Handwritten Gold Job
Our guys are all trained to use gold leaf | transfer gold but the use of this skill and indeed signwriting (freehand) in the workplace is limited these days to Honour Boards in long established sporting clubs (Toorak Services Club) and schools (last year we did Melbourne Grammar’s Honour Boards) where such boards still exist and are still updated using the gold leaf or transfer method. Because of the lack of experience the young guys never get a chance to use this skill which is a shame. For Honour Boards we tend to use the transfer gold method where we first signwrite the letter in an undercoat yellow and then transfer the gold (real gold) onto the painted letter.
With the gold leaf method the gold is shaved and floated onto the surface. In the design world’s quest for font integrity and perfection the handwritten style has been replaced by the forme cut vinyl or digitally printed versions but there is a place for both. A good comparison can be made between this and its modern version (black and gold lettering, forme cut and not real gold, applied to a window for Melbourne City Gallery) – see previous project.
Check out Margaret Kilgallen’s work for more examples of signwriting as artform. Image courtesy art:21.
Signwriting as an artform ~ like craft and art and food, where slow time honoured traditions are gaining value in a fast moving, techno savvy world. Swings and roundabouts back to appreciating the time and individual human effort that goes into creating by hand; that which cannot be computer generated gains favour. For all those signwriters who love signwriting, perhaps this one is for you. Who would have thought that signwriting and the backyarders – illegal graffiti could now be considered valuable from an historical and artistic point of view.
