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# A sign painter on getting the R right
- URL: https://quiet.labs.enova.studio/podcast/ep-13-a-sign-painter-on-getting-the-r-right/
- Published: 2026-07-31T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-10T20:11:46.000Z
- Description: with Devon Aluko · 58m
- Author: Enova Studio
- Tags: #podcast

Devon Aluko has painted shopfronts in Bristol for twenty-two years and can draw a capital R freehand that is better than most typefaces. We spent an hour on one letter.

> Everyone thinks the hard letter is the S. It is the R. The S is symmetrical and forgiving and the R has a decision in it.  
> Devon Aluko

## In this episode

1. 02:10 Why he still pounces a pattern rather than projecting it.
2. 14:35 The R, at length, with diagrams that do not work on audio.
3. 27:00 Brushes: why the cheap ones are fine and the cheap paint is not.
4. 41:20 On lettering for a business that will close in a year.
5. 52:05 What forty more years would buy him.

## Mentioned

- *Signs of Britain*, the Letterheads archive
- One Shot lettering enamel, discussed at unreasonable length
- The Bristol shopfront survey, 1974

Recorded on a pavement in Bedminster, with traffic.