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NGS Retail Glass Gilding Gallery.
Classic Gold Leaf work around town.
Nick Garrett Signs of London.
The Glory of Gold
Gold lettering across all London.
PURE VICTORIAN GOLD LETTERING
MIRRORED &
2 TONE FLORENTINE
FANLIGHT TRANSOM
GLASS GILDING
Gold catches the eye like no other
”With its shine being mesmeric and numinous… this charm has no end..
The power gold has on passers by, even on the dullest winter’s day,
is what makes it such a key asset to a sign writer’s tool set”.
THE QUOTES OF
Raymond. J. Le Blanc. 1978
Explore COURSES
Illustration Skills
Through the years I have created downloadable resources that you can download and improve your skills.
We believe Le Blanc has it absolutely right…
gold leaf is the most alive, treasurable, gleaming surface.
CASE:
BERRY BROS & RUDD
RESTORING THE BESPOKE AGED ORIGINAL SIGNAGE
TRADITION ASSURED.
We restored the early Victorian sign written windows of one of the oldest shops in London: Berry Bros and Rudd.
As part of the process we raced the original lettering from the original shop in St. James’s and conferred with Pentagram who were in the Brand ID chair.
Our own process opted for the analogue route of pencil trace-downs on site from the ladder. These were then laid out and scanned into Adobe Photoshop.
We compared our artwork alongside Pentagram and combined the two genres deciding to finally allow the brush to fetch out the residual and historical magic.
SIGNAGE FOR HEADTURNING
TRADITIONAL LONDON SHOPS.
ALWAYS
SERVING ACES
MATCHING THE FRED PERRY LETTERING
VINTAGE MID CENTURY ERA
Matching just the right era in sign design doesn’t always require lots of jazz.
For the Fred Perry flagship London store, we engaged our own London Underground typeface ‘NGS Johnston Highbury’, alongside a refined, early 1960s Swiss Helvetica, which surprisingly partnered up beautifully.
Igniting in one fine stroke, the spark of inspiration for many more NGS foundry fonts.
DASHING DOOR JAZZ
INSPIRATIONAL THINGS WE LOVE
2 TONE GOLD
Californian Type, Chicago Gold and New Orleans Jazz at home perfectly in Leyton London.
QUALITY COMES FROM OUR PASSION AND INSPIRATION
URBAN GOLD
Aged Reverse Glass Gilding.
Antiqued gold for Le Labo Paris. What a great jaunt this was and lovely people instore to really warm the shared creative buzz.
‘Crazy Pig’
Jewellery shop,
Covent Garden.
Applying broken gold leaf for antique final finish at ‘Crazy Pig’ shop, Covent Garden. Where Jeremy Clarkson pressed his V8 face up to the glass and gave me quite a shock!!!
GOLD GIFT SIGNS
A very special birthday present indeed!
This one is also featured on Seraina’s signwriting site.
Jimi Hendrix, Bowie, T Rex all recorded here.
NGS did the gold window.
Check out our other creative studio @ NGS Relic Guitars if you love to rock.
Great story happened to draw me in when I was gilding this piece.
A senior, known guitar player popped in and recalled how Bolan wanted to buy his Black Les Paul and he reluctantly sold it to the corkscrewed haired pop prince…
Delivering it by hand, on a Saturday morning to a large house in Holland Park, with quite a lot of wild partying still under way, and handing it over to the T.Rex front man!
THE BOLAN LES PAUL
Above is the 1953 Gibson Les Paul, originally a ‘Gold-top’ that has been sanded and re-painted in a black finish, serial number no longer present.
The original gold paint is still visible in the guitar cavities and two original volume control potentiometers date to 1953, the other two potentiometers have been replaced and date to 1969. Pencil notation on interior cavity reads, “Nick Odell 19/7/72” indicating that Odell, who worked on Bolan’s guitars, serviced the instrument on that date.
The guitar features soap bar pickups, original tailpiece, tuning pegs, later 1950s Gibson knobs and a brown 1959-1960 five-latch hard case.
Bolan gifted this guitar to his close friend Ringo Starr who directed Bolan in their 1972 concert film Born To Boogie.
LONDON’S LEGENDARY HAND GILDED SIGNS:
WARTSKI
ST. James’s
Check out our Case history on this incredible reverse glass gilding work for this Royal Jeweller.
Below: a classic example of NGS fine mirrored glass gilding in the Strand London
and Love Hate Social Club, Notting Hill.
LONDON’S LEGENDARY HAND PAINTED SIGNS IN GOLD
It is true that gold has values that traverse currencies and things of great value to man – and we cannot forget to mention the word magic when we describe the the pure allure that gold has upon us.
It has an astonishing effect on the senses and our notions of all things quality, deluxe and beautiful – a powerful affect we never seem to tire of.
Glass gilding is the ultimate product launch and the stuff legends are made of.
NG
MIRRORED WHITE GOLD GILD
.
URBAN DISTRESSED GILD
I’d just completed Dishoom and Taylor Taylor in Shoreditch when the call came in for this special project. Often I will be cleaning my brush after a day’s work in Brick lane or wherever and get a call out of the blue from a client just round the corner – never ceases to amaze me the ripple effect.
Plenty of ripples and cracks on this one as I had the designers in New York checking my every move live on my handset ‘More, More! More distress” – that was the call… I hit it!
As each project went by we got more daring… this one below was the first commission, with great bud calligrapher Irena Szestakova and Daisy Emerson sitting in, both 2 weeks into their mega lettering careers, along the way.
Below image:
The Le Labo NGS ‘Ghost Sign’ (Distressed 24 carat Gold leaf) came about as an important expression of Shoreditch revival lettering.
GALLERY STACK
Let’s ROLL ’em down!
Custom 2 tone gold with drop shade
Yep we offer the deepest widest range of Gold Leaf window lettering finishes
Relic Gold on the Fulham Road store.
.GALLER
NEW RETRO
We are often asked to make the lettering look a touch worn with time. An interesting and new range of opportunity exists now as our signs writing reaches out into new creative areas.
We have the facility to construct glass fascia panels and develop NGS vintage signs in several unique gold effect genres.
Because I have a background in specialist faux finishes our range of aesthetic finishes is pretty deep and wide. It means we can combine the incredible Vintage Verre églomisé surfaces into the world of lettering.
This brings the traditional reverse glass gilding into the modern design world – unique and leading trend. We call it New Retro.
ALWAYS BY HAND
Designing London’s Icons and
London retail shop,
bar and pub gilding projects.
NGS LONDON RETRO
SIGNWRITING
BY-HAND GILDING
Legendary Reverse Glass Gilding page.
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