14. Hana Sunny Studio
“You can be painting letters the length of your arm, up 5 flights of scaffold on one day, and labouring over tiny gilded script the next day in the studio”
Sign writer Hana Sunny Whaler has been on my radar for almost as long as I have lived in Clapton. Her work pops up a lot locally and is instantly recognisable. You’ll find evidence of her work in the windows of Wild & Woolly, Pages of Hackney, Lion Coffee Records and The Green Basket, all on Lower Clapton Road.
I went to visit Hana at the studio she shares with her partner (also a sign writer) on a spectacularly beautiful and bright November morning last week. My first Worshipful interview for some time, hers was a bright, colourful and brilliant way to get back into the swing of things.
Hana’s background is in drawing: “I’ve had a pencil in my hand since I was a kid. I always knew my calling was in the creative industries, and loved drawing letters and inventing posters and packaging from a young age”, she says. She never really got along with computers and believes she was attracted to sign writing because you can complete the whole process almost entirely by hand.
When Hana first started sign writing in c.2013, there were no longer any trade schools teaching the discipline, very few sign writers with whom you could do apprenticeships and even fewer of those were discoverable, especially in the world of social media. However, she managed to seek out some upcoming young painters in the States, as well as on home soil, whose work she admired: “I learned from old books, and my own mistakes. I also did workshops with Phil Speight (a narrowboat painter), Joby Carter (a fairground signwriter) and David Kynaston (gold gilding). The rest of my training was self-taught and peer-to-peer.”
Hana says her parents were always hugely supportive of her chosen career path, which is not always a given. “They are open-minded and grounded people. I think they have always had the admirable view that if they trust me to follow the path that will fulfil me the most, then I’ll probably do alright! My dad even picked up a sign writing brush a few times when he was younger”. Growing up where she did in a small town in the West Midlands, she started going to festivals from a young age which means, she says, that she had a lot of traditional sign writing, crafts and colour surrounding her from very early on, which (unbeknownst to her at the time), she thinks has fed into what has now become her signature style.
When approaching a commission, Hana always begins with a sketch, followed by reference books, research, thumbnail sketches and further design revisions via email, until everyone is happy. She then usually uses something called a “pounce pattern” to transfer her design onto the surface upon which she’ll be working. Pouncing is an art technique, used for transferring an image from one surface to another. It is similar to tracing and is used to create copies of a sketch outline, to aid in producing a finished work. A pounce wheel is also known as a tracing wheel. This is the only part of the process where she will often need to use a computer.
Next, Hana paints the design using special sign writer’s enamel paints, or gilds them with gold leaf, if the client wants something extra special. “This makes it all sound very simple, but actually it’s not - the most interesting and challenging part of the job lies in the fact that every single project is different from one to the next. The surface, design, weather, location - all of it factors in and leads to a lot of problem solving, which of course becomes easier with time and experience”.
One of the things Hana enjoys most about her job is the variety and the fact that she’s constantly learning: “you can be painting letters the length of your arm, up 5 flights of scaffold on one day, and labouring over tiny gilded script the next day in the studio. Or sitting at a desk all day designing. There really is no ‘normal day’ at work. I also love being on my feet, working on site, outside in the real world, talking to strangers and just having a brush in my hand. Simple stuff really, but it makes me so happy”.
Her favourite clients are the ones with whom a project becomes truly collaborative. Those with whom she has been working for years on multiple projects, where the ideas flow and amalgamate to create something completely perfect for the brief. Those relationships are special and don’t come along often.
Living and working in London comes with many frustrating practical challenges for Hana - Congestion Charge, parking nightmares, busy high streets, bad traffic, lugging kit around on packed public transport. But “living here means you get some opportunities to work with some incredible architecture and history. It’s humbling to imagine you are probably one of a small number of sign writers who might have laid their brush on a building over the last few hundred years”.
Hana finds she is most inspired by the history of her trade, as well the responsibility to keep it alive: “I love folk art, country crafts, lettering and decoration on boats and wagons and pubs. Not just painted either - things carved, woven, printed, cut in glass or piped in icing. Making things that are decorated and beautiful, and doing it proudly and skilfully with your hands. It’s always been important, but I think, in this day and age, it’s more necessary than ever to see the human hand in our environment”.
Seeing her clients glow with pride when they see the finished piece gives Hana the greatest satisfaction in her work, as well as chatting to people on the street who used to have a grandfather or father who knew a sign writer: “Even better if they were or are one themselves! Knowing you’re creating something that will part of the landscape for a long time, layered in the history of the building and the business is so rewarding”.
In the future, she harbours an ambition to design and paint a tradesperson’s van, and bring a cartoon mascot or character into the designs, “50’s American” style. She enjoys painting pictorials and characters alongside her lettering, but gets scant opportunity to do so - design in this country can be a bit serious, she says.
Hana wants to commend another woman leading the charge in her profession, Mia Lane, who is one of her best friends and a very talented painter. She also recommends you visit Alphabetics Anonymous on Instagram and click on the ‘IWD’ stories tab to discover more. “I’d also like to shout out some of my favourite women-owned businesses that I have painted for, all amazing and inspiring people: Wild & Woolly, Pages of Hackney, Aries Bakehouse & Make Town”.
To see more of Hana’s work or to contact her about a commission, you can find her on Instagram or via her website.
