Signwriting is the process of painting lettering freehand without stencils or technology. Today it is a rare art form, often taken for granted despite its consistent presence in our towns and cities on shopfronts and trains. We spoke to Signwriter and Fairground Artist Dr Amy Goodwin who is working to preserve and promote this beautiful but undervalued craft.

“For me it is about preservation. All of my work is based, either in the traveling industries of the fairground and circus or in the heritage steam industries; old steam engines, trains, historic vehicles, ones manufactured in the 20th century. The signwriters or fairground artists who originally created the artwork, worked by hand with no digital assistance or no modern tools like tape. 

“It’s not just about the awareness of the font you’re using and making sure the colours are ones used in that time period. It’s also true in how that skill is undertaken. It just really adds something.

“Signwriting isn’t meant to be perfect as a computer generates it. It’s is meant to respond to the space that you're putting it in and sometimes, these little imperfections or decisions about spacing of letters can really work to appeal to the audience's eye in a way that I wouldn't be able to do on a computer.”

Painting on a curved surface such as a train is a challenging canvas. A design can be accurately plotted beforehand, but might get distorted on a curve. Amy has to consider perspective and adapt the design as she works, manipulating the width or placement of her work on site so it looks right to the eye.

“I think there's something about turning up on a site and just responding to the surface or canvas which you wouldn't get if you were creating a design in your studio before you've gone to to see that vehicle.”

Tools of the Trade

Signwriting tools of the trade include a brush with long bristles to allow for more movement, and a mahl stick for guiding and steadying the painting hand. The long bristles also enable Amy to work for longer without having to stop and refill her paint brush. Refilling the brush frequently affects the smoothness of the finish and also impacts speed, which Amy explains is an important skill when working to commission, in order to remain commercially viable.

Mastering Signwriting Techniques

Amy was taught the basics of sign writing by a fairground sign writer in 2011 and emphasises the importance of having someone help you establish the fundamentals of such a precise craft.

“I think it’s a craft where it's really important and valuable having somebody looking at what you're doing. Not just in what you're producing but also in how you're holding the brush and using a mahl stick, which is like a resting stick. It means you're not touching any wet paint but but also your painting hand has more breadth for where it can go and how you can make a curve, or how long you can pull a line. I think it was really valuable having somebody correcting my posture and the angle at which the brush was hitting the surface.”

Lining is one of the traditional sign writing techniques used to emphasise the contours, wheels and panels on vehicles or border lettering. The lines are often long and thin so another reason to master painting with a steady hand.

“All of those processes of basic grounding in sign writing were really important to master before I was even able to think about painting a sign that would have some form of longevity. Learning brush control took a long time to master before I could think about painting a word. Fairground art came later. I’d been signwriting for maybe three years before I started fairground art, which I also learned from a fairground artist. Again, my use of gold leaf came later.”

“It’s a craft which has many different elements and processes so it’s important to master the basics before you move on to other strands. You can’t learn everything at once - if you never get the basics right, it’s never going to look good.”

Part of Amy’s work involves sharing signwriting with others through workshops, exhibitions and talks. Alongside solo exhibitions Amy will give talks and facilitates workshops in a gallery or learning space.

The most frequent response from the general public to signwriting is wanting to produce a sign for themselves - maybe a house number or bedroom door sign. It’s nice, Amy reflects, that they want to take the time to gain a basic understanding in order to practise the craft.

Using Traditional Signwriting Fonts

People are also surprised by how long it takes to perfect signwriting and the importance of understanding letterforms to achieve an authentic look.

Amy emphasises the importance of using fonts that have been around for long periods of time and following the conventions of Roman lettering; drawing the letter forms by hand, laying them out and spacing them out correctly.

 “I think people are often surprised by that because they want to type something on word, enlarge it, print and trace it. I think they are quite surprised that it’s not what I do.”

One of Amy’s favourite font’s is called Curve Side, a traditional font developed over time by signwriters. 

“The letter forms have a few lovely flourishes on the A on the H and it's just very nice to paint and it looks lovely. I also love the old style Clarendon fonts that we used on steam trains with the cast shadows that set off the the numbers and the letters.”

Challenges of Modern Signwriting

The challenges of being a signwriter in modern Britain are different from those a hundered years ago. One such change is the consistency and longevity of the paint. Signwriters would work with lead paint, which was a danger to health but provided a quicker drying time and required less coats of paint than the enamel formula applied today. Fortunately, despite advances in technology, Amy doesn’t find herself competing with new processes such as vinyl due to the industries she works in and their need for traditional techniques.

In fact, it is quite possible that technologies such as social media are benefiting signwriting.

“I think Instagram has really been quite positive in raising people's awareness of signwriting; how it still is a craft and how they can employ a traditional signwriter to produce their shop front or their pub sign. I do get a lot of comments like, ‘oh, I thought that died out years ago.’”

Discovering Signwriting as a Career

Amy’s first understanding of signwriting and lining came from visiting steam fairs in the West Country as she was growing up. 

“I grew up surrounded by steam fairs. It was traditional artwork, not necessarily the more contemporary artwork you see at a lot of fairgrounds now, airbrushed or vinyl, but the traditional hand painted, fairground art and hand painted sign writing and lining. I saw it everywhere during my upbringing, every holiday and weekend in the summer. This really shaped or instilled a sense of tradition and heritage and community in me which I guess has inspired me.”

At the same time, Amy loved drawing letters and fonts at school - “bubble writing, as you’d call it when you were little” - and it wasn’t until much later when considering what to do as a career that Amy thought of combining these two interests, carving out a niche for herself which encompassed both passions.

Signwriting also appealed to Amy’s meticulous nature and personal interest in the social history surrounding the craft, something that she hopes to share with others.

“I’m interested in how it goes so unnoticed as an art form.”

“Historically, sign writing was always a trade, which of course it still is - it's a craft. I'm really interested in bringing those skills to contemporary audiences through galleries and exhibitions. At steam fairs there's such a sense of community and people passing down stories. This is what has really inspired my work. I just love working and being in those environments, and I guess that's kind of fuelled my love for the craft.”

Fairground Art

A strand of signwriting that has particularly captured Amy’s imagination is the endangered craft of fairground art, which Amy worked to get listed as an endangered craft with a couple of fellow signwriters in late 2023.

Traditional fairground art (encompassing crafts such as metalwork, woodcarving, scrollwork and lettering) is known for its magical, bright and elaborate aesthetic and has inspired and attracted visitors to fairgrounds for generations. You might be familiar with this nostalgic, colourful style of lettering having visited a travelling circus yourself or watching fun fairs in films such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

“I guess as a strand of signwriting the fairground art is endangered because it's not taught in courses and it hasn't got the same sort of gravitas that signwriting now has. Again I think social media has played a really pivotal part in the resurgence of signwriting which is really good but fairground art is a little bit more insular and more niche.

“There are maybe less than 20 fairground artists in the UK now, so it's been listed as an endangered craft. This is supposed to be a good thing in terms of raising its awareness. I just think people don’t really notice it - you see signs but you never think about the person that has made them. 

“Fairground art isn't really noticed as an art form even more so than sign writing. That’s really contributed to its endangerment as well as the increase in vinyl and air brushing and such things.”

Sharing Fairground Women’s Stories

The stories of these fairground women, who had gone largely unnoticed, formed the heart of Amy’s PHD project.

Using signwriting, the art form most closely connected with the fairground community, felt like an authentic way to share their stories explains Amy.

“Growing up, I heard lots of stories of these incredible fairground females. They were just so engaging in terms of their lives, what they did and how pioneering they were in their communities. 

“Simultaneously to that, I was really aware those stories weren't documented. So they'd just been passed down orally from generation to generation. But nobody had actually documented them in a formal way. The National Fairground and Circus Archive, based at the university of Sheffield, is a great resource and space. It's so important to the fairground community. But there wasn't any real documentation of the women.”

When searching for names in these digital photo archives, Amy discovered that only the names of male fairground owners and showmen would appear. Women were simply titled ‘unknown.’ 

“I actually knew some of the women because of photographs I had seen of people from the past. I think that mirrors quite a lot of marginalised communities in society. Historically women have been less documented than men. I think that's true in fine art and science and in so many different industries. I really wanted to work to change that.

“The PHD began as a research project to reestablish five fairground women’s life stories. I collated what was obscured or hidden in the archives, cataloging the photographs with those women in.”

Amy also interviewed descendants of the people she was researching, conscious of the time sensitive nature of protecting this oral history with many of the descendants with living memory in their 80’s.

The granddaughter of Martha, one of the fairground women that Amy researched, suggested her family sold the wagon to Amy so she could preserve it. 

“It needs restoration. At the moment, that is my dream project. I can only get about a day a week on it. I would like to have more time. My dream is to finish it and take it to fairgrounds to use it as an advertisement of my craft and skill. It will also be a homage to those fairground women.”

Amy put her research together to create life stories, from which she took fragments to inspire signs for the exhibition. 

“I really focused on showing how the fairground community and fairground women have been impacted by major historical and social events. For example the two world wars, the suffragette movement and the great depression of the 1930’s.

“When a fairground comes to a town, people think about it. But when they move on, people forget about it and don’t necessarily consider those people being impacted by the same issues. Even though they have the exact same sort of daily lives. It’s just that they move around so much. I really wanted to draw attention to that.”

This passion for the history of signwriting continues to inform Amy’s own design process.

“I think my love of research really has fuelled my style and approach to sign writing. I turn to this as a starting point because I think it's important to reproduce or recreate design writing or lining, as authentically as as possible. Looking at research, old photographs, manufacturer’s build sheets, old designs or drawings that have survived is really key to my practice.”

Amy’s passion for signwriting is palpable. It is inspiring to see how Amy is using the art of sign writing and fairground art to not only preserve and champion a traditional craft, but also the stories and social history surrounding those who used it before her. 

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