Style combination · Pairs well

Hand-Painted Signage × Victorian Letterpress

Sign writers and type founders traded letterforms; set a wood-type headline and finish it with painted shadows and outlines.

From the research on Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

Sign writers and type founders traded letterforms; add brushed shading and drop shadows to wood-type headlines for a street-made feel.

From the research on Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

Mix them and make something Hand-Painted Signage Victorian Letterpress

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Victorian Letterpress, their arrangement from Victorian Letterpress, the finish from Hand-Painted Signage. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

Type from Hand-Painted Signage: Hand-lettering
Script
Colour from Victorian Letterpress: Limited spot colours
Monochrome
Form from Victorian Letterpress: Borders & frames
Abundant decoration
Composition from Victorian Letterpress: Central symmetry
Framed panels
Surface from Hand-Painted Signage: Hard offset shadow
Painterly brushwork

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Hand-Painted Signage

Together

Yellowtail, standing in for Brush script

Text · Victorian Letterpress

The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.

Zilla Slab; Victorian Letterpress used Fat face romans and Egyptian / Antique slab serifs

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Victorian Letterpress, with a counter-accent from Hand-Painted Signage. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

#efe4c9 ground · 36%
#1b1a17 ink · 14%
#b3322b accent · 18%
#c99a2e accent · 14%
#d9b45a accent · 10%
#24477d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe4c9;
  --ink: #1b1a17;
  --accent-1: #b3322b;
  --accent-2: #c99a2e;
  --accent-3: #d9b45a;
  --accent-4: #24477d;
  --font-display: "Yellowtail", cursive;
  --font-text: "Zilla Slab", serif;
}

The two styles

An ornate rectangular sign reads “RIVER MARKET” in large cream-and-gold capital letters on a dark green background, with red shadows on the top word and blue shadows below. Gold borders and scrolling flourishes surround the lettering, with red decorative motifs in the black corners and visible painted texture throughout.

1800–present · Global / networked Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Letters painted by trained sign writers on fascias, windows, walls, vehicles and showcards, from Victorian gold leaf on glass to Mexican rótulos, Indian bazaar boards and Ghanaian barbershop signs. Brush-built letters with shading, drop shadows and outlines are fitted to the panel and mixed in a few styles for hierarchy, valuing legibility at a distance and the painter's flourish; vinyl displaced the craft in the 1980s and it has revived since the 2010s.

An ornate vintage-style poster reads “RIVER FAIR” in huge red and navy letters on distressed cream paper. A circular illustration of a paddle-wheel steamboat sits between the words, surrounded by floral scrollwork, patterned borders, and a rising sun.

1810–1900 · Western Europe, North America Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.

More combinations

With Hand-Painted Signage

All 29 combinations with Hand-Painted Signage

With Victorian Letterpress

All 33 combinations with Victorian Letterpress

Every style combination