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Watch the unseen artistry of road sign painters

Watch the unseen artistry of road sign painters

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Walking around London, you're likely to see the words "bus stop" plastered over the road thousands of times. Given the uniformity of these visual warnings, you'd be forgiven for assuming all the city's street typography was created using a stencil. You'd be wrong. London-based designer Tom Williams captured a worker painting the road markings a couple of years ago, and the video he uploaded was recently highlighted by Kottke.

The video depicts a pair of workers painting the familiar "bus stop" warning by hand, using only some rough chalk marks to judge the correct size of the letters. Far from a menial task, there's real artistry required for each sign. Looking closely, you'll see subtle variations between the letters, and some minor variations in spacing, but that doesn't take away from the sheer skill of these invisible artists.