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Lettering in Association with ARCHITECTURE "PART-1"

BY GEORGE MANSELL

Lettering in association with Architecture covers a very wide field. Perhaps the title itself is somewhat of a misnomer and should read Lettering in Associa­tion with Building, for in many instances the lettering has little to do with architectural values and, indeed, may even be a disfigurement of the architect's design. It is often added after the completion of the building by the occupant without reference to the architect and simply to satisfy the commercial or other needs of the building's purpose. This is particularly so when the architect has not provided in his design proper spaces for a seemly display of the necessary lettering.

It is a welcome sign that the modernist in architecture seems to have a much better sense for the proper planning of lettering in relation to his design than his fellow architect of traditional views. Certainly the modern treatment with its wide open spaces or planes allows the lettering man a clear field for his all-important margins.

The planning of the lettering on an architectural design should be based on the building's purpose. The cinema should have proper provision for its necessary and often garish announcements; the exhibition building its neon-lighted signs and strident posters. Government and municipal offices, banks and insurance offices try for dignity and a sense of solid permanence and often achieve this by classic lettering suitably sited. This happy union of the necessary lettering with the architectural design can only be obtained if the architect is willing to work hand in hand with the lettering craftsman. This liaison should take place before the building is completed and even in the preliminary drawings of the architect. Lettering is essentially a specialist's job and the modern architect faced with all his other tasks of engineering and the right use of the new materials cannot have the necessary knowledge or even the desire to settle lettering problems himself. The correct choice of letter form, the material used, the spacing of the letters in relation to the architectural surround and the size of letter are all-important matters which can only be satisfactorily dealt with by a specialist craftsman who has made a detailed study of the technique and the material characteristics of lettering in all its forms. This is particularly applicable to what may be termed architectural lettering of the street and public place which forms the greater part of lettering in association with architecture (or building). Inscriptional lettering falls into another category. An inscription is definitively more in keeping with architectural values and is little in evidence for its fitness for commercial purpose. An inscription is meant to be read in a contemplative mood or to stand out nobly, not always boldly, on a building and to enrich the architecture with the dignity of its letters. Lettering in such cases can have fine decorative values but also needs the close collaboration of architect and craftsman.

An inscription can be defined as an arrangement of lettering naming a building or for the purpose of commemoration of an event such as the foundation or formal opening, or even of some recognition of personage or deed. It is frankly non-utilitarian and therefore can be considered in its purely aesthetic aspect. On the exterior of a building an inscription can take the form of a frieze of letters on a set entablature or as a stone let into the wall; when of metal it is mounted on wood and affixed to the surface of brickwork or stone. In the interior of a building the inscrip­tions are for the most part tablets or "plaques" fixed to the walls or built into pre­designed positions to the architect's design. Again, as in commercial lettering, these tablets are often erected by the lay occupants of the building, and the size and posi­tion decided on by lay members of a committee with or without the advice of the architect. When the architect is not available, a lettering designer-craftsman should be consulted and his expert opinion respected and followed by the responsible client.

A well-sited and suitably designed inscription should have a sense of repose, a static quality of permanence. Legibility although desirable is not an immediate necessity as in the utilitarian directional notice or door title of a building. As I have mentioned before, an inscription is to be read at leisure and its prime merit should be choice of letter form, good spacing and the material to be employed. It should be in perfect harmony with its surroundings and not appear to be too much of an after­thought. The tablet should be placed with a definite eye on its immediate archi­tectural detail and in keeping with any noticeable lines in the architect's planning. Above all, the tablet should bear some relation to the proportions of the architectural design.

These, therefore, are the two main forms of lettering in association with archi­tecture. Firstly what may be called street or public lettering for the needs of public direction or the commercial naming of buildings and their interior door and corridor notices; and, secondly, the inscriptional lettering which may include war and other memorials, headstones of the cemetery and the commemorative tablets of the crematoria. I propose therefore to deal with the kinds of lettering the architect or artist-designer and craftsman can use in both these forms.

By far the greater proportion of street or public lettering is found on the shop fascia. This form of lettering is very often out of the architect's control and is deter­mined by the shopkeeper's taste in lettering, whether extravagant or otherwise. Some of the best fascias have been simple good sign-writing either in a roman letter freely painted with a brush on a plain-coloured ground or in a built-up sans serif like the book shop fascia in Bristol on which Eric Gill based his famous "sans". Some "period" shops of the antique dealer or tea-room variety often have pleasant enough lettering on their shop fronts with the use of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Caslon-style capitals and flourished copper-plate lower case and thus achieve that quietness of appeal which characterized the lettering of those periods. One, of course, gets the extravagant size and heavily shadowed letter, striving to be a "3-D" letter, of the fascia with a punch behind it; but even the surburban shopkeeper is learning that mere size and heaviness in a letter does not always make for greater legibility and that well-spaced lettering of modest propor­tions can have a more attractive and evident appeal to the public eye.

The painted letter should be set out to scale in the first place by the designer and, unless the writer is the artist-designer himself, a full-size detail is to be preferred and transferred or "pounced" on to the painted fascia panel to enable the average sign-writer to keep to a good standard of letter form and spacing. Ideally the best work should be done by the skilled and sensitive writer by just "snapping" his ruling lines and roughly but meaningly chalking out his spacing; but, for architect or designer this is taking something of a risk. Freedom of brush stroke and fine letter shape are the hall-marks of a good painted fascia.

Applied letters and carved and gilt work covered with plate glass are two of the other forms of shop fascia lettering. Applied letters can be of metal—bronze or lead and antimony—or even of wood, primed and painted as weathering protection and sometimes gilded. The bronze letters fixed to the stone or marble fascias of banks and similar offices are usually of a good pattern, dignified and appropriate to the architectural detail. Letters in bronze or the alloys cannot be too tall or heavy; cost must be considered and this acts as a restraining influence.

Metal letters should be fixed to stone fascias with distance pieces or plastic washers fitted to the fixing lugs at the back of the letter. This gives the necessary projection from the wall face and prevents the inevitable drip from the metal staining the stone work. Lead and antimony alloy letters, however, if properly primed with red lead at the back may be fixed flush to the stone face without fear of staining from the " drip ". An example of these lead letters fixed thus and gilded on the face of the letter is the name inscription of the L.C.C. London Fire Brigade headquarters on the Albert Embankment with sixteen-inch letters spaced over a length of 160 feet designed and executed by the writer. These applied metal letters are cast from either "stock" patterns or from patterns specially designed and made by the letter craftsman. If the latter method is employed the designer makes his full-size drawing on lining paper which is pasted on to hardboard or plywood built up to the required thickness. The patterns are then cut over the line of the drawing by a fret saw and primed and painted to bind them. After the designer has passed them they are handed to the casters for casting in the appropriate metal. They are then hand chased and fixing lugs (if not already cast with the letter) welded on, the letter then being ready for fixing. Such letters can also be fixed to brickwork, and in such fixing the letters are attached to metal rails which in their turn are fixed into plugs in the brickwork. Wood or pro­tected plastic letters are usually planted directly on the wood fascia, but in the past, and more rarely now, they were fixed on rails which were supposed to be invisible, and the letters themselves heavily gilded. These gilded letters on rails were often fixed spreading right across the facade of a building and were a major source of dis­figurement of the architect's design.

Wood letters and sometimes letters of plastic material form the base parts of the ever-growing number of neon-lighted fascias. Sometimes the neon tubing is divorced from the actual letter and merely follows its outline from above. The better designed neon-light letters have the neon tube incorporated in the actual letter and indeed forming a part of the integral design when seen in daylight and unlit. There has been an enormous improvement in the design of the neon-lighted fascia and sign within recent years and some have reached a very high standard of letter form and spacing. The elimination of garish pictorial effort has been supplanted by the use of formal ornament and gay colouring in borders and lettering. The modern shop fascia of neon lighting offers a fine problem for the letter-designer of today. He must design his sign in terms of light by night with all the limitations of his material before him and yet make it a seemly thing to be seen by day unlit and an essential part of the shop-front's design.

A less modern treatment of the shop fascia is the incised or carved letter gilded or painted in polished wood which is sealed and covered with plate glass in a frame. Many of these fascias were extremely elaborate and tell of pre-war prosperity even if somewhat common place. A worthy example of this type of fascia is that of Mac Fisheries Fish Shops. Their fascia of a simple colour scheme of blue, pale grey and predominant white with fine roman letters and their apt device at each end is to be commended; a better colour scheme suggesting freshness and cleanliness has yet to be found. Rarely in a shop fascia do we find a carved letter in stone. Perhaps it is too permanent a treatment.

Of the remainder of street or public lettering the traffic and other directional sign and notices count for much. Here ornament should be taboo and plain legible letters on proper grounds should be the aim of the designer. The London Transport Executive both in their bus-stop signs and the titling of their railway stations have shown how admirable this simplicity can become. An entirely wrong example of this street sign where ornament overpowers the essential lettering are the "Keep Left" signs of the Westminster area of London. Designed by an Architect, they seem to show much knowledge of period ornament and too little of the essentials of a modern traffic sign of urgent appeal and easy reading. The fashion of suspending notices of varying size from lamp posts is happily becoming a thing of the past and there is no reason why these traffic notices, an essential part of the architecture of the street, should not be well designed with good lettering.

Street name plates are all-important; here the colour scheme counts for much. It has been proved that dark on light is the more legible and letter height need not exceed six inches. The sitting of these plates must be carefully considered; where possible they should be at an height not much above the level of vehicle drivers' vision. They should be isolated from near-by advertisement lettering and be of uniform pattern.

The London County Council have set a fine model of public lettering in their parks and open spaces and on their school notice boards. H.M. Ministry of Works, too, has shown the same enterprise except that they often expect the signwriter to follow with a brush tool their standard alphabet, so-called "Trajan", forgetting that this famous inscription was made with a chisel. This brings me to emphasize once again and as my late distinguished predecessor in an earlier Lettering book also emphasized that above all good lettering should reveal the tool used and the material employed.

Interior lettering should be uniform in pattern throughout a building. Plastic letters of ivory white look well on doors of polished and unpolished dark woods such as medium dark oak and teak. Painted lettering is unwise on surfaces that have often to be repainted. Small panels of wood properly prepared can be fixed to the walls of corridors and suitably lettered. Door titles can be made of thin solid woods fixed with small panel pins and lettered in appropriate colour. These should not be fixed to the lock rails of doors where, by constant opening and shutting, they get too much wear. On the top rail or on the architrave is the best place or, in the case of the modern flush door, just above eye level.

The three virtues of inscriptional lettering in order of merit are: (a) dignity and repose, (b) legibility and fine letter form, (c) the revelation of the tool employed and the sympathetic treatment of the material used. The tool and the material determines the letter form. Marble asks for an incised classic letter V-cut and possibly of a square or spoon-shaped section if the letters are to be gilded; though, if the light is favour­able, the V-incision can also be gilded or coloured. Marble demands a sharp thinnish letter, not too deeply cut; it is mostly used indoors and is not subject to outdoor weathering. It is ideal for small interior inscriptions. On it can be carved the crisp lower-case letters and the flowing italic form. A Latin inscription in marble can be a lovely thing; not without reason did Robert Browning in his poem of the renais­sance bishop ordering his tomb at St Praxed's tell of "Marble's language, Latin pure discrete".

In Hopton Wood stone or Hadene Derbyshire we have our English form of marble. This material asks for almost the same treatment as Italian and other marbles. Its texture is close and, provided not too many fossil deposits are encountered, much the same finesse of letter shape can be carved as in marble. Hopton Wood stone, too, has often a loveliness of tone values; cream to soft greys, light and dark, which are altogether quite charming.

Portland stone has a sturdy English value about it; the stone of London and St. Paul's. It is ideal for our climate and a good weathering stone for large exterior work. If selected Whitbed Portland, almost the same crispness of cutting can be got as in Hopton Wood or marble. In Portland stone, too, the letters can be cut in relief and in a large scale obtaining a monumental grandeur. The writer himself designed and had carved letters in Portland stone two feet six inches in height on the frieze of the new Adelphi building in London. There are many fine examples and some extremely bad ones of Portland stone inscriptions; but it is the ideal stone for foundation stones and the like, and its weathering qualities are pre-eminent. In cemeteries Portland stone or Hopton Wood ought infinitely to be preferred for headstones to the foreign Italian white marble for their English character and suitability for our climate and surroundings.

Then there is the rugged grandeur and lasting qualities of granite. There are many kinds of granite, but, rough axed, fine axed or polished, I feel that granite always requires a relief letter. The characteristics of a relief letter should show little difference in the thick and thin strokes; almost an even thickness and with the squarish or bluntest of serifs. Sans-serif letters in marble or even Hopton Wood are an abomina­tion, but in granite can be strong and shapely. If you incise in granite you must fill with lead the roughish incision and even sometimes bring up the lead filling proud of the surface and gild the face of the lead.

Slate has the quality of marble and the finest letters can be cut in it. Inscriptions cut in slate are usually V-cut and if much legibility is required the incision can be primed and painted a bright colour or gilded. Slate is ideal for small commemora­tive tablets to be inlaid in wall surfaces, especially indoors and where such a tablet is not to be too conspicuous.

There are many other stones used for inscriptions; among local stones may be mentioned Bath stone on which I carved the Clifton College War 193 9-1945 memorial and an inscription in Bath. This stone has a tendency when fresh to crumble when cut, but it matures well with a fine warm tone of colour.

Leaving the stones, inscriptions in metal can be in bronze cast from patterns or a mould or engraved on rolled sheet bronze; on brass also in sheet and with letters engraved and filled with wax; or cast in lead or worked in lead and solder. Inscrip­tions have been made even in stainless steel. Letters engraved in sheet bronze and the letters afterwards filled with vitreous cream enamel are also used, but this treatment is perhaps more suitable for the office and shop nameplate; it is very legible but requires mounting and constantly cleaning. Bronze is the ideal metal for inscrip-tional work; it is the "aere perennius" of Horace and lasts for the ages, outliving stone and, even when buried for the centuries, coming to light in its pristine beauty.

Cast bronze is the best for medium and large outdoor inscriptions. I used this treatment of the metal for the great recumbent panels of the Royal Artillery 1939-1945 addition to their War Memorial. They were cast from plaster patterns made from a full-size drawing of the inscriptions, the centre one being fifteen feet long by seven feet deep. The character of the letters in a cast-bronze inscription should follow that of a relief letter in stone: little difference in the weight of the letter stroke and short blunt serifs. In the smaller indoor inscriptions, however, a finer letter with longer serifs can be cast from a mould. Sometimes cast-bronze inscriptions are made from patterns of cut-out letters stuck on a wood board; but this method is not to be recommended, as the result is often harsh and mechanical. The grounds of the cast-bronze panels can be of various kinds, "left as cast", chased up to a "sparrow peck" finish or chased quite smooth, the first being probably the most satisfying. Bronze letters can also be cut out of rolled sheet metal on a machine to a master-key pattern and chased and polished by hand, the fixing pins being welded on or inserted in small holes in the backs of the letters. They can be fixed by being planted on the stone or marble face or inlaid to show a slight projection.

Lead and lead and antimony alloys can be used as cast inscriptions. These metals, too, if primed can afterwards be gilded or painted. Tablets have been designed and made of lead grounds with the letters cut out of solder roughly worked on the lead ground and chased to a finished relief letter.

The sheet or rolled and pressed bronze asks for an engraved letter with an incision V-cut and left plain or acid-darkened or filled with vitreous coloured enamel and stoved. For outdoor and indoor work where the values are purely inscriptional, the V-cut letter in bronze is ideal. If the incision is darkened and the ground kept a lighter finish, the lettering will be legible. All metal exposed to weathering, outdoor or indoor, requires occasional cleaning. A little light oil with some furniture polish on a cloth is recommended: no acid-bearing polish must be used. Repoussé-work and hammered metal for inscriptions seems to demand so much from its accompany­ing ornament. The great heydey of this technique was in "L'Art Nouveau" period of the 'nineties and the beginning of this century. It is now outmoded and con­sidered rather "arty and crafty". It was, however, a good deal better than the Victorian "ecclesiastical" brass plate, many examples of which disfigure the walls of our churches. A brass plate is suitable for a doctor's or dentist's nameplate where it can be polished every day; but the lacquered church memorial when it loses its lacquer is rarely cleaned and soon becomes patchy.

Lastly, there are inscriptions in wood and in painted lettering. Lettering carved in wood although often appropriate for indoor work does not weather well outside. But on the lych-gates of country churches with suitable protective capping carved and gilded inscriptions can be a joy to the eye. The wood, close-grained seasoned oak for preference or any good hard wood, can be carved with an incision or in relief and to almost any style of letter. The letter carved should reveal the sharpness of the tool used.

The painted inscription again is really only satisfactory indoors or if outdoors with suitable protection and the need of constant renewal and varnishing. Indoors, painted lettering or letters painted in size and gilded with gold leaf can last for a very long time indeed. There are still examples of the beautiful sign writer's work of the eighteenth century in good condition in many churches. The painted letter should tell us that a brush has been used—the long sign writer's brush or "pencil" as he would call it—to give the flowing line and fine serif. The ground of a painted inscription can be coloured to suit its surroundings. If light grounds, a dark letter is needed with only one coat of paint: if dark, a light, say, ivory-white letter, needing always two coats. If the ground is of oak or grained wood unprepared, the ground needs filling with a wood filler: this is particularly necessary with letters gilded on size. Painted lettering should be simple and direct, and a fussiness of lining and decoration should be avoided. A fine ground for painted lettering can be a preparation of gesso laid on a wood panel and burnished to give an absolutely smooth surface.

Such then is Lettering in Association with Architecture. Let me emphasize that first of all it is a craft, a simple thing done well with tools. Lettering can only be raised to the dignity of an art by the informed taste of architects and their influence on public opinion and above all by the quality of the work of its designers and craftsmen.

mac fisheries ltd., Architects' Department. Bronze and coloured-enamel letters applied to artificial-stone fascia. Makers: Wish & Hull Ltd.

Below: c;. h. clark (designer), l. h. Chappell (painter). Painted lettering on shop fascia

GEOFFREY DUNN (designer), albert smith (painter and signwriter). Painted lettering on wall on temporary premises (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

Below: david kindersley (designer), david dewey (painter). Fascia in painted lettering,

green on white ground

THE LETTERING CENTRE.

Ribbon-style letters on lead-coated sheet steel in white on French grey background (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

Left: JANE DREW.F.R.I.B.A. (designer). Applied letters on bent metal grounds. Makers: Pearce Signs Ltd. (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

Below: l.c.c.architects'

department, under the direc­tion of ROBERT H. MATTHEW. Fascia lettering on the Royal Festival Hall. Applied letters of metal on sheet steel. Makers: Pearce Signs Ltd. (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

Right: tommy Thompson. Steel lettering faced with white porcelain enamel fixed to red brick, illumin­ated from the back by neon strip

JOHN brinkley (designer). Decor­ated letters in relief. Festival of Britain1951. (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

A. W. SPRECKLEY. A painted letter­ing fascia on a prepared panel with numbers in cut-out letters applied

CLAUDE-GENERAL NEON LIGHTS LTD. A well-designed

lighted fascia for a modern shop front

FRANCO-BRITISH ELECTRICAL CO. LTD. All example OJ

a well-planned and spaced fascia of neon-lighted letters

Above: franco-British elec­trical co. ltd. Neon-lighted

letters showing the light tubes applied to the actual letter and forming an integral part of its design

Below: FRANCO-BRITISH ELEC­TRICAL CO. LTD. A modern if somewhat bizarre treatment of a lighted fascia in very indivi­dualistic lettering

Left: GEORGE MANSELL. Notice board for The Cement & Concrete Association. (See "Keep Left" board below)

Below: the Birmingham guild ltd. Bronze and cream-enamel letters applied by concealed fittings to a cast bronze plaque. One of four fixed to City bridges for the Corporation of London

TRUMPINGTON STREET

Below: george mansell. Cut-out letters of Masonite primed and painted, fixed on hardboard panels inlaid into solid oak mitred frames and again primed and painted. Letters in ivory and ver­milion on light grey ground. For The Cement & Concrete Association

DAVID kindersley. Street name plate. Aluminium applied letters and painted work. (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

frank gayton. Street name plate. Cast-aluminium letters riveted to a plate. (Photo: Council of  Industrial Design)

william sharpington. Painted lettering in gold on mahogany. For Adelaide House, London

william sharpington. Panel for an exhibition for the Rural Industries Bureau. A good example of freely painted lettering

Right:M. H.  ray, LeicesterCollege of Art. Painted lettering on a prepared pane

Kenneth breese. Painted italic lettering  for a door panel in cream on dark oak

kinneth breese. Brush-painted lettering in black and white on grey ground. For Penguin Books Ltd.

WILLIAM SHARPINGTON. Finely painted italic flourished letters in gold on a blue ground with decoration in cream and pink

c. tunstali smith. Painted lettering in pale blue, red and white on an unvarnished oak background. For H.M. Ministry of Works (Photo: Council of Industrial Design)

Above left: JAMES F. hayhs. Children's Library inscription. Painted on wood in red and dark grey on light-grey ground

Above: F. c. horstmann. Painted lettering on light-oak panel, natural finish

Left: amos taylor, Leicester College of Art. Heraldic sign­board for Leicester City Council. Painted lettering in off-white on dark-grey ground, gloss-varnish finish

JOSEPH cribb. Incised lettering in Portland stone

LEO H. WINERS Incised lettering in Portland stone with singularly appropriate decoration

GEORGE MANSELL. Inscription in Bath stone for the Francis Hotel, Bath.V-cut incision gilded in a "Regency"-Style letter (Courtesy: Trust Houses Ltd.)

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