Before we had cheap dig­i­tal print­ers and every­body started set­ting their lit­tle shop notices in Arial, there were ded­i­cated sys­tems for dis­play­ing mes­sages in shops, bars and cafés. One of these were black boards with holes in them and let­ters with the appro­pri­ate pegs. You took them from a box, stuck them into the holes and had fairly neat rows of words and num­bers. A shop in Lon­don redis­cov­ered this old way of mak­ing type, mak­ing art out of neces­sity: If you don’t have enough type in one size or colour, take another one, but do it deliberately.

This sign show­ing the brands avail­able was “art-directed” by Richie Crago at The Three Threads in Char­lotte Road, Shored­itch.