Fancy lettering, the bold, gloriously over-the-top style of lettering often found at traditional British fairgrounds, is one of the most distinctive lettering traditions. It is also one of the least documented. You won’t find these styles in graphic design manuals or typography archives. For decades, the knowledge lived almost entirely in the hands of the signwriters and fairground artists who created it.
Joby Carter has spent years changing that. His second book, All the Fonts of the Fair, brings together 26 fairground-inspired alphabets, each one hand painted in the workshop using traditional signwriting techniques. These are not digital recreations or printed references. Every letter was given the full fancy lettering treatment. They were drawn, painted, blended and varnished by hand and feature advanced signwriting techniques such as blocks, shadows, 3D effects, gold leaf and more.
Pictured below – Stan Wilkinson (who taught Joby to signwrite) and Aaron Stephens (Joby’s original apprentice) looking at the range of letters painted for All the Fonts of The Fair
Some of the alphabets pay homage to the great fairground artists, legends like Fred Fowle, whose free and almost graffiti-like lettering defined a generation of fairground decoration. Others were built from scratch by Joby and his team, working from nothing more than a single reference photograph of one word and inventing the rest of the alphabet to match.
The original painted letters, the actual pieces photographed for the pages of the book, are available to buy individually, with 40% off the original price. Stock is limited, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. This is a rare chance to own an original hand painted letter created by Joby and his team.
Finding fairground inspiration
When Joby sat down to create the reference alphabets for All the Fonts of the Fair, he knew that each letter had to work alongside every other letter in its alphabet and had to be accurate enough to actually copy from. The alphabets had to stand up to the kind of scrutiny a working signwriter would give it.
That meant starting from almost nothing. In most cases there were only one or two original words in each style to work from: a faded black and white photograph, a painted panel on a fairground ride, the lettering on a vintage wagon. Everything else had to be invented to match.
“I underestimated what a mammoth task that would be,” Joby admits. “You think you’re creating an alphabet, then you realise you’re actually solving a different puzzle with every single letter. Some of these styles were never designed to exist as a complete A to Z. I had to figure out what the missing letters would have looked like if the original signwriter had created them.”
Each letter was drawn out on paper first, then laid out across the workshop floor to check the whole alphabet worked as a set. From there they were transferred to coloured aluminium composite boards, a perfectly prepped surface, and painted by hand using traditional signwriting techniques. Block colour first, then blending or gold leaf, then a second coat, then varnish. Each letter was individually photographed for the book.
It represented thousands of hours of work across the whole project, and it was genuinely a team effort. Aaron Stephens painted several of the alphabets, Joby’s teacher Stan Wilkinson came out of retirement to contribute two of his own, and Tomos Jones helped with what Joby cheerfully describes as “endless second coating.”
Above – Pyjama alphabet in the workshop ready for photographing and framing
Above – each letter was photographed so a reference alphabet of the finished letters could be created.
From the archive – video about the letters and reference alphabets
Recorded a few years ago when the book first launched, in this short 2 minute video Joby talks about the letters, book and reference alphabets.
In focus: Waltzer, Pyjama, Fowlephabet and Howellphabet
Waltzer alphabet, inspired by an old black and white photo
Inspired by the front of one of the earliest Waltzer rides in an old photograph, this alphabet is Joby’s own design with curves constructed almost entirely using a compass. The original inspiration came from a tiny black and white photograph showing just the word WALTZER at the top of a ride. From that single word, the entire alphabet had to be built.
“You start with what you’ve got and work backwards,” says Joby. “What would the G have looked like? What about the Q? The further you get from the letters you actually have, the more creative you have to be, while still making it feel completely coherent. Getting the balance right between circle size and letter width took considerable patience.”
Shop Waltzer hand painted letters
Pyjama alphabet, inspired by fairground artist Edwin Hall
Painted by Aaron Stephens and inspired by the work of fairground painter Edwin Hall, who worked alongside the legendary Fred Fowle early in Fowle’s career.
The treatment is classic Edwin Hall: opaque coloured stripes over aluminium leaf which brings it to life. The letters have a slightly darker brush stroke on the left edge of the red giving a 3D effect on the aluminium stripes. Fred Fowle also used this technique throughout his career.
The shading is unusual too, leaving highlights in places that don’t quite follow the logic of where the light would fall. It’s closer to railway lettering in that sense, a true folk-art style that operates by its own rules.
Fowlephabet, inspired by fairground artist Fred Fowle
Fred Fowle was one of the most celebrated fairground artists of the 20th century, producing an enormous body of work from the 1950s through to the early 1980s. He was known as Futuristic Fred for good reason: his decorative lettering pushed everything as far as it could go.
“Fowle did some wild things,” says Joby. “He did crazy stuff just to fit something onto a board. In some examples his lettering is almost more akin to graffiti than signwriting. It’s so free and loose, it’s almost a different discipline altogether.”
This alphabet was designed and painted by Aaron Stephens based on Fowle’s work. The most distinctive feature is the unusual shadow: where a conventional shadow should be the same size and shape as the letter, Fowle made his much larger in places. The effect is that the letters seem to float free of the surface. When you know how to break the ‘rules’ of signwriting, amazing effects can be created.
Shop Fowlephabet hand painted letters
Howellphabet, inspired by fairground artist Sid Howell
This alphabet is based on the work of Sid Howell, who worked with his father Albert at Orton & Spooner, the renowned fairground ride designers and builders based in Burton-on-Trent, in the 1930s. Their lettering style is immediately recognisable: graceful thick and thin strokes with tapered, scalloped serifs that can be compressed into the available space on a fairground ride.
In this version, the bevelled edge effect is achieved by blending two colours together with a finger, a beautifully simple technique that gives the letters real depth.
Joby says:
“It’s a really lovely alphabet, and the Howells would do crazy things to fit words into a space. This is quite a tame version in comparison!”
Shop Howellphabet hand painted letters
Discover all 26 alphabets
If you want to own one of the original painted letters photographed for the pages of the book, head to our hand painted letters section. Each have 40% off their original price.
Some of the most popular letters have sold out so grab your preferred letter while you can.
Find out more about All the Fonts of the Fair
If you’ve enjoyed looking at these letters, you can see all of the alphabets in All the Fonts of the Fair. It contains 26 hand painted fairground alphabets, each with a technical reference version, origin notes, and tips for recreating the style yourself.
