During the pandemic, I rediscovered my passion for researching and writing about #signs and #signpainting—I got the #ghostsigns book into print, and The Showcards Book (see earlier toot in thread).

With no print magazines serving the sign painting trade, I developed the idea of a new print and online publication.

BLAG was born, and is now on its third issue: https://bl.ag/03. It takes an international view of the trade, and every article/issue is a pleasure to produce.

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Over the years I have also helped numerous agencies and their clients to find and collaborate with #signpainters and #lettering artists around the world.

This is a sampling of some of the projects that I worked on as producer, and I'm always open to new briefs where my skills and network could be beneficial.

I don't really plug this page of my site, but it has a load more images of projects I've worked on: https://bl.ag/portfolio/

#signpainting #signwriting #signwriters

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The reaction to our film about Cliff (previous toot in thread) led to producing three more about retired sign painters: When Better Letters Met...

- Josef Samuel, Vienna, Austria;
- Stan Wilkinson, Wokingham, UK;
- Barbara Enright, Sydney, Australia.

https://bl.ag/tag/when-better-letters-met/

Funding for these productions came from Colossal Media and Right Way Signs of Chicago, and my time was voluntary—I'd love to commission more via BLAG in the future.

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In 2016 I received an email from someone called Karen in Bristol. She told me that she was caring for an elderly gentleman that painted one of the local #ghostsigns in the 1950s.

You can read the full story at https://bl.ag/cliff, but one thing led to another and we produced a short film about this 96-year-old former #signpainter.

Sadly Cliff died before we had finished editing the final cut, but his was the first in the 'When Better Letters Met...' series.

RIP Cliff.

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We did so many workshops, and Mike painted so many promotional showcards, that during the pandemic we collated these and published The Showcards Book (https://bl.ag/showcardsbook).

This shows the work with Mike's reflections on each showcard.

I was also the ghost writer for the definitive contemporary 'how to', Sign Painting (https://bl.ag/signpainting), harnessing Mike's expertise. This was then illustrated by Jasper Andries.

Another publishing endeavour were the two Morgue File books.

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After hearing that I was screening the film, Ash Bishop of Brilliant Signs got in touch. He suggested that I invite one of its stars, Mike Meyer, to come to London and teach a workshop.

I rolled the dice, put some tickets on sale, and a couple of months later Mike joined me for three nights of the film at The Roxy, followed by a weekend workshop at Sarah Hyndman's Type Tasting studio.

This was the first of what would be over 200 workshops organised in 50+ cites around the world.

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On my return from Cambodia, I wanted to do something different with my life, and set about some experiments.

One of these was researching and launching my #ghostsigns walking tours (https://ghostsigns.co.uk/tours).

Another was hosting the London screenings of the Sign Painters film in 2014. I had been following its progress while overseas, and it was an honour to bring it to London.

Without realising it at the time, this launched my fledgling concept of Better Letters.

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