The people in the film
Signwriters
Six people who gave a city its handwriting. Between them they have lettered for more than three hundred years, and signed almost nothing.
01Working since 1968
Dele Okafor
Shop fronts and fascias
Learned on his uncle's ladder at fourteen. Still mixes his own yellow, and will not say what is in it.
02Working since 1974
Ruth Amara
Barbers' boards
Painted the price lists of more than three hundred barber shops, each with a portrait of a haircut nobody has asked for since.
03Working since 1981
Sani Bello
Lorries and buses
Letters the proverbs on the backs of lorries. Says a slogan has to be readable at forty miles an hour or it is only decoration.
04Working since 1979
Efua Mensah
Market stalls
Works from a stool, freehand, with no pencil lines. The film watches her set a twelve-foot sign by eye in one morning.
05Working since 1966
Tomás Riera
Gilding and glass
The last gilder on his street. Lays gold leaf on the inside of pharmacy windows, back to front, reading it in a mirror.
06Working since 1988
Lan Pham
Cinema hoardings
Painted film posters three storeys high, a new one every Thursday, until the cinema bought a printer.
“Nobody taught us it was design. We called it getting the name up before the shop opened.”
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