Jacquie Severs

What kind of crazy person blogs about not having enough time to blog as much as they'd like...and then starts another blog? This kind, that's who.

I've been thinking about the idea for Sign After Sign for a long time. For a while, I wanted to document hand-painted farmer's signs, you know, the sort that say things like "Farmers Feed Cities!" and the like. I used to drive across Hwy 7 in North Pickering, Ontario quite often, and a lot of farmers there were fighting a new airport. They had signs with big airplanes painted on, with red x's through them and slogans like "Not Another Mirabel!" referring to the lesser-known airport outside of Montreal.

Then for a while I had a dream of driving across Canada and documenting all of the hand-painted signs I saw along the way. But it seems like that is limiting. (Also, I'm not sure if I'll have the time to drive cross-country any time soon.) I really love signs of all sorts, but especially ones that are well designed and have interesting typography.

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Well, I finally got around to it and I decided that it should be a tumblr. Why tumbr? Well, it seemed like an easy interface for people to submit their own sign photos, should they wish, and it seemed like a good idea for me to learn another platform. I've started with a few signs that are more retro in feel, but I hope to add some good hand-painted ones soon. I really love great hand-lettering, it's a dying artform and rarely seen, outside of Honest Ed's in downtown Toronto.



Check out my new blog, Sign After Sign, follow, and feel free to submit photos of your own!
Read about Honest Ed's sign painters.