Over the next couple of months we have some pretty exciting and imaginative signs to create for the pub project. These signs have a important jobs to do - different from most signs. They are eye candy - designed to look pretty on the walls. They advertise nothing, for the brands they represent are fictitious. Instead they tell the story of the business and building. The stories are what I like to call 'fictionalized history' - based on real events and told in a way that seems plausible - even believable.
The pub is British, with the timbers reportedly from an actual pub in Britain and more than a hundred years old. Research was the first order of business. Since the Pub is in Aldergrove, British Columbia I googled Aldergrove, England. Amazingly there were three Aldergroves listed for England. The Union Jacks and crown further strengthened the English connection. A fantastical fish has lived in my sketchbooks, left over from previous projects. The yellow fish is no guppy, but I love illiteration. It spot a thin layer of pure gold and so became the gilded guppy - as real as the fictional bear it portrays.
My research next led me to British discoveries. The Galapogos Islands were discovered by a British sea captain who was blown off course in a fierce storm in 1593. It was the perfect excuse to create the Laughing (Galapogos) tortoise Beer. This beer is painstakingly brewed and best enjoyed at a very SLOW pace.
The Master's Bugle Beer is another 'house brand'. The bugle of course was blown by the master of the fox hunt, the theme of the pub. Here the bugle is hung up, the hunt now a thing of the past. The date is significant as well... my way of 'signing' the project. I was born in 1954 - 200 years after this beer brand was founded.
More signs are currently in the designing process. They like these will tell other chapters in the story of the Fox & Hounds Pub. You can count on the fact they will be stories based on real, TRUE events. :)
This is going to be a FUN project!
-dan
