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INTRODUCTION

This page summarises turn-pin projects which became fascinating journeys over the past decade. Amazing clients that took us to the higher ground.

Nick Garrett

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Project case 1:

The Fred Perry Store London

The Fred Perry commission came to me as a pleasant surprise to say the least and like so many special moments in my career it all felt bathed in serendipity.

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Fred Perry store, Henrietta St., Covent Garden – with it’s mirror gold leaf reversed glass gilded panels.

The instruction from FP CEO was clear: ”We want you and only you to create a fascia design that reflects Fred Perry as an icon and the flagship location.”

I was flattered and excited.

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Research

I set about researching any possible historical links between the Perry Swiss font Helvetica and our classic London town… and found a couple of interesting fonts and typefaces.

As an ex post-grad student I knew that in order to unearth something special one had to be methodical and open to new ideas, criticism, following hunches and instincts.

Amazing Sign writing Case Hisdtory NGS Signs

Treasure found

A few days later I found myself in Kings road just sauntering around the streets where I cut my teeth as a young writer, staring pretty astonishingly at a set of antique carved letters on a fascinating building named Argyle House, which boasted amazingly some rare precursor Helvetica type of glyphs or characters.

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Above:  Argyle House in Kings Road Chelsea. Referencing historic London type culture for the Fred Perry fascia design.

https://www.ngssignsmiths.com

Nick Garrett Lettering artist. A Trusted London Sign Painting Studio.

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That ‘accidental sans serif’ type find on Kings Road had me convinced there needed to be some kind of subtle change made to the pure Helvetica original brand feel, but with a subtle London twist. But I wasn’t exactly sure how would the top man feel about that and after a quick chat he assured us of thebtrust he had in our judgement.

I reeled in our newly created fornt: ‘NGS Restored Edward Johnston Railway’ custom type. My thinking was that because the London Transport Museum is 100m away from site, the Edward Johnston presence could send this Swiss type logo mark, around the courner I was after.

For the tag line I trimmed the original Haas style partially into the Akzindenz rounder feel, on just 2 character glyphs in the main logo mark: namely the ‘R’ and the ‘D’.

They loved it.

Game set and…

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CASE 2: Burton’s Tailors, Abergavenney. July 2019

An amazing project restoring 26 gilded friezes on site with Seraina Baumgartner assisting along the way.

Original sign gilding works by the late Geoffrey Vaughan c1923.

The total of 34 panels were originally gilded with acid etched details and surrounds. Suffering various degrees of damage we were drafted in to remove loose paint and match-in backgrounds repairing all damaged gilded letters.

3 panels require complete re painting and gilding. 9 panels needed gold replaced and nearly all had peeling problems.

Treasuring this Lettering: Amazing Sign writing Case Histories

On Day 2 a gentleman by the name of Mike Evans walked in and told us the story of the original writer who made the panels in the 1920s.

It was at the very moment I struck this arc (image below) and felt my own hand matched perfectly the originator.

Warm days

On many occasions during our 8 day stay the people of Abergavenny made us feel more than welcome, taking time to connect and chat. From the outset both Seraina and I were taken aback by the warmth and genuine character of the local people.

We cleaned every panel and revealed all the original obscured patina needing to be preserved. Special work and sustained attention to detail.

Seraina popping in gold replacements to the ‘bow’ of the flagship.

All the way from Zurich she did a great job.

The completed set of panels brought back to life.

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Facebook/Meta HO London

Working in FB London head office on a number of hand painted pieces was an interesting dip into the culture of modern corporation creative awareness.

The areas were open to school trip visits which was a nice touch and there were no men in black from my observations!!

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Love Hate Social Club

https://www.lovehatesocialclub.com

Talking with Huey Morgan’s wife interior designer Amanda for over 5 months on this amazing project.

We had some sexy sketches in from Ami James, showing the main idea in some raw Chicano script and the rest was a breeze, creating a distressed gild and having a ball meeting the in-house artists.

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Amazon HO London

This panel for the Amazonians was designed and built by NGS in 2016 and features a wide range of type and font hierarchy… it’s got it all going on!

A weekend of long hours had this done with the crew and set the bar for a lot of subsequent eat vista decorative panels thereafter.

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Damien Hirst Retrospective Tate Modern 2013

An epic journey and next level execution for a great team comprising of Jules Brown, Remi Rough, Eliza Mazzari and myself.

3000 km of lining up in 14 days, super sharp.

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12X3 Boxing Gym

https://www.12x3gym.co.uk

Working with 2 world champ boxers kept me on my toes with no ducking and weaving necessary on this one!!

Hailing from the famous Repton Boxing club 60s promo posters, this typeface was set up by Saatchi & Saatchi but again had the ol’ NGS tweak around a few unstable characters (type glyphs that is!) to get it to sit right.

3.8m x 17m span of type knocked up with a plank of pine and a stick of chalk in 6 hours.

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Nabarro London HO

A series of 6 wall designs over 2 years made this XL suite come to life in the Nabarro eatery area.

Helmsman Dana Robinson of Neon made the journey special igniting the conversation that started up NGS Signsmiths signwriting courses and workshops.

Neon

https://neon-creative.com/about-us-and-what-we-do

Immeasurable thanks to all our special clients over the years… and they just keep coming.