Industry Expert Interview by Barbara Chapman
Talking to Sign Writer, Mia Warner Have you ever walked past a store with a handwritten sign, and wondered who had painted it? That was the case for me when I first saw the work of our industry expert we’ll be chatting to in this issue. A few years back in an East London street local to me, I stopped in front of a shop and wondered at the creativity and meticulous finish to the hand painted work on the window Talking to the owner of the Marmelo restaurant whom I knew, I discovered it was indeed the work of Mia Warner, the person I’m going to interview today. A skilled sign writer who’s work I had unwittingly viewed many times in the past. In this day and age when we are thinking more about sustainability and trying to use less plastic, it caught my interest to see such amazingly handwritten authentic signage as opposed to mass produced and unsustainable plastic vinyl decals. It’s truly an art form and so I was fascinated to get Mia to tell us more about the wonderful world of a sign writer. Here are my ten questions I put to her..
Q1 Talk us through your journey into the industry. I never really had a clear idea of what I wanted to do “when I grew up”, it changed a lot, so I just followed my favourite thing and ended up pursuing art, which led me to a Foundation course at the University where I lived in Gloucestershire, which then introduced me to Graphic Design. I studied Graphics at Uni in Brighton for 3 years but never quite caught on with the computer based clean and clever work that was popular at the time. Instead I would lean towards drawing letters, picking up calligraphy and experimenting with paint. Luckily for me I had two amazing tutors in second year who picked up on what I liked doing and supported it, introducing me to the bones of typography, hand-rendered fonts, calligraphy and most importantly, sign writing. From uni I did a basics course with Cooper at Dapper Signs in Bristol to learn how to work the paint and the brush and that was it, nothing else was ever going to make me as happy! This is what I needed to do!
Q2. How did you win your first sign writing project? Having done smaller boards and menus, and then gaining a little more confidence after Cooper’s course, I had recently moved into my partner’s flat in Leyton, East London, and saw a lady up a ladder outside what looked like a new cafe. The fascia was bare and she was prepping it. I was absolutely terrified and completely out of my depth, but I approached her with a total “fake it ’til you make it” attitude and asked if she was moving in, and had she sorted her shopfront out yet, “Because I’m a local sign writer and I would love to paint it for you.” Again with the luck, she had tweeted that day asking if anyone knew of a local sign-writer. Thus begun my love affair with Deeney’s cafe and my first real fascia job! I was convinced they would go home and google me and see that I was a complete fraud, but I was so confident that I could do this for them and luckily they trusted me completely.
