These small signs were known in the retail business as “showcards.” Today they come in standard designs, printed by computer or industrial printer. But in the days before large chain stores and computer printing, it was simply not economical or expeditious to have showcards printed from type. Instead, they would be hand-lettered, by a professional if the store was a large operation, or by the shopkeeper himself if it was a small business. Where skilled labor is needed, correspondence schools will follow, and dozens of teach-yourself manuals of showcard writing were published in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
You could master the basics of showcard lettering in a few weeks at most. But if you wanted to set yourself apart from the ordinary run of half-educated clerks and make yourself into a truly valuable showcard-writer, you would learn the fancy tricks of decoration in the later chapters of these books, such as three-dimensional metallic designs.
But what will you write once you have the skill to form letters and decorate the spaces around them? Some of the books give suggestions for advertising phrases as well. For example, you might try a few homespun platitudes.
An Ounce of Underwear is Worth a Pound of Medicine.
The Sun of a New Prosperity is Rising Over the Hilltops of Discontent.
Laugh and the World Will Look at Your Teeth, and Judge of Your Taste—Good or Bad—By Their Condition.
Or you might appeal to the mathematically inclined.
Quality, Style, Finish—These Are the Four Cardinal Points of Excellence Which distinguish “Our” Clothing from All Others.
Note the early use of “quotation marks” for “emphasis.”
You might point out the superiority of your goods.
A Medley of Merit.
An Avalanche of Beauty.
Or you might allude to the extraordinary bargain to be had while supplies last.
A Cut to the Heart—A Tragedy in Prices.
Frost Nipped and All Shriveled Up Are the Prices.
As silly as some of these signs might have been, they did their job. And they probably did it better than the printed signs of today, which we ignore. Our printed signs are all alike: if you go into a Rite Aid, and then travel five hundred miles and go into another Rite Aid, you will see the same signs, and you will ignore them, because they are simply visual noise. But the hand-lettered sign is a personal communication from the merchant to you. There is only one sign like it; you will never see it again.
The art of lettering signs by hand is almost completely lost. As Dr. Boli has remarked more than once before, if a graphic designer wants text to look handwritten, she scours Google Fonts for a handwriting font that approximates the look she has in mind—as if there were no other way to create text that looks handwritten than by setting it in specially designed type.
But there’s good news. The art can be revived. You could learn it yourself from the same textbooks that taught the clerks of a century ago to become more valuable employees by mastering the art of the showcard.
As most of our readers have probably already guessed, there is a new page of Showcard Writing in the Eclectic Library.
