This time last year, I had to abandon this sign, leaving it to the mercy of a construction crew in an empty building. I left it with screws, bolts, rawlplugs and mounting instructions and quit France.
It's such a pleasure to see it up on the brand new facade letting everyone on the D93 know that La Boulangerie-Patisserie du Grand Barry is finally open.
Grand Barry is the name of the rocky outcrop behind the village of Vercheny (Drome). I immediately liked the name - in my head it was Big Bazza :-)
If you're curious about the 'font,' it isn't one. This is custom lettering inspired by a ghost sign in the nearby town of Die (swipe left to see it). But as the work progressed, I realised skinny lettering wasn't well suited to hearty loaves and indulgent cakes, so the letters got stouter. I gave them gold-leaf 'fillings' too.
For the first time, I submitted my ideas to the clients not just as a PDF but also as a sample letter so they could see the real paint colours and the leaf shining.
After that, it got technical. I realised I'd be gone by the time the wall was repointed and so devised a system for fitting the 5m sign to the irregular stone. I made a lightweight wooden chassis which would hold on a single screw so the fixation points could be marked out (see photo if bored teen demonstrating this). Afterwards the three front pieces could be fixed to the chassis.
A massive thanks to Laurie & Hugo for trusting me with their bakery-baby. I'm delighted with the results even if we all had to wait for them. Big-up Big Bazza - you can check them out here:
@la_boulangerie_du_grand_barry
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#alwayshandletter
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#ghostsigns
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#jillstrongart
Tomasz Biernat
Jill Strong
Applied Meta Projects