NGS Restoration Type London
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NGS Soho Fonts | Custom Typographic Designers | NGS Creative Design Studio Precision Signwriting.
NGS Soho Fonts: By-Hand inspired, always.
COMING OUT OF SOHO, FITZROVIA, KENSINGTON, BRICK LANE AND CHELSEA
‘New logo design concepts and fonts come mainly from working through a long list of restoration type ideas, and related client projects’.
Nick Garrett Restoration Type London, Custom Typefaces & Fonts.
Our ‘Restoration London Type Series’ is continually growing.
INTRODUCING
THE
EDWARD JOHNSTON RESTORED TYPE SERIES
Coming originally from the hand of Scottish calligrapher and design lecturer Edward Johnston, this restored series of London Underground fonts trace his original and fascinating ‘inspirational journey’ in 1905, from Edinburgh to Rome to London, and how they became today’s station signage around all London.
‘Above the Line Design’ means the very highest quality of Lettering manufacture.
THE NGS JOHNSTON TYPE FAMILY
NGS Johnston Highbury 107
NGS Johnston Edinburgh
NGS Johnston Aldgate East
NGS Johnston Baker St.
NGS Johnston Madrid
Absolutely Typographically correct.
‘Baker Street’, one of our rapidly expanding, hand made ‘Restoration Type’ Series painted by Seraina.
Above:
Seraina Painting our restoration series type face ‘Johnston Highbury’ | NGS Creative Design Studio Precision Signwriting.
NGS ‘Jaguar Bold’
Introducing a confident, timeless Vintage ‘Spur Serif’ Typeface.
All ‘Custom’ made. Precision, wide Roman letter suitable for all retail and venue brand design ID.
INTRODUCING
NGS BRICK LANE BOLD
Inspired by 12X3 and Repton Boxing Club.
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RICHARD APPS A LONDON SIGN PAINTING LEGEND
A Commemorative Typeface completed for 2024.
I had a call from Richard out of the blue back in 2021 and he was just about to retire from active projects. I had known Richard from way back in the eighties and was amazed at his beautiful Roman serifed lettering from the first moment I saw it with my original teacher Andy Whitmore, who knew him well.
Here is an extract from my ‘Memoirs of a London Street Writer’ which I hope to have completed for publication by mid 2025:
Chapter 17
Meeting my master: Sign Writer Andrew Whitmore.
So, working with Andy was vilifying my ability to attend tasks, listen to instructions, gain knowledge, and develop that knowledge in ways that became useful to new and varied projects and contexts. In other words, we experienced growth in a practical context, and in an inspirational one. I learnt and we built success.
Not bad for two blokes and less than half a dozen ‘O’ levels between us.
We also liked ice cream. Nearly every day through summer and he would drive us to Kings Rd. in his beach buggy kit car and buy us knickerbocker glories.
Oh yes it this was big fun. We would head up to King’s Road at the least prompting whereupon the regular staff would nod us in, pride of place, wait on us and for some reason think the world of us.
So these were really good days. We painted with celebrated J. T. Keeps sign writing enamel. We finished at about 10:00 every night, having chopped sign panels by hand, with our 31 inch Diston panel saws, painted them with huge Hamilton ‘Perfection’ brushes, sandpapered with 320/400 wet ‘n dry until they were flat as Welsh slate – coated them like mirrors and gone home tired but ecstatic.
One of the great loves of our life was Helvetica. Like I mentioned before it was an absolute obsession. We would discuss and pull apart the structure of Helvetica and then do it all again. We were often visited by sign writer by the name of Richard apps who would give Andy work to do that was studio based and small scale. I was 21 and a bit cheeky when it came to Richard. We would both of us Andy and I tease him a lot and yet always bring a hot cup of tea and share a bit of downtime in the studio.
Richard was a bit of a hippie and we didn’t really take him that seriously.
That was until we went out one day to check out one of his jobs that he mentioned – this one he was evidently very proud of. So we both arrived at a small mews in Belgravia, with a beautiful title painted on the entrance arch in the most astonishingly beautiful Roman letter, which had us absolutely Gob smacked.
‘’Did he do this?’’ I asked Andy, who was by now shuffling from foot to foot…. nibbling his roll up.
‘’Not half bad eh Nicko…’’ and duly set off to the buggy with a strange sheepish silence descending as we drove back to my place.
‘’See you tomorrow Nicko…’’
So the next time Richard came into our studio the kettle went on, there was no piss taking and the first thing I said to Richard was.
‘’That’s a fuckin’ lovely bit of sign writing Richard…’’ Andy shuffled about his desk.
I commented.
‘’Yeah it looked like it had been there for years and weren’t painted at all… embossed… so ‘cold’ (pure) and straight. It just looked like they’ve been carved in the surface there.
Richard looked quite lost for words. We all watched the kettle come to the boil.
Often our studio project ideation, layout sketches lead to new ideas: new trends borne from eras past.
Mostly they come from our hand painted installations on the streets from Soho, to Brick Lane, Shoreditch, Fitzrovia and Chelsea.
…eventually these beautiful architectural details we see around London, find their way to our new custom,
NGS Restoration Typefaces. An Authentic re-published Font Series.
CASE FRED PERRY: Creating the Fred Perry sign ID.
It was a privilege to have been asked to refine this incredible iconic ID for the Fred Perry flagship Covent Garden store – a really treasured project indeed.
We were asked to bring the façade alive with a distinctive London accent.
FINDING THE EDGE FROM ORIGINALS
Above: We were asked to bring this school wall alive with a strong sans serif – I suggested Brockmann… and then re-created it as a working NGS font for the install.
CASE FRED PERRY: Original ‘Swiss’ Brockmann Type.
It moved me to look at the work of not only Helvetica Haas, but other important Swiss typographic designers. Josef Brockmann inspired me to create NGS Brockmann Restored typeface (above).
Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is the world’s most used sans-serif typeface, developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
An unexpected yet perfect font pairing: Helvetica & Johnston
I worked on the forms of the Perry Helvetica heading and softened them – this steered them in the tiniest degree, towards their origins found in the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk and predecessor I located in late 19th century Parisienne press, sans serif.
Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin. “Akzidenz” indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine printing, and “grotesque” was a standard name for sans-serif typefaces at the time.
Originating during the late nineteenth century, Akzidenz-Grotesk belongs to a tradition of general-purpose, unadorned sans-serif types that had become dominant in German printing during the nineteenth century.
Relatively little-known for a half-century after its introduction, it achieved iconic status in the post-war period as the preferred typeface of many Swiss graphic designers in what became called the “International” or “Swiss” design style, in the 1950s and 1960s with the formulation of Helvetica.
Its simple, neutral design was suitable I felt for the visual ‘stroll’ I was looking for, rather than a ‘5-set’, Fred Perry tie-break thriller.
It felt calmer around the interchanges of the double ‘R’ characters for example.
For the F is shortened it’s standard Helvetica width and nodding at the Caslon Type Foundry, shortened still further the middle horizontal bar.
The D was slowed and made more graceful. The Y angled stems, a tiny fraction wider and embracing.
As the Perry shop was just 200 yards from the London Transport Museum it struck me as absolutely essential to reference this place typographically, in some key way.
I had recently also completed the first stages of font creation of the instantly recognisable Edward Johnston, ‘London Transport Type’, into my own ‘NGS Edward Johnston Highbury‘ restoration font series.
Each set was created from reproductions of the original ‘flat pen’ based alphabets Johnston produced, for London Transport, in early 20th century.
The address strapline font on the Fred Perry façade, is based on Johnston’s London Underground type and aimed to include the legacy of his hugely influential ‘Humanist, Sans Serif’, masterstroke works.
It was an unusual and unorthodox alliance, but a pairing that I am proud to say, worked beautifully.
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NGS Custom Typefaces & Fonts
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Influencers
The Swiss Typography foundry – Our New NGS Helveticas
Inspired by the mid century sans serifs of Swiss design houses, ‘NGS Brockmann Restored’ typeface was created and deployed for this large, painted School wall graphic.
We are currently ranging up a clutch of ‘new Helveticas’ taken from the Le Labo projects and growing NGS typographic archives.
The importance of Helvetica
Helvetica was the first typeface I was taught to draw up by hand when starting my sign career with Steve Chamberlain and Andy Whitmore.
It was a font that had me then (and still does today), enthralled, because it was home to so many hidden gems of pure and genius design characteristics and design thinking signatures.
Drawing Helvetica medium, with a humble pencil, and the other various weights of true Helvetica, developed a huge amount of indispensable drawing and observation skills, I use every day today.
The more you study helvetica the more beautiful it becomes.
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‘NGS Brockmann Restored’ typeface | School wall graphic | NGS Custom Typefaces & Fonts
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Any Typographic works you are interested in on this page?
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CASE 2: How Fine-Tuning, spurs new styles…
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The sign panel below for Donostia restaurant 10 Seymour place (project date: 2013), underway and the drafting reflects the precision required in this high contrast piece.
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But interestingly, there were lots of lovely Italian typographic details I made a note of and introduced on many projects ever since.
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Below: Work in Progress. First coat all done.
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Above: ‘NGS Custom 1953 American Typewriter’ Font layout made ready for gold leaf install.
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Below: Loose gold leaf applied by hand… gilding works for 251 Kings Rd Chelsea.
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Retro Modern | NGS redefined typographics | NGS Custom Typefaces & Fonts
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Brand designs reproduced by hand – digital layouts – design development.
Taking your sign brief to launch.
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We are a ‘made in London’,
bespoke design & sign writing service.
NGS Custom Typefaces & Fonts
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Traditional Sign writer London
For Murals, Gilding,
Custom Typeface design, Brand design, Crafted Signs
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