looking for hand lettered signs in NYC.

August 24, 2008 9:07 PM

Where can I get hand lettered signs in NYC?

I want to get hand lettered signs made for a friend's wedding. Ideally I would like signs like those in old grocery stores and times square tourist shops. Here is a picture I found on flickr.

$6.99 sign

The sign at the bottom of the photo that says $6.99 is the kind of thing I am looking for. I have also seen much more complex ones that use a lot of neon orange and blue.
Where do all of the souvenir shops get them? I have tried asking at the stores, but no one seems to know.

posted by abirae to shopping (4 comments total)

He's not in NYC, but Joe Alexander calls himself "one of the last true "hand sign" painters in the country".

Have you seen this question?
posted by hades at 10:57 PM on August 24, 2008

Oh, hey. From that previous question, there's John Hodgins.
posted by hades at 11:00 PM on August 24, 2008

Huh. That last link should have been to http://www.papersigns.com/.
posted by hades at 11:02 PM on August 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Conversely, you could (or maybe what I mean is "I could") create these in Illustrator, using fonts that are very "sign-y" (SignFonts is one source) and then maybe bring it in to Photoshop and add some distress and noise, save it as a PDF, and then take it to any quick print shop and print it large format.

What text are you looking to have on the sign, and what size sign are you looking for?
posted by Futurehouse at 9:08 AM on August 25, 2008