News / St Philips Marsh
Businesses old and new celebrated in unique handprinted billboard
It took 12 hours for dozens of posters to be pasted onto a billboard in St Philip’s Marsh.
Each Victorian-style advert is a handprinted design for a modern business in the local area ranging from wig makers to coffee roasters, scrap metal dealers to brewers.
Printed by Nick Hands and Ellen Bills at the Letterpress Collective in the Old City, they were unveiled at this month’s Bristol Open Doors weekend.
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The unique billboard is situated on the corner of Feeder Road and Albert Road – photo: Martin Booth
“When we looked at what the Victorians were doing, they put posters over so many buildings, you see them in the old pictures of Bristol,” Nick told Bristol24/7.
“We wanted to recreate that using letterpress and wood type, which they would have used then, but with modern businesses to just mix the two things together.
“It’s taken about eight weeks off and on between other bits of work, and then we spent about 12 hours pasting them up and it does make you realise how much work they must have done 100 years ago to do that work as well.
“But it’s great fun. It’s just nice using the wood type, some of which we’ve used is about 120 years old as well. So it’s a really funny mix of ages of stuff but it’s been great fun to do.
“What you realise is that nowadays there is such a great mix of independent businesses here and there were then as well. We think things have changed, but you still get people in St Philip’s Marsh selling rope and twine, you still get the wigmakers, the spicery, you get people fixing cars, the fresh produce, so actually it’s really similar in some ways.
During Doors Open weekend, Nick printed postcards of a map of St Philip’s Marsh, which the billboard roughly follows.
Nick Hand from The Letterpress Collective has cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats on a bicycle with a printing press attached – photo: Martin Booth
Here are just a few of the businesses featured on the billboard:
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more:
- Letterpress printers to come together for traditional wayzgoose
- Bold vision unveiled for St Philip’s Marsh
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