Yours set the same way, on the same steel.
Everyone wants a street named after them.
Name your own corner of London.
We all like a place of our own, whether it is a house, a study, a kitchen, a den or a garden workshop. Put your name on it, on a sign made exactly the way the real ones are made.
Put your name on a place of your own, on a sign made exactly the way the real ones are made.
Name the room that’s theirs.
Name the room that’s theirsEight to borrow · all photographedStudios, man caves, dens, workrooms, kitchens and bedrooms — the rooms people take as their own. A sign says whose it is in the same lettering as the street outside, and the red line underneath is where the character goes. Lover’s Lane with both names and the year makes an original wedding present.
Studios, man caves, dens, workrooms, kitchens and bedrooms — the rooms people take as their own. The red line underneath is where the character goes.
The word on the street is… this is the perfect gift.
The word on the street is… this is the perfect gift.
Anyone can buy something with a name printed on it. A sign that names someone’s own room — in the lettering of the street outside, with a line underneath only the two of you would write — is a present they cannot buy for themselves.
It goes up the day it arrives and stays up for years, which is more than can be said for most things given at Christmas.
A sign that names someone’s own room, with a line underneath only the two of you would write, is a present they cannot buy for themselves.
A wedding, with both names and the date on Lover’s Lane. Moving in, with their own name and their new postcode. Retirement, for the shed, the studio or the boat. A big birthday, for the room they have finally claimed. A new baby, with the name and the year they arrived.
A wedding, with both names and the year. Moving in, with their new postcode. Retirement, for the shed or the studio. A big birthday, for the room they have finally claimed. A new baby, with the year they arrived.
Made to order, so allow three to five working days with us and one to two with the courier. We email a proof before anything is printed — the part that catches a misspelt name.
Made to order: three to five working days with us, one to two with the courier. We email a proof first, which is the part that catches a misspelt name.
Make your sign.
Type it, see itSend it to someone before you decide.
Sends a link that opens this design.
Choose the pictures to send
Choose the pictures to save
The room-door size. Fits above a doorway or on a chimney breast.
Gives you the option for longer messages, and reads right across a room.
Made from high quality 1.2 mm mild steel with a high gloss stove enamelled paint finish — the same construction as the signs on the street.
Made from high quality 1.2 mm mild steel with a high gloss stove enamelled paint finish — the same construction as the signs on the street.
Because the sign is steel, it holds fridge magnets across its whole face. You can pin a notice to it if you want to.
Because the sign is steel, it holds fridge magnets across its whole face. You can pin a notice to it if you want to.
Supplied pre-drilled with fixings included. Allow 3–5 working days for us to make it, then 1–2 days with the courier, in fully recyclable packaging.
Supplied pre-drilled with fixings included. Allow 3–5 working days for us to make it, then 1–2 days with the courier, in fully recyclable packaging.
A short history of the London street sign.
A short history of the London street sign.
London has been naming its streets in public lettering since the seventeenth century, and for most of that time there was no standard at all. Nameplates were cut into stone, painted onto brick, fired into ceramic tiles, cast in iron and glazed onto milk glass, parish by parish, in whatever style the vestry or the builder preferred. Hampstead had its black tiles. Soho had milk-glass plates. The variety was the point, and it is still visible if you look up.
The sign the whole world now pictures is much younger than it looks. It was designed in 1967 for the newly enlarged City of Westminster by the Design Research Unit, the studio led by Sir Misha Black, who was asked to replace an unruly collection of inherited styles with one template.
What he arrived at is the arrangement on this page: white enamel, the street name in black capitals, the postal district in red beside it, a rule, and the borough name in red beneath. The lettering was drawn specially, based on Univers — Adrian Frutiger’s 1957 typeface — and condensed to fit long names onto short plates.
London has been naming its streets in public lettering since the seventeenth century, in stone, ceramic, cast iron and milk glass, parish by parish, with no standard at all.
The sign the world pictures is younger than it looks. It was designed in 1967 for the City of Westminster by the Design Research Unit under Sir Misha Black: white enamel, black capitals, the postal district in red, a rule, and the borough name in red beneath, lettered specially from Adrian Frutiger’s Univers.
Westminster holds the copyright and licenses its use, which is why a genuine plate carries a borough name. The City of London and Lambeth use Albertus instead, Berthold Wolpe’s 1930s face. The definitive survey is Alistair Hall’s London Street Signs, Batsford, 2020.
Why it looks official
Because it is. Westminster City Council holds the copyright in the design and licenses its use, which is why a genuine plate carries a borough name and a souvenir does not. The council protects it for the same reason the design works: one template, applied without exception across a borough every visitor passes through, is what turned a piece of municipal signage into shorthand for London itself.
It has slipped once. When the manufacturer changed in 2007, Helvetica Bold Condensed was substituted for the original custom lettering — an off-the-peg suit in place of a tailored one, as one writer put it. The mistake has since been corrected, though the wrong plates can still be found if you know what you are looking at.
The other London
Westminster’s is not the only design. The City of London sets its names in Albertus, Berthold Wolpe’s 1930s typeface, under the City crest; Lambeth revived the same face, on the grounds that Wolpe lived in Stockwell and it was about as local as lettering gets. Elsewhere you will find cast iron, incised stone, and the ghost signs of postal districts that no longer exist.
The definitive survey is London Street Signs: A Visual History of London’s Street Nameplates by Alistair Hall, published by Batsford in 2020 — three hundred and fifty photographs of plates most Londoners walk past every day.
The streets everybody knows
The streets everybody knows
Some names carry more than a location. These are the plates people photograph.
Sherlock Holmes never lived at 221B — the number did not exist when Conan Doyle invented it. The Abbey National building society later occupied the address and employed a secretary to answer his post.
Sherlock Holmes never lived at 221B — the number did not exist when Conan Doyle invented it.
The Beatles crossed it in August 1969. The sign on the back of the album sleeve was set in Albertus; it has since been replaced with a standard Westminster plate, and the pavement one is mounted high up a wall to deter souvenir hunters.
The Beatles crossed it in 1969. The sign on the sleeve was Albertus, since replaced with a Westminster plate.
Number 10 has been the Prime Minister’s official residence since Robert Walpole accepted it in 1735. The street was built speculatively in the 1680s by George Downing.
Number 10 has been the Prime Minister’s residence since 1735.
Tailoring since the early nineteenth century, and the reason “bespoke” means what it does. The Beatles played their last live set on the roof of number 3.
Tailoring since the early nineteenth century, and the reason “bespoke” means what it does.
The centre of London fashion retail in the 1960s, lined with boutiques and pedestrianised since. The name stands for a decade as much as for a place.
The centre of London fashion retail in the 1960s, lined with boutiques and pedestrianised since. The name stands for a decade as much as for a place.
Theatreland, and one of the few plates to carry a pictorial band above the name — the comedy and tragedy masks.
Theatreland, and one of the few plates with a pictorial band above the name.
Private medicine since the 1860s, to the point where the street name is now shorthand for a second opinion.
Private medicine since the 1860s, now shorthand for a second opinion.
The Saturday antiques market in Notting Hill, running the better part of a mile through stalls and shopfronts.
The Saturday antiques market in Notting Hill, running the better part of a mile through stalls and shopfronts.
Ours are made of flat plate high-quality 1.2 mm steel, stove-enamelled to a high gloss, in the same condensed capitals. The difference is the name on the front, which is yours.