Signs of the times

Old street sign

Looking around Aberdare its actually quite hard to find older styles of lettering. Apart from words actually carved into buildings or tomb stones, street signs are one of the few remnants of what would have been at one time ubiquitous.

These appear to be cast signs and are still quite common apart from, ironically,  the conservation area of the town where they must have been removed some 20 years ago. The typography here is of varied line width and characterised by serifs with brackets. The gaps betwen the letters are not entirely regular.

Pressed steel sign

 

This sign still has something of the shape of the older ones with its indented corners and raised border. The letters are however all sans serif without any variation in line width or spacing.

Modern sign
 

This modern sign, I'm not sure what its made of, is free standing but has an interesting typeface with very fine angled serifs and subtle variation in line thickness.

Bench decoration in Commercial Street
 

The most modern lettering in the town (in that they were only put up a week ago) belongs to these benches which are each decorated with 2 letters, together spelling out the phrase, ABERDARE QUEEN    THE VALLEYS. (The bench with the OF is missing at present) The letters are all upper case and decorated top and bottom with wavy lines. They have bracketted serifs and appear very similar to Times New Roman, which you can probably find a version of on your computer.

A bit like this    E