Tallship Alphabet

This style of lettering known as ‘Tall Ship’ was inspired by lettering found on an old brand of matches called ‘Ship’ and I have added a bevel, block and shadow to give them a fairground twist. These hand painted letters were created for the fairground style alphabets which feature in All the Fonts of the Fair.
Each letter is one of a kind and hand painted by Joby Carter using enamel paint and silver paint on aluminium composite board. Aaron Stephens then added some ‘magic’ with aluminium leaf and flamboyant enamel paint. 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 435mm x 12mm.

These letters were originally available to buy with prices ranging from £150-£250 per letter.
Price includes a signed certificate of authenticity and free UK delivery.

Joby Carter says:

“This is a ‘taller’ version of an alphabet I call Ship which was inspired by lettering on Ship matchboxes (a version of this was shared in my first book, Signwriting Tips, Tricks and Inspiration). The lettering style is a staple for legibility and in this instance we’ve added a bevel, a block and a shadow. Creating letters like this has many stages: the letters have a cream undercoat, two shades of pink and a red then they were outlined using silver paint, the block was shaded using burnt sienna oil paint and a shadow was added with black paint. After I had painted the letters. I handed them over to fairground artist Aaron Stephens for the fairground inspired flourishes of aluminium leaf and the flamboyant enamel. Aaron then blended the shading using an old Fred Fowle trick of mixing oil paint with varnish and quickly wiping it away from the edges with a rag to create an outline.”