Reviving the dying craft of traditional hand lettering through a passion for traditional sign writing
After winning the Award for Excellence in my Graphic Design degree I travelled the world completely obsessed with hand crafted typography. My travels took me far and wide, learning from old masters to revive the dying craft of traditional sign painting (or sign writing as we call it here in Australia).
For over 8 years painting typography by hand was my main source of income, and I found a deep appreciation for the integrity, warmth and hard-earned skill of a hand crafted sign.
Bespoke Artistic Commissions
Along my travels all over the world, I met some amazing people through unique, hand painted, artwork commissions. Some of the examples below are for private use, like the young woman on L plates who commissioned me to hand paint her Yamaha motorcycle tank before leaving on a solo trip around Australia, and some are for awards, marketing and commercial displays.
I’ve hand painted surfboards for high up execs from surf wear labels, helmets for snowboard brands, BMX bikes for bespoke on-brand collaborations, motorcycle helmets for custom motorcycle art exhibitions - one custom hand painted motorcycle helmet was even used to propose to his girlfriend!
Unique Chalkboard Designs and Hand Painted Signage
for Scentre Group (Westfield) across multiple Australian States
Some of my favourite commercial commissions to date have been from Scentre Group for Westfield malls found across Australia.
Their nationwide rebrand “For the Love of Food” fit perfectly with the warmth and integrity my hand painted signage. Over 3 years I created almost 100 “chalk style” art-boards for their malls and food courts in South Australia and Queensland. All done and shipped out from my studios both in Adelaide and then Braidwood NSW. I also flew in for multiple large scale murals painted on site (between 9pm and 6am to avoid the general public).
My mother, Fran Ifould, flew around the country to assist me on these commissions and we had a blast painting them.
Hand Painted Signage for
Jacob’s Creek Visitors Centre, Barossa Valley, South Australia
This was a fun one! I hand painted my own designs straight onto decade old whiskey barrels to celebrate their new range of wine (with Chris Hemsworth as a spokesperson), while illustrating and hand painting all of their award winning Visitors Centres’ tasting notes for “chalk board style” signage (meaning its permanent but painted to look like chalk), as well as designing and hand painting signage for their award winning restaurant, Our Table.
Hand Crafted Design and Signage Gallery
There’s no match for the typographic excellence of hand crafted branding design. I am obsessed with hand-painted lettering, there’s no denying it.
I’ve designed and hand painted my own traditional signage for wine labels, cold brew coffee cafes, tattoo shops, corporate conferences, festivals and more.
Chalk Boarding for Events and Conferences
Award winning Sydney-based PR consultancy, Liquid Ideas, flew me and my team in to create 40sq/m of chalkboard signage in just 2 days (which is a huge feat) for one of their biggest clients, Woolworths. These artworks featured in the Australia and New Zealand Woolworths Managers Conference at Sydney Olympic park, marking one of my favourite event fit-out commissions so far.
Some other stand out commissions were for the Dan Murphy’s Australia NZ Managers Conference in Melbourne, the South Australian Wine Conference in Adelaide, and the Adelaide Festival amongst many others.
Apparel Graphics
Collaborating with clothing company’s was a long term dream of mine. Some of my favourite clothing collaborations were for ethical clothing brand We Do Nothing, from the UK, and with Electric California, in America. Others are found in Tassie, Adelaide, California, Vancouver Island, and wandering the streets of Canberra.
