Faythe Levine, Sam Macon, Sign Painters, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2012 (pp. 184; € 19,50)
In a world where typefaces are bought and sold digitally, and where graphic designers have to focus on composition and layout in order to set themselves apart or fall in line, it is refreshing to visit a bygone era. Sign Painters, by Faythe Levine & Sam Macon, is just the tonic in this respect, flying the flag for those who resisted or fled from the digitisation of a craft that encapsulates Americana so perfectly.
This book originally caught my attention after watching the trailer for the upcoming documentary to which it is the precursor. Something about the richness, craft and often scale of hand painted signs is striking — almost as if those that still remain transcend their original purpose and now exist as not just art but artefact.
After a foreword by painter Ed Ruscha, the book settles in to a laid back and agreeable format. Each of the twenty four sign painters featured give an insight into how the craft has come to be their profession. Hailing from and settled in cities spanning the length and breadth of the USA, and ranging a great deal in age and background, the mix is engagingly cosmopolitan.
Unsurprisingly, the book is visually rich and finds plenty of room for a great selection of photographs and illustrations. These are complimented beautifully by the hand painted front cover artwork by Ira Coyne and the hand-lettered interior typography by Josh Luke (both of whom we meet in the book).
Endearingly, the tales within come across as heart felt assessments of a trade enjoying something of a renaissance, having survived the onslaught of the vinyl machine
Few profess to make anything more than a reasonable living as a sign painter, but money is clearly not a key motivation for these individuals. Embodying this outlook is Doc Guthrie, who teaches the Sign Graphics Class at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, and as the first artist featured issues something of a rallying cry: “you have fifty years of work ahead of you, and it should be something you really love.” Perhaps it is this outlook’s keeping with the American Dream that makes the project feel so right.
The work presented in the book — with some examples more contemporary than classic — still takes cues from what aesthetically harks back to a golden age of the USA. Maybe it is the wintry, homogenised and Helvetica splattered streets surrounding me that allow this book to transport me to a time that seems more personable and less distant.
