What sign painting is and how it is used

Sign painting and sign writing are basically texts and symbols created with brush and color. Might sound corny, but for the sake of professionalism, it's all about knowledge of layouts, colors and shapes, fonts, contours, balances and distance, how to mix colors and mediums, surface preparation, and obviously a lot of skills. Until the 80's, sign painting was standard in all forms of visual communication, especially outdoors, but like everything else, the sign painting movement was computerized during the 80's and has more or less died as a professional form in the last 30 years.

In recent years sign painting has started to turn around though, as more and more look for quality and unique crafts instead of just quantity to stand out. Sign painting is maybe not the typical choice for your avarage food chain, but rather pubs, restaurants and niched stores with their sandwich boards, chalk boards menus or directly on the shop windows. Even art-intrusted people have raised the eyes of sign painting, as the art form fits as well on the walls at home.

Pinstriping is also an art form based on the same methods as sign painting, but is instead focused on patterns and stripes, which are mostly seen on older cars such as hot rods, as well as on frames and mudguards on bicycles, where these products work perfectly as well.

The enamel paint and the belonging mediums

The sign painting color we offer comes from classic 1-shot from the United States and is an oil-based enamel color. A superior product thanks to its flow properties, which makes it easy to handle, great coverage and it always delivers smooth surfaces and sharp edges. The paint works on most surfaces, outdoors as well as indoors,  and is well suited for wear, and tear aslwell as weather and winds.

Special brushes and accessories

For the enamel paints specially designed brushes are used, with different lengths and types on the brush hairs and handles. Short-haired for fine lines and detail, or long-haired with high dyeing ability to be able to draw extra long, even lines. At Highlights you will find a wide range of British Handover brushes for sign painting, sign writing, lettering, pin striping and the like.