this with a more standard QR code which one of our customers will shortly be adding to their vehicles:

 

 

Wandsworth Group QR link to website.

Combinations can be made using the more familiar grid format, adding colours, curves and shadow effects.

Call 01483 894257, 01344 772164 or email simon@throwersigns.co.uk for more information.

It is always good when form and function combine aesthetically. A good example of this was the nosecone of the Eagle Formula One team in the 1960′s.

 

Whilst from the front it did not look too immediately different from the Lotus with it’s oval duct, from the side it beautifully alluded to the American Eagle of the team name.

We all take inspiration from earlier design and form. Looking at the Scarlet Lady on the previous entry inspired me to look at some of the wartime cockpit art. The most similar I found was “Heavenly Body”. Although this might not be original as the plane has been used for films.

Many of the pictures used were taken from movie posters or the “lad’s mags” of the day and you can see many of these featured on sites such as www.squidoo.com/Airplane-pinup.    There is another similar image “Sugarland Bess” from Military Images.net

 Although many were copies of existing images, one advertising man, Phil Brinkman was flown over to the UK specifically to paint designs, some of his most famous are known as Zodiacs and there is a fascinating compilation of pictures (including some of his original sketches) at www.486th.org/Photos/AC1/Zodiac1.htm

Returning to G.F. Watt’s Hope

Mix in some Street Art influence from David Choe.

 Choe has been in the news this week. Apparently he did some work on the walls of the Facebook offices and took shares in lieu of payment. The float should ensure that he gets a $200m payout for two days work.

We may appreciate the skills of Urban Artists such as Choe and Banksy without condoning possibly law breaking activities.

Some people who have broken the law are set to work making signs, both in the UK and in the USA. It was reported in Vermont recently that prisoners from the correctional units who make the decals for the Police vehicles had sneaked a pig shape into the dappled hide of cows in the crest on the State cruisers.

 

 Close up of the pig-shaped spot.

 Also in the news recently, School should be cool, but Shcool is not cool when it is written large on the streets of Manhattan.  See http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/crew-mistakenly-spells-shcool-ng-15429708

 

Being a traditional signwriter and interested in graphics of all kinds I enjoy looking at old signs, especially enamel advertising signs which you may find displayed at places like the Bluebell Railway (and these are also reproduced on the cover of the album by Eton John entitled  Tumbleweed Connection). See www.flickr.com/photos/31514768@N05/4398255131/ for a particularly relevent example. I also own a projecting version of a similar double sided design for Blue Bell Tobacco.  Good examples of enamel signs can also be seen at motor museums such as Beaulieu www.beaulieu.co.uk and the Cotswolds Motor Museum in Bourton-on-the-Water www.csmaclubretreats.co.uk/museum/index.php

Album covers involving hand lettering would also include the Mannfred Mann     abum Semi-detached Suburban and of course the drum created for The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.