Over the last couple of years, I noticed that I pass a lot of hand painted signs on my ride to work. I always tell myself that I’ll go take pictures of them one day, but of course, I never did. Until today that is.
On my way back from the office this morning I stopped to take pictures of a couple of my favourite signs that I pass the most. Turns out they’re kind of hard to take pictures of from the street and there always seemed to be something in the way.
This one is my favourite sign I’ve seen so far on the North Side and it also appears to be one of the more recently done signs. This one isn’t on my regular commute route, but still, I pass it quite a bit. I love the way the x-height, scale, and kerning just go haywire in the “Specialty Products” line and how different the two lowercase “t”s are. Adorable imperfection.
There isn’t much of this one left, but I love the calligraphic style italics of the word “Agents”. The “A” pretty much makes it for me. And what’s with that window totally killing the “t” and the “n”?
This one I actually do see everyday. It’s right outside the office door. I think the “A”s are the best part of this one. All caps sans serif seem to be pretty popular for this kind of sign painting, but I haven’t seen such low-waisted “A”s much. Except in this one, of course. (Watch, now that I’ve said that, I’ll see them everywhere…)
Oh, and if you’re wondering about AE Jones Co listed on the GEO Wilson sign, they appear to be located here.
