Gift Guide - Books
Published on 16.12.2024 by Handover
There is an ever-growing selection of ‘must-have’ books that every signwriter or artist should have in their collection, becoming staples on shelves everywhere. These books span a wide range of topics, including instructional guides, informative references, and inspirational volumes, all designed to support, educate, and ignite creativity within the signwriting community. Whether you’re shopping for a beginner or a professional in signwriting, gilding or specialist decorating, our range of books offer valuable insights, techniques and inspiration to enhance your craft.
In addition to books, we also offer a selection of posters and prints that can add character and inspiration to a workspace or studio. For more details on these beautifully designed items, be sure to check out our “Gift Guide – Gifts Under £20” section, where you can find the perfect item for yourself or a fellow enthusiast.
Sign Painting : A Practical Guide to Tools, Materials, and Techniques
For a book that covers all the bases The Better Letters Book of Sign Painting : A Practical Guide to Tools, Materials, and Techniques is an excellent choice. This book introduces the fundamentals of sign painting, allowing readers to learn about the tools, materials, and techniques needed to create painted signs. All the basics are covered, from choosing and using brushes, paints, mahl sticks, dippers and pencils, to how to prepare and finish surfaces, transfer designs, mix paint, and work with the brush. A gallery of original alphabets, created for the book by sign painters around the world, provides visual inspiration, and demonstrates a wide variety of styles and approaches.
Joby Carter
Signwriter Joby Carter has two books available, the every popular “Signwriting Tips, Tricks & Inspiration“ – a book that has fast become a firm favourite among those wishing to learn lettering, and more recently “All the Fonts of the Fair”. This full colour second book includes 26 hand drawn fairground inspired alphabets. Each alphabet has a reference guide with tips on how to accurately recreate the lettering alongside details about the origin of the style and photographs of variations of the lettering in use.
Hand painted stones and marbles
Hand painted stones and marbles by renowned decorative painter and master artisan Julien Gautier is a new publication and is proving incredibly popular! This comprehensive manual is designed for both amateur and professional painters who wish to master the timeless craft of faux marble painting. With step-by-step instructions, it guides readers through 30 beautifully painted marbles and stones, offering detailed insights into each stage of the process. Whether you’re looking to enhance your professional repertoire or simply explore the beauty of marbling as a hobby, this book offers an unparalleled resource. Julien Gautier’s mastery and teaching expertise shine through every page, making it a must-have for anyone passionate about decorative painting.
Gold Leaf Techniques : 4th Edition
The guidebook that has taught thousands has been updated with new materials, techniques and a full-colour gallery of gold leaf signs. An updated version of the original gilder’s bible aimed specifically towards signwriters, the book details the art of gilding as comprehensively as possible.
This edition details the art of gilding with step-by-step instructions and more than 170 illustrations. It explains the basic procedures for creating gold leaf window signs from layout, concepts and gilding, to backing up, finishing and varnishing. Additional chapters show how to gild cured and sandblasted wood, glue chipped glass, vinyl and more. Antique effects, common gilding problems, their causes, prevention and solutions are also included.
Kent H. Smith is a third generation sign-craftsman and gilder. He is a popular speaker and teacher, sharing his knowledge on many sign industry related topics throughout the US and Canada.
Mastering Layout
Long established as a must-have for all sign writers, this best-selling book by sign industry legend, Mike Stevens, covers the fundamental principles of layout for signs. Containing more than 80 illustrations to demonstrate before-and-after results of applying the principles. Includes a number of full alphabets for reference and also a troubleshooting checklist for isolating, analyzing and correcting layout weaknesses in your own designs.
mike meyers morgue files
The Morgue Files bring together clippings and other ephemera gathered by Mike Meyer over the years as inspiration for signs, lettering, and layout. With two volumes to choose from, there is plenty of inspiration to be had!
Magnus and the Roman Letters – David Kynaston
Written and illustrated by Roman Lettering legend David Kynaston, this new release tells the story of how the Romans invented our alphabet. The book can be divided into two sections, first there is the illustrated story of Magnus, ideal for children interested in letters and history! The second half of the book is dedicated to learning roman lettering using the point system and grids.
Signpainters Don’t Read Signs
Reissue of Signpainters Don’t Read Signs by Syl Ehr which was first published 1957 is an entertaining take on the sign game in the 1950s. The following is from the original blurb: “With high good humor and a free-and-easy style, Syl Ehr here offers the harvest—anecdotal and otherwise—of forty-five years in the signpainters’ world of the swing stage and mahlstick. He made his debut as a signpainter at the age of twelve, when he painted SHOESHINE in eighteen-inch letters in shoe polish on the sidewalk outside a mortuary to draw attention to his shoeshine box, and at the same time aroused the ire of the mortician and drew the attention of the police.”
‘Mr. Ehr’s techniques have mellowed during the years, but his zest for what he calls “one of the most fascinating of the professions” is un- diminished. It is the only profession, he adds, in which the practitioners must literally know their business both forward and backward. (“After we have learned to make each letter of the various alphabets as it normally appears, we must learn to make them in reverse so that lettering that is done on the inside of a plate-glass window will read properly from the street.”)’
CHRISTMAS DELIVERY DATES
| Christmas Delivery Dates 2024 |
| Last order dates for delivery in the UK before Christmas 2024 – all dates up to 2pm only Royal Mail Standard Delivery: Thursday 19 December Parcelforce Tracked Delivery: Thursday 19 December DPD Next Day: Friday 20th December For the rest of the world, please see our full Christmas Delivery Dates here: www.handover.co.uk/shipping-info |
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