Dan Kamba and Chuck Wilmarth are debating how to spell Oscar Mayer wiener. The “i” should be before the “e,” says Kamba, co-owner of Southwest Signs in the Clearing neighborhood, but Wilmarth, the ...

Decades ago, DC was full of hand-painted signs pointing customers toward various retail establishments. They were eye-­catching and distinctive, but they were also expensive, required regular ...

With a swift and steady hand, Ruben Marcilla is painting a 3-foot-tall “T.” The “T” is white, and Marcilla is cutting crisp lines around it in teal. When he’s done he moves on to “H,” then “E” and an ...

Alina Kiliwa’s studio in northern Mexico City is a haven amidst the capital’s hustle and bustle. She opens a can of blue paint, picks up one of her brushes and delicately begins to paint five letters ...

Even in an age of emoji, when people revel in communicating online using a shared set of colorful icons, it makes sense that there are still those who are able to eke out a living painting signs for ...

At Borromini, just off a busy Rittenhouse corner, hand-painted flourishes help situate the trattoria’s pan-Italian menu ...

Sometimes you’ll see a faint image shimmering off the side of a brick building – a ghostly reminder of what ad signage used to be before vinyl banners and precut plastic stick-on letters. Without ...

There are many ways that shop owners can display their pride for their business. One of them is sweeping the sidewalk on a daily basis – a respectable old world habit that somehow died years ago.

Meredith Kasabian and Josh Luke are the wife-and-husband team behind Best Dressed Signs. Luke started the hand-painted sign business in his native California – inspiring the company’s classy name by ...

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“That’s How They Get Ya” by Alex Sheldon at Match & Kerosene, part of Signs Galore! at KO Gallery (All images by the author for Hyperallergic) Installation view of Signs Galore! at KO Gallery ...