This was the first enamel sign for what was to become quite a collection of them. In 1967 we – my then.wife, Joan and myself – saw it somewhere in the South of France, next to the door of a newspaper shop. While I parked our 2CV and, using my scrappy French, tried to divert the attention of the old men who were sitting on a bench outside, Joan was busy right next to us. When we were back in the car a few minutes later, I asked her why she had been back so quickly and whether we shouldn’t offer money to buy the sign after all. I had not noticed that she had already dealt with the matter by simply sticking the sign under her short dress. It hadn’t been screwed to the wall but was simply leaning against it. Obviously as a sign for us to take it and prevent it from being thrown away the next time they painted the house. This is what happened to most enamel signs in those days.

This did not start us on a career as petty thieves, but in retrospect could have been the first activity that eventually led to us founding FontShop 20 years later. The liberation of this sign was our first typographic misdeed.