Fowlephabet Alphabet

These hand painted letters were created for the fairground style alphabets which feature in All the Fonts of the Fair. This style of lettering is known as ‘Fowlephabet’ and named after Fred Fowle, one of the most famous fairground artists of the twentieth century.
Each letter is one of a kind and hand painted in a Fred Fowle style by Aaron Stephens, fairground artist at Carters Steam Fair, using enamel paint, flamboyant paint and aluminium leaf on aluminium composite board.
The final letters were varnished and framed in house and will be dispatched flat in a protective cardboard wrap. The overall size of the framed letter is 311mm x 311mm x 12mm.

Pricing varies by letter and includes a signed certificate of authenticity and free UK delivery.

Joby Carter says:

“Known as ‘Futuristic Fred’, Fred Fowle used free flowing, flamboyant lettering styles which are sometimes more like graffiti than signwriting. His fairground decoration was about pushing things as far as they could go and you can see this in his lettering styles. He didn’t design letters to be taken out of context and studied – he often did crazy stuff to fit his design onto the space available.

There are at least ten different stages to create these vibrant letters. First, we drew out the letter shape and block and applied aluminium leaf which was sealed with a varnish. Next, we painted the block with yellow flamboyant paint and then painted the black outlines and drop shadow. Next, we painted and blended the letter before adding red flamboyant on top and blending. We added a third colour onto the blends on the block using burnt sienna oil paint and then wipes the edges to create an inset line. Then we painted the second shadow colour in ruby flamboyant paint.”