Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabets

The section on music hall lettering alone was worth it — those thick, curved strokes feel like they were lifted straight off a 1920s façade. I keep flipping back to compare how different painters solved the same letter, and the print quality holds up to close looking.

I bought this for the sign painter's eye more than the history, and the plates of music hall lettering alone were worth it. You can see how each hand solved the same storefront differently before type standardized everything.

The storefront alphabets from the 1920s are my favorite part — you can see exactly how a butcher's sign and a café sign spoke different visual languages, even in the same town. The plates are sharp enough to trace from, which I didn't expect from a book this size.