Sign Painters Screening

Overview

There was a time, as recently as the 1980s, when everything - shop signs, banners, murals, barn signs, billboards, and even street signs were all hand-lettered with brush and paint. But like almost all skilled crafts, the hand-painted sign industry gave way to industrial processes that promised to be quicker and cheaper, leading to a burst of computer-designed and inkjet-printed letters overtaking our typography landscape.

In recent years the renaissance of traditional sign painting has been regaining popularity. In 2010 filmmakers Faythe Levine and Sam Macon sought these craftsman out to make a documentary dedicated to their traditional practices and appreciation of quality and craftsmanship. Their documentary Sign Painters, is the first anecdotal history of the craft of sign painting, following the stories of more than two dozen American sign painters - the young, the old, the new vanguard of solo workers, as well as the collaborative shops like San Francisco's New Bohemia Signs.

If typography's your thing Sign Painters is a documentary screening worth a watch.