Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to series six of the Life of Letters, a podcast exploring the art history and future of calligraphy, handwriting, signwriting and all things letter related.
I'm your host, Laura Edrilyn, a London based calligrapher with a curious mind.
Six seasons in, I'm still fascinated by the stories hidden within the letters and the people who dedicate their lives to preserving, studying and creating them.
This season, we're exploring letters through the lens of books, a library of letters, if you will.
As we begin another season of conversations and discoveries. I'm delighted that the Life of Letters is once again kindly sponsored by Speedball art, champions of craftsmanship and creativity, helping keep the life of letters thriving across generations.
Today I'm speaking with Sam Roberts. He is the editor and publisher of Blag Better Letters magazine, the world's only print and online magazine dedicated to the craft. And his own adventures in sign painting started with London Ghost Signs, although he now lives in Catalonia with his family.
Welcome to the Life of Letters. Sam, it's lovely to have you here.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Hi, Laura. Absolute pleasure to dial in from here.
Not far from the Mediterranean, we're not on the sea, but we're in San Pedro de Rivas. So, yeah, thanks for having me onto the podcast.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: I'm so glad you said it because I did see it in your bio and I was like, I'm never going to pronounce that right.
Say it again. What is it?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: San Pedro de Rivas. That is the, the, the Catalan name of the town. If you said it in Spanish, it would be San Pedro de Ribas. But anyway, that's. A lot of people just call it Ribas. Actually, you can just call it Rivas, which is the e in Catalan is pronounced more like an a. So rivas.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I love it. We're into the letters already. You see, we can't not talk about it, but let's, let's get right into your journey because I wanted to ask you where your interest in letters started. Obviously, we're going to come on to where you are now and what you do, but where was that spark and where did it begin?
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Well, it's funny, I've been reflecting on this recently because it's basically 20 years that I've been meandering along this path. And where it started was in London, where I was born and raised and was living in 2006 and working in.
I wasn't at that time working in an advertising agency, but I was working in the advertising industry and was quite interested in outdoor advertising and particularly the sort of ethical side of Outdoor advertising. I won't go into the depths of it, but I was always looking at posters and billboards and what have you and happened to notice one day in Stoke Newington, north east London, a painted sign on the front of what was then a flower shop.
And it said, fount pens repaired.
And I sort of looked at it and it was painted on the bricks and it was kind of a bit faded and I just, it just, it just piqued my curiosity, I guess. And this idea of repairing a pen in this day and age really struck a, you know, chord and felt like a bit of a time capsule, you know, a bit of time traveling through the wall. Anyway, that started me looking online and obviously the Internet then was very different to what it is now, but I sort of fairly quickly discovered that there was a name for these things which was ghost signs.
And, and after noticing that one, I sort of. Everywhere I went, I kept spotting them all over London. I start making a little map, cycling around. People would give me tip offs. And then before long I was kind of collecting these things. And that led to a blog, led to an online archive, led to, yeah, various, various initiatives, walking tours and lots of other stuff.
And there was this narrative that emerged quite early on that, you know, these are the fading remnants of a lost art, as people would often refer to it. But if you dig even, you know, a little bit under the surface, what you find is that although the trade of sign writing, or sign painting as they would call it in the US and elsewhere is smaller now than it was when these were being painted at the turn of the 19th and 20th century and in the early decades of the 20th century, it's still very much thriving and has been, you know, in resurgence.
And that came up eventually to lead to other areas of activity which were this.
Driven by this desire to make sure that we're painting today what will become the ghost signs for future generations, you know, not to, to let the craft fade with the signs in order to champion and nurture it. And I suppose I should just put a disclaimer in here which is that I am not a sign painter or a signwriter.
There was a Stephen, Stephen Heller, who has the daily HELA column on, on Print magazine. He did a little piece recently on issue 8 of, of my magazine and he referred to me in that as, as an aficionado and fanboy, which I'm going to adopt. I think I'm going to have that.
So, yeah, so, so although I'm not a sign painter, I'm. I'm Very much an advocate for the trade and a champion of the work that these fantastic craftspeople do.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think there's even more to be said around that in some ways because the magazine or the emails that I get through that you've written are so incredibly in depth and well written. You are definitely somebody who can pull out all the really fascinating niches of this world and deliver it into people's inboxes to enjoy. And, and I think I was saying to you just before, I've been down a rabbit hole several times just by, you know, the, the last few emails that you've sent. But it's, it's great because you're really connecting the dots for people and making this a world that people can explore and discover new things. Because, you know, that's the whole, that's the whole wonder of this sort of world that, that where we are quite separate and there's lots of things happening all over the place in terms of this art form, but we don't always get to see what those things are. And you're managing to put it together even throughout history, right?
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you know, I like to, you know, you know, every issue of the magazine has, you know, opens with two historical pieces. Typically we have a ye old sign shop where I kind of, you know, me or whoever's contributing looks at a sign painter or sign painting shop past and shares, you know, often work and archival photos of studios and workshops. And then there's a ghost sign corner column as well that, that looks at a ghost sign and tells the story behind it. I mean, you talk about connecting the dots. You know, I do a, an annual reader survey with the magazine because I'm self employed. I work for myself. I don't have a manager, I don't have a 360 review process. I don't have a appraisal every year. So kind of my appraisal every year is the reader survey. And, and that's what tells me, you know, what's striking a chord with people, what people want more of, what maybe they want less of and how I can do better with, with my work. And one of the things that consistently comes through on that is that people value the, the community that is embodied through the publication. And you know, I, I don't really understand how that works. I don't like. It's not something, I mean, I, you know, I talk about, you know, Black Best Blesses magazine, you know, the craft culture and community of sign painting. Craft culture and community. But somehow, yes, it does seem to link people. And I think, you know, I think probably what happens, maybe, you know, people don't look, that person's doing interesting work and they reach out and get in touch and maybe connections are forming and then you see your friend in it and you know, so, so there's obviously lots of little touch points that are building that community, which is a pleasure for me. And, but, you know, is, is not necessarily intentional on my part. I don't know. I, it always surprises me when I get that feedback. Well, how, how am I doing?
But, but something, you've just said it and you know, and some, somehow it does happen. So that's, that's for me a fantastic benefit of the work that I do.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's a, it's a, an amazing byproduct of what you've created. What I wanted to ask you about as well was where, where did this, where did BLAG start? What is what Give us the identity of Blag. What is it? And, and, and when did it start?
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Well, I mean, to really tell the story and I'll try and do it quickly, you, you know, you have to go back to blog, which was.
So if you think back to that 2006 period when I was discovering ghost signs and around that time, you know, blogging was really, you know, really popular and I, I was saying to people, you know, I really want to share some of the stuff I've got, but I'm not quite ready to do a book.
And they said, why don't you just start a blog? Well, that's fun. Yeah, you just put some pictures up, write some stuff. You know, it can be partial speculation, things that you've discovered, things that you want to share. And, and I've sort of semi retired from the ghost science blog, but it ran for 15, 20 years, something like that. And you know, there's literally hundreds of articles and pieces on there and it still gets, you know, loads of hits on that website. But, you know, know that was, you know, my real foray into, into writing and, and researching and publishing. And it was a great way to, to begin that process because, you know, you can, you can go back and change something if you got it wrong or if you come across new information. And it's doesn't quite have that pressure that a printed thing does.
And then, I mean, that was going on. We, me and my wife went to live in Cambodia around 2010. We were volunteering there for a couple of years and obviously I'm looking for Painted Signs and did a self published book there called Hand Painted Signs of Krache which is.
I'm showing a book here with loads of hand painted Cambodian signs on the COVID But that was my first go at actually making a coherent entity in print to share with people and, and that was a great experience. I love doing it and you know, gave me a bit of a thirst for more.
And then a little bit after that, probably like 2014, 15, I got invited onto the editorial team for a book called Advertising in Public Memory. I'm showing a very dry academic book cover cover.
But this, you know, it's academic, you know, it's not richly illustrated but it's looking at the, you know, the different ways that you can approach go signs from. Because they are fascinating because you can look at their, you know, their position in communities, you can look at their role in representing craft history, you can look at how they align with advertising, commercial history or even of particular areas.
And that was, you know, academics from around the world. I think we had all six continents, maybe not. Yeah, we did, I think we had all six continents contributed something to that publication.
And yeah, I just, I've really loved the process of writing and pulling books together. So I did a few more self published projects and then I was actually working from 2014-20. So on the pandemic, helping a sign painter in America called Mike Meyer, a couple of others, there was David Kinison From Wales, Cheryl McLean from Australia helping different sign painters to set up workshops and have people come along and normally, you know, at a beginner type level, not always the most advanced stuff and really love that, you know, we did something like 200 events across, across those six years around the world. I think we touched every continent except South America. And we were planning to go to South America just as the pandemic was, was coming on board.
So obviously the pandemic brought an end to that bit of my work. But something we'd been doing, doing in the run up to it and in fact the publisher delayed publication because of the pandemic. It was supposed to come out in 2020. We did a book called Sign Painting which is a very much a practical how to book. So it runs you through all of the tools, the materials you need, basic techniques and that was. I essentially ghostwrote that. So Mike, it's Mike Myers knowledge and I wrote it in sort of his name and his, his voice. So you know, I'm credited as, as the author and Jasper Andrews from Amsterdam sign painters did the illustrations. So it's like the three of us were the team that pulled that together and I love that. So then the pandemic came and that work, event, space, work, as you can guess, kind of abruptly came to an end.
And following the summer of 2020, you know, my wife's a teacher, my kids obviously go to school, everybody sort of not exactly back to normal, but people had their things they were going back to and I didn't. And it was, yeah, it was a big upheaval. It was mentally very challenging for me. And you know, in honesty, I went into a type of depression, I think, you know, there.
And by sort of October, November, I said, you know, I've got to do something. And what I decided to do was I had, I had a sort of list of, well, here's some things that I've always wanted to do but just never had the time to do them. And one of them was to do my Ghost Signs book.
And so I phoned up my friend and one of the things that held me back from doing the Ghost Signs book was that A, I didn't have enough photos and B, my photos were a bit hit and miss quality wise. You know, sometimes I get lucky but I'm not, I'm not a photographer and, but my friend Roy, Roy Reid, he's, he's a South London, I'm a North Londoner and he's an excellent trained architectural photographer, takes brilliant photographs of signs. And I just thought, well, okay, if I could do a book with him then it would work. And I called him up, turned out it was his birthday in fact, and he didn't hesitate to say yes. And so the next year we spent researching and compiling this book which is I'm going to show now, is called Ghost Signs A London Story. And we were trying to find a publisher, we couldn't, we were, you know, we were talking about doing it ourselves and doing it with a Kickstarter.
And then a friend said, oh, you should talk to Max at Isla Press.
He knows he does all of his books through Kickstarter so he can give you some Kickstarter tips.
So I phoned up Max and he said, yeah, I can give you some tips or would you consider publishing it with me? And that was like a godsend to us because we got to work with him. He's very experienced in picture based storytelling books and working with a smaller publisher like that was great because we were really close to the process. And then Eve Isaac was the designer he brought in, just blew our mind with, with the skills and the way that she was able to compile and, and distribute the, all these different layers of information that we wanted to present about the material. And so that resulted in, yeah, Kickstarter campaign. The book came out, it's actually sold out, that one. But we are working with Metro Publications now on an reissue which will be in a kind of all the same content but just in a more compact format and a lower price point. So that's a long way around to say that doing that book and you know, the fact that I'd done these other ones prior as well and obviously the blog had been going on and Better Letters actually had a blog. When we were doing the workshops, I used to publish a little blog for Better Letters and around that time Signcraft, which is an American based publication and for many years ran in print from the early 80s until essentially the around the pandemic they took a decision that they were going to go to a digital only format. And I'd always thought about, you know, a Better Letters magazine.
And I suppose that was a little bit like the catalyst. It was, okay, that's not going to be in print anymore. Here we are with this very tangible, real world, hands on craft.
It can't just exist digitally. There needs to be a physical publication that, that is aligned with it. And that was what gave me the idea of, well, I'm gonna try that.
Yeah, you know, it's that, yeah, that was how the idea was born. I think that was probably late, let's think late 2021. That must have been that the sort of idea started fermenting and then it was early 2022, that, okay, I need, yeah, this needs to happen. I've got my brilliant designers, Utile, who are in London. I've got Jenna who came on board as a sub editor to kind of really whip the text into shape before it goes into layout. And I mean, to be honest, it was a little bit like chicken and egg. You know, I, I had to, I had to put a, a magazine out there to show people that a magazine, what a magazine could be like in order that they would send stuff to put in the magazine. So if I'm honest, the first issue I probably wrote 60, 70% of it myself, you know, just to, just to sort of like a proof of concept if you like. And people started subscribing, sent the issue out.
People really liked it.
You know, people really responded well to that first one and then that obviously led to the second one. I'm, you know, I do it twice a year and I'm really glad that I set that frequency and it leaves me in awe of people that, that, you know, teams that turn out monthly, weekly, you know, even quarterly publications. Because at any one time you're working across normally. I'm normally working across three issues. You know, there's like the one that's, you know, now I've got one that's gone to print. I'm still kind of doing some marketing stuff around the one that's out now, and I'm flat planning and preparing for the one that's coming next. And so you always have these parallel work streams that are going on. I've had to learn it as I've gone, but it's. Yeah, it's immensely enjoyable. So anyway, so that, that's the, that's sort of context for it. And what's wonderful now is that I still do write stuff for it, but, you know, I'm probably down to maybe 10% or less of the publication, is my words. And the majority is stuff that's submitted by others.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's incredible. And can I ask who, when you set it out, who were you writing this for?
Has that changed?
[00:20:48] Speaker B: So my, I wanted it to appeal to sign painters, you know, that that's who I see as the, as the primary audience.
The magazine is not purely technical, it's not purely how to, you know, that is a component, but it's by by far definitely not the majority of what the publication is about. The publication does include that and I want it to be useful to people. And we, you know, we've done recent kind of poster inserts with how to guides and so on.
So sign painters first and foremost. But what I am trying to do with the magazine is to tell stories within and around the craft itself. So whether those are historical, whether they're biographical, whether they are of particular traditions, that is worth noting. Something I definitely set out with the intention of doing was embracing sign painting, sign writing internationally. You know, I don't want it to be US or European centric.
It's. It's always been about looking at traditions and the craft in all different cultural and international contexts.
And, and so through that, I mean, you know, every, every issue probably features something in the region of 15 to 25 different countries across the world. And that, I think people really value that as well is it opens your eyes to stuff that's going on outside of your more narrow local context.
And, and so, yeah, so sign painters first and foremost. But then, you know, and this does come across in the reader survey is, you know, wider realm of graphic design.
There's people that are in the, in the type and typography world that are interested in it, calligraphers and then, and then hobbyists. You know, there's, there's, there's a whole load of people that, you know, they're not professional sign painters, but they have that as something that they do in their own time, maybe just for friends and family, just for their own satisfaction.
And you know, a lot of people find it quite therapeutic doing, you know, the process of sitting with the letters and painting and that sense of just trying self improvement, you know, try and get better at something without, you know, trying to make a living off of it, you know, so that there's a kind of hobbyist cohort.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: If you've been enjoying the life of letters, I'd love it if you'd hit subscribe wherever you're listening today. It's a simple way to support the podcast and make sure you never miss a new episode. And if you know a fellow letter lover, why not share it with them too?
Now let's get back to the episode.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean beyond that, I suppose those are the core audiences, you know, is sign painters then kind of graphic design typographer and then, and then these, yeah, these hobbyists. So, you know, yes, it's called Adventures in Sign Painting. But you know, there's Alice Mazzilli, she writes a regular column that's, there's much more about writing and the role of, of writing and you know, handwriting, graffiti. She really brings in the, the multitude of different ways that writing manifests in, in the real world.
You know, so, and then we've had, you know, there have been little bits on, on graffiti before. We did a piece on protest signs.
So there, there's, you can see that it's not just, oh, look, here's commercial sign painting. It's, it is quite holistic in its treatment of the topic.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, incredible, incredible. It's, it's drawing in a hugely eclectic space as well. Right. So everybody who has learned a particular path within sign painting or lettering can explore new ways, which is just what I think things like this should all be about in, in terms of the process of actually making and printing the magazines. What, what's your favorite part? Because obviously it sounds like you're not writing as much as you had been favorite.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: It's, it's interesting that, I mean, you know, the easy answer is, you know, going along to the printer and getting, holding the first bound copy that comes out of the box. You know, that, that, that really is a special moment because, you know, suddenly this thing that has been very much abstract and digital and files and screens and whatnot, suddenly it's a thing that's in your hands, and there's a. There's a. You know, it's just magic, you know, But. But actually, I think, you know, for me, the. My favorite part is probably actually now the.
The process of laying it out because. And I don't do that. That's. The designers at Utah do that. But I've sort of developed a sort of vision in my head of how the pieces might manifest on the page, but I'm not a designer. And so. So that. So then that's always surpassed by how it actually ends up looking. And, you know, and then.
And then Harry is one of the designers there, and we have a sort of WhatsApp chat going as they're in layout, and he's pinging me things, saying, what about this? Could we make this bigger? Do you want?
And we just have this quite dynamic process of getting the layouts together. And every time they surpass my expectations and make it look so much better than I could ever have imagined. And. And, you know, and they've done, you know, it's stuff like the masthead. So we. Every issue, the masthead has got this sort of very chunky logo type with a drop shade and various other effects.
And from the first issue, what they've done is they sort of.
Would you call it the pipette thing, you know, that picks a color off the. The off of a picture, and they've used that to. To recolorize the mast head in various ways. And so that started, you know, quite simply. So, like, issue one has got a sort of olive green on it. Then issue two is always the pink issue because that had a. That had pink on it. Then it went turquoise. And these have always got a. A sort of gray block shade on them. So there was quite consistent. But then by issue four, we had. We had purple in the letters and then a red block shade. Then they came up with the idea. Issue five, because the COVID had a photo of two people in high vis jackets working at Fairground in Sweden. They said, oh, what about if we did a fluorescent in the. In the masthead? So we put yellow fluorescent in the masthead. So if you put that under UV light, it sort of just really, really pops. And then that same color scheme gets, like, pushed through the whole magazine. So, you know, every issue's got an Alphabet center spread. And so for issue five, Space Saver by Rob Cooper. He's he does all the alphabets is set on this fluorescent background. It just really pops and punches. Then on issue six they went oh hey, we've got a piece in here. The poster is all about this special gilding effect on glass. The Pillow Guild by Veronica Skilter in, in Denmark. And they said what about if we did a foil and so on, on, on the issue six we. I'm, I'm sort of waving the magazine here and there's a little bit of light picking up off the foil outline that went on the letters. Then I will issue seven.
But this is, this was a special issue and you can see I'm holding up now the masthead. Instead of saying Black saying says IOOFS which those in the know will recognize as being a sign or the, I don't know signs it's motto which is, it's only a sign. Now why did I put that on there? Well this was a special issue, it's 128 pages. So we did, made it even bigger than usual to mark 50 years of, of this movement called the Letterheads which is a sort of anarchic organization that regularly.
So very much self driven, anybody can put their hand up. I'm getting a few people over, we're going to just paint some signs, have some fun, learn from each other, hang out. And they vary from small events at somebody's workshop through to huge, you know, hundred plus 500 even people gatherings.
And that started in 1975. So this was a 50th anniversary issue. And because IAAFs is very much associated with that movement, we switched the masthead out for that. And then, and then issue eight was sort of back down to earth. The regular 80 page, no, what is it, 82 pages inside.
But this was.
Jill Strong did a piece for the magazine, the poster insert. So every issue comes with an insert inside and it was how to paint this very flamboyant fairground lettering style. And with that she uses aluminium foil rather than gold foil. And so we did a, we did an aluminium style foil on the, on the masthead. So every, every issue.
So this is the kind of, this is why I love the design phase is because you, it's where all the surprises come. You know I've got, I've been curating this thing. We've got a massive text document, got loads of folders with pictures and I can kind of have a sense of how it's going to look. But then the designers grab hold of it all and mold it into this fabulous thing that I get to publish. And it's stuff like that, the MA said, where they go, hey, what if we did this? And I go, I'll have to check the budget.
But invariably I say, yes.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Can't resist it.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Exactly. So anyway, so, yeah, that's probably my favorite. But I love the whole. I love the whole process. And then. And then obviously getting the feedback from people, you know, because from, you know, from their work, it goes to the printer, which is local to me, a brilliant fine art printer called Sil Syl, the Art of Books. They're quite close to me between where I am in Barcelona, and they do astonishing work. I mean, mine is at the basic end of what they're capable of.
And so they print it all and then it goes out on crates to warehouse in the us, One in London, one in Berlin.
Rah. And Ollie is the distributor. And I then send them a spreadsheet. Individual copies go out to all the subscribers and then I start to get feedback. Oh, the latest issues arrived. Amazing. And, you know, people, even though I'm not on Instagram, people are tagging me on Instagram. And so, you know, getting that initial reader response is. Is. Is great. So, yeah, you've got three bits there, holding it for the first time. Design process and. And reader reactions. But I think if I had to rank them, I'm going to put the design process at the top.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah, the meaty bit, the. The transformation in progress, I think that's what I think a lot of people listening probably can resonate with. As you're creating anything, right. Whether it's on paper, just a sketch, and it turns into a design, or whether it is a complete kind of design process from your mind into reality. It's something quite incredible.
I love the idea that people are collecting these and maybe having these inserts that they're displaying somewhere, or just enjoying and bringing a bit of joy to people's lives through the art of letters, which is really what we're all here.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Right, I'll wave this for those that are not watching on video. I'll try and describe what I'm about to do now, which is.
So issue eight had a kind of a snippet of this on the COVID In fact, over my shoulder is what I'm going to show you. So.
So this was a printed insert that came with the magazine and it's in a sort of concertina format.
So as you. As you pull open the concertina, you get presented with a very wide format photograph essentially of Gilles Strong's work, which. Which is on the back of A skateboard. And it's got this flamboyant fairground Tuscan lettering with a sort of a blend going from green up to blue at the top of the letters. A whole. All these bifurcations on the. For the terminals, and then big block shades, drop shades. The hot. It's got the whole lot on there.
So the. The front of the concertina insert is that. And then what Jill did for the back is. Is literally walk you through the process. You know, how do you create this? So she's talking about all the different. There's. There's, I think about 14 or something different processes that are involved in creating that work. And then this poster insert walks you through all of them. And so, you know, doing.
I've been doing these special insert sim since issue three, and everyone has been different. Issue seven, we did a wrap. So we wrapped something around the whole cover of commemorative artwork by one of the original letterheads. No Weber, but yeah, every issue has got one of these special inserts. And I think, you know, that what I talked about, the reader reactions, you know, it's what I love. And I think it was a boss that once told me this, you know, with your customers, you want to surprise and delight them.
And, you know, and I think that's, you know, part of my objective with. With each issue is it doesn't become stale and it doesn't become predictable. You know, that every time you open the latest issue, you don't know what to expect. And when you get what you get, it's, wow, I didn't, you know, it's. It's. It's, you know. Yeah, it surprises and delights. And then that's, you know, that's what I'm trying to do with. With each one. So that. Yeah, that was. That was big, you know, doing the concertina one. And I'll keep quiet about what's coming in the next one because I don't think. I don't think it's in the public domain yet, but it's at the printers now.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: That's very exciting.
Yeah, that's. That's. That's like a real feast, isn't it, for your eyes and just for anybody who's got that interest in. In letters or any art form, to be honest. And you've written quite a few books, as you've discussed, but are there any standout favorites of yours that you.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: You've written, I think, you know, the. The Ghost Signs book because of its personal significance to me. You know, the.
You know, the fact that it it was born out of the pandemic and, and everything that was happening at that time and was something that I was, you know, was so passionate about and, and still am.
And, you know, it's.
I wrote a thing, you know, and afterward for that book and, you know, I, I mean, I'll quote, I'll quote a little bit from that, you know, so the world is once again suffering the ravages of a viral pandemic because this was in the context of, of Frank Jump, who's sort of my compadre in, in New York. And he refers to ghost signs as fading ads because he doesn't want that association with death. And his, his story with them came from the fact that he was diagnosed with, with HIV and improbably survived. Like, he, he just.
Something about him meant that he just, he kept surviving and he found in the, in the old fading signs a sort of metaphor for his own survival and that. That's what made his project happen. So when I'm talking about another, you know, once again suffering the ravages of a viral pandemic, he was talking about HIV AIDS, you know, that was from the 90s, and its impact will be felt for years to come. But in this book, I found a means of facilitating my own survival, at least in the short term. As COVID 19 caused my work to dry up, I was at a very low ebb. So in November 2020, I decided to write a list of projects that had until then been sidelined. This book was one of them. Researching and writing with the necessary vigor has in many ways saved me. It's reaffirmed my profound interest in the topic and challenged me to put my thoughts into print. I also learned a huge amount.
And anyway, I carry on. But yeah, I think because of the sort of the personal context, you know, that that book, I put a lot of heart and soul into that.
It means a lot to me. But, you know, I'm proud of every single one of them. You know, I think sign painting, the practical guide, I think is great because the world needed a how to at that point. All of the how tos were decades old and it needed something. And that was in response to the feedback from people on our workshops. And then I think probably the, you know, for me, maybe the most challenging and sort of, you know, rewarding in that respect was. Was one that I did last year. I'm just showing the COVID of the. The American Sign Museum book.
The American Sign Museum put out a request for proposals for a writer, photographer and designer to do Their to do a book about the museum to celebrate 25 years of its existence. And I put in my proposal and got accepted and you know, my research and knowledge up to that point had been very, very much focused on sign painting and ghost science.
Whereas this book challenged me to broaden that into other disciplines. Neon channel letters and you know, the whole, you know, plastic vacuum form signs and a whole load of other realms that are represented with at the museum. And so that was, yeah, an education again, you know, you learn something from every single one of these and, and then working with Natalie Grille on who did all the photography and Kathy Kicker on the design, it was a really intense, we did, you know, we turned it around in less than a year and it was a super, super intense process but immensely rewarding and really proud of how that one came out. But no, the Ghost signs book is, yeah, is kind of my baby with Roy. With Roy obviously, because Roy, it would never have happened without Roy.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: The dream team.
What I love about this is that there's all these sort of reflections of things that you've picked up throughout your journey and you're sort of, you're sharing this with others and hoping hopefully. I assume people are kind of expanding their own minds and learning more about lots of different things through your knowledge and then, and then on. But I wondered what your thoughts were on the sort of future, future of sign painting and obviously the hopes for, for BLAGG and better letters and everything that you're doing.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: I mean the, the second part of that question is very straightforward. My, my hopes for BLAGG is that I can turn it into my full time vocation. I still do other things outside of that to, to make ends meet.
Currently there are I think about 603, 30, maybe 640 subscribers around the world.
You know, each year that's, that's ticking up and if I get it to sort of more like the 750, maybe 800 level, I could justify throwing the towel in with things I'd rather not be doing and go full time. So that, that's my, that's my aspect and for it to continue to foster the community, champion the craft and bring stories from around the world to people from around the world. So that, that's quite straightforward, the future of sign painting. I mean, you know, it's interesting because obviously any talk of the future now is tainted by discussion of AI and what, you know, what's that doing and these generative AI stuff. And you know, it's funny people, I was having a conversation at A wedding on, on Friday, someone's saying, oh well, at least, you know, at least AI is not coming for the sign painters. And you know, on, on one hand that's very much true. You can't, nobody has yet made a robot that can handle the materials and, and paint a sign. So it's. So that part definitely is, you know, future proof, if that's the word you want to use. Not that anything is future proof, but that probably is.
But then the thing that is being discussed, I think within the trade is how these technologies are perhaps affecting what happens before the paint comes out. And so there we're discussing the design process and the way that projects move through clients and how clients approach sign painter. So now, you know, before a client would be conscious of the fact that they don't know how to design and paint a sign and so they would turn to a sign painter for the whole lot. They go, we need a sign.
Off you go.
Whereas now increasingly people are coming to sign painters with their mock ups that they've got whatever system to spit out based on their prompt and the quality of those often isn't maybe up to what we'd expect. And sign painters are having to navigate these conversations, being able to push back on that and to say, look, we can do better and using that perhaps as a springboard into their own work.
But I think that's probably the know, the area where we could see, you know, where we're already seeing some, some impacts from this new technology. But I think, you know, I think as a, as a trade, I think it is looking good for the future.
The, you know, there was a big push, you know, from the sort of 2010 through the, yeah, through the 2010s, the craft was really in resurgence. You know, the, the vinyl sticker cutters had, you know, taken a lot of the work away.
But then there was a, you know, resurgence in one, you know, interest in making things that don't just look the same. You know, everything was the same science, the same crappy plastic. You know, increasingly people engaging with design on screen screens and everything being, you know, pixel perfect and brands and smaller businesses wanting to have that authenticity of a hand painted sign. You know, you think, you know, the obvious ones are things like, you know, artisanal bakeries and craft breweries and whatnot. You know, you can't have that with a, you know, crappy stuck on plastic sign because in the customer's eye that, that really jars.
And through a painted or gilded sign, you know, I always describe it as there being A link from the viewer as a human through the sign to the human that created it. And that this, the sign acts as a conduit for, for this type of human to human contact. And it's the, you know, people now, you know, if they paint the sign too well, sometimes the clients will come back and you kind of like, make it not so good so that people know that it was done by hand. And, you know, but there is, you know, and I think that's only going to increase in this, in this world that we're moving into, where everything is, is computerized, computer generated.
You know, it's, it's the antithesis of slop.
Maybe that should be my new tagline for the magazine
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Black.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: The antithesis of slop. Yeah, you know, but no, I, I, you know, I'll be, I'll be right up front and say that I am on so many levels against generative AI and these large language models. You know, I'm in the lawsuit, the law case in the US for copyright theft by anthropic because they ripped off two of two of my books. And, you know, that's just one aspect of it. But I think, you know, the craft is, is here to stay. You know, it's faced threats in the past and come through them with flying colors, and I think we'll continue, continue to thrive. And I think the other, you know, the other aspect of it, you know, okay, that's something about why clients want it. But I also think it's a great line of work to be in. I think that the people who do it get immense satisfaction out of the process of creating and the sort of meditative state that they enter in producing the signs themselves doesn't come without its stresses. Every job does. And clients are probably the hardest bit to navigate with it all, as well as weather and faulty materials and what have you. But I think in some, some it's a good, it has good benefits for, for people that practice the, the craft. And I, yeah, I, I hope that there's lots more signs being painted and that people continue to commission them. And like I said before, that we get, in 50 years, you know, when I'm, well, God, I hope I'm not alive in 50 years anyway, but, you know, but in 50 years, the, you know, know that we can be looking at work that was painted in, in 2026 with its faded charm and patina and go, wow. And, and then they can find a copy of Black and go, oh my God, look, this magazine tells you who painted it. Yes.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Yeah. You are future proofing it. Yeah. Incredible. Yes, I love that. And, and a celebration of. Of the letters around the world and throughout history, which is quite a feat.
We like to wrap up our episodes with a final question.
Possibly the most challenging you've had today, but what is your favorite letter of the Alphabet and why?
[00:48:50] Speaker B: So, yeah, I don't really have a good answer for this.
I mean. Okay. You know, for sign painters, the R is so often, you'll see, you know, gilding samples and things that use the letter R. And the reason for that is that it has all the sort of three main elements. Got a straight, a curve and a diagonal. So you can show off your three different principal strokes. But even though that's the letter of my surname, I'm going to go with the S, which is the letter of my name, obviously.
And in fact, for many it's one of the hardest letters to paint. And so anybody that's ever writing my name has to contend with that. So, yeah, I've always liked the letter S and obviously because it's my initial. So there we go.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Yeah, and you're giving everyone a nice
[00:49:50] Speaker B: challenge and is the first letter of signs.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: So you come, you come across it quite a lot. Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, it's been so nice talking to you, Sam. And, and such a mixture of things for people to dive into. You've got everything on the BLAG website, you've got the social media that you're on is places like. Is it Mastodon?
[00:50:18] Speaker B: Yes. The only thing I put on Instagram now is every time a new issue comes out, I post the COVID to Instagram. I'm on Mastodon, which is part of a new kind of form of open social media which is. Doesn't have algorithms, doesn't have advertising. So yeah, people can find the links to that on my website and if you can put them in the show notes, fantastic as well.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah, we will. And, and thank you very much for offering a lovely discount for people. So anybody who is interested in getting the actual physical copies of this magazine, amongst other things. Right. They have a subscription. Do you want to tell us a bit more about what, what that is?
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's different ways people can sign up. People can do the digital only subscription called a browser, which is for full online access, or they can do the print only subscription called printer, which is you still get a load of online stuff, but the main thing is you get the magazine sent to you and then the one that most people go for, it's called the Blagger. And that's obviously the print magazine. Twice a year, full online access, discount in the online bookshop, member only emails, access to recordings, digital back issues and a whole load of other stuff. So the offers I've set up for your listeners are for that most popular blogger plan and they can choose whether they want to subscribe annually or monthly. And it will be a discount on their first year of the subscription.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah, fantastic. And you know, it's lovely hearing you explain all of that because I can feel the community in it. I love the fact that you're like, I don't know how I've created a community right there. All those wonderful things that people can get connected with and enjoy. So thank you so much for one, being on the podcast and being a part of the life of letters, but also bringing just such a big space together which can feel, you know, quite disconnected in a world that is so overwhelmingly connected. So, yeah, thank you so much for doing it in such a beautiful way. And we will definitely put all the links in today's show notes.
But yeah, just a huge thank you from me. Thank you.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: That's my pleasure. Well, no, thank you, Laura. And keep, keep going with the podcast. Get some more sign painters on there and really, really excited to see it when it, hear it when it comes out.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Amazing. Thank you, Sam.
Thanks for listening. Series 6 is made possible by my wonderful producer, Heidi Cullop, and the support of Speedball Art, whose commitment to high quality tools and creative tradition continues to serve, partner and deliver to artists all over the world. If you've enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe, leave a review or share it with a fellow letter lover. And until next time, keep listening, keep creating and keep celebrating the life of letters.
