.

NGS

AT LAST,

A ‘TRUECUT’ LONDON SIGNWRITING

FONT FOUNDRY.

We now produce truly custom, 100% original fonts, each designed from the old hands of vintage London, Zurich and Roman signwriters.

The intent is to reproduce Truecut classic typefaces we use, adore and stumble upon while working recently in UK, Zurich, Edinburgh, Italy and beyond.

Our typography and brand clients include:

Pentagram, Moda, Cocoa Cola, Fullers, Amos & Amos,

The Chase, 12X3, Heals and Fred Perry.

Hope you like.

We are mounting a full book of fonts with dedicated website shortly.

Nick Garrett

‘Soho Bold Typeface’

For Canberra House, the former Australian Embassy,

Regent Street, London.

NGS Revival Lettering:

London Roman’s

Font Bodoni Type design, NGS London Font design Sign Writers, New Trend fonts, Style setting design. Arts and Crafts Lettering pedigree. Nick Garrett.

Constantly Inspired by our fore-father’s London Romans.

Heal's London high level signage - scissor lift, cradle, mewp high level signage. NGS London

NGS Trad London Roman fanlight signage. House numbers and Titles painted all over London.

Above: a classic London Roman fanlight we restored that got me really appreciating the fine considerations that went into these fine examples of painted ‘Serif’ letters. These considerations fill every corner of our lettering practice today and now inspiring our special NGS Font Foundry reference library.

NGS TRAJAN TYPEFACE

Truecut and Stone-cut

The County NGS signs London Trajan Font design

NGS Painted House Roman letters, NGS Retro Signs of London serif V&A-Cattich Roman Trajan Lettering, Vintage Lond fonts. Letter signwriting in Gold., bespoke-london-sign-writer-supergraphics-ghost-signs-office-wayfinding-gold-fanlight-numbers-and-hand-painted-house-numbers

Trajan Roman lettering painted signs Video of Nick at NGS signs

font designer NGS Trajan Baskerville, Trajan Column Catich Rubbing Rome NGS

Trajan Letters in Pompeii. Pomp Nick and Seraina lettering | Font designer NGS Illustrations, Murals Sign writing Gilding

NGS Retro Signs of London Underground Vintage Lond fonts. Letter signwriting in Gold.

Our Researched and Hand crafted

Heritage typefaces.

Pompeii, Rome and London

These letters above are designed for our own bespoke practice entirely by hand. A pot full of joy to paint too, they are set up in terms of shape and weight to flow smoothly off the quill – while sitting perfectly in context architecturally, into any print format, media and api screen setting.

Our craftsmanship is used by many fine stores and venues across London. If you desire truecut bespoke London typeface, designed by hand then reach out and chat to us about your project.

Lettering genius of

William Sharpington

Lettering master William Sharpington’s carved plaque. Nr Liverpool St., London and bumping into him again at No 4 Canary Wharf, BMA Boardroom.

Destiny, fluke or serendipity…

Wikipedia: William Sharpington entry

Wikipedia article

‘William Sharpington‘

CASE

NGS Wartski Sharpington Gilded facades

Our restored version of Sharpington Roman for Wartski of St James’s are a testament to his genius.

Gold letters on glass. Wartski jewellers glass gilding Traditional signwriting gold leaf lettering by Nick Garrett London Signwriter. NGS Retro Signs of London Underground Vintage Lond fonts.

Over the years we have cataloged a collection of drawings made directly from ghost signs and vintage pieces around London that exude the real character of London signs. Today NGS are compiling these into a series of styles you can pick straight off our peg or ascribe to your plot.

Browse this page and see if there is something here that would serve as a starting point for us to embellish in some special way for your unique logo and brand design.

NGS Retro Signs of London Underground Vintage Lond fonts.

Birthing the NGS Soho Font Foundry

As a kid I’d sneak off up to Soho every Saturday and take it all in… it was in the seventies… inspiring me then and still enriching my journey today.. NG

NGS typefaces include:

NGS Supertype ‘Johnston Highbury’

NGS Johnston Edinburgh

MGS Madrid Sans Serif

Pirlo Wharf Bold

Soho Bold

Baldini Script

Helvatia Original

NGS Trajan

NGS Baskerville

NGS Bembo Demi

NGS Gill Sans truecut

Brick Lane Condensed

Retro London Underground Vintage Lond fonts.

CASE: Edward Johnston

NGS Restoration type.

Restoration Type

NGS JOHNSTON Highbury Demi

NGS Johnston Highbury Font by NGS London. HD poetics of hand painted type banner. Retro London Underground Vintage Lond fonts.

ECC cafe coffee house signage NGS Chiswick

Cafe Electric Coffee Co wall nural lettering NGS Sign writing London Chelsea Chiswick Putney Dulwich cafes hampstead sign painters NGS near us .NGS sign writing London

Nick Garrett

NGS has restored a collection of fonts that we have worked with over the past 36 years as London’s finest signsmiths.

These include an original version of Johnston, a Standard writer’s extended bold block and a classic honours board Roman.

First off the design deck is the Johnston restored version here at Crown Cycles.

Nick Garrett Typographer Signwriter – London

Refined, crisp… always beautiful. It is not by chance then that we are releasing a series of London Vintage fonts from the works of my founding family of lettering masters the Bakers’ of Fulham and now NGS tradition.

RESTORED FONT: NGS JOHNSTON Highbury

NGS Painted Cafe signs Johnston Font Restoration of sign Traditional sign writers of London NGS Dulwich Margate Chelsea signwriters

Absolutely No Ordinary Type

found here…

I have studied and painted the Johnston sans serif for 30 years and have been generally unhappy with the modified fonts released to date because they are simply lacking the calligraphic heart and poetics of the originals.

In the Clerkenwell and Islington area of London there can still be found original pieces from the master’s hand in St. Pauls Road.

Sawyer Gray

http://www.pinterest.com/nickgarrett/edward-johnston-typographer-london-underground/

NGS Johnston comes in only the single weight as per the originator’s wishes.

DESIGN PROCESS

Discovered while NGS were commissioned to restore a historic fascia (above) in Highbury London in May 2014. A trace was made of the letter forms painted scanned and loaded into Adobe Photoshop.

These were then vectorised and set up in Fontlab 5.

Certain characteristic such as the crossover W character and the more precise drafting of the G, Y, lower case g and S characters confirmed this was an original sign made from Edward Johnston’s drawn versions in 1905. NGS Johnston aims to retain all key poetics of the original forms.

Lower case s and e were re-tuned along with refinements to all upper/lowercase and numeral glyphs. Every character has been considered.

Johnston is an incredibly important typeface and we believe the revival in the craft of lettering has set the stage for a series of properly refined drafts.

We have Johnston Flare as a new version which uses a traditional wedge serif in accordance with the designs mapped out in 1905.