Letters out on the Tiles in London
A chat with Hana Whaler and Jake Tyler about their work on Tactile and the Alphabetics Anonymous team.
Now in its third year, Tactile is a creative collaboration between sign painters Hana Sunny Whaler and Jake Tyler. Ahead of this year’s London show we caught up with them to find out more about how it got started, and what to expect from Tactile Mk.3.
Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you got into the sign game.
Hana Sunny Whaler (HSW) – “I come from a background in drawing, and discovered sign painting whilst studying illustration at Falmouth University. In my final year, the film Sign Painters came out colliding with a number of interests and inspirations I’d had for years within my work – cities, graffiti, Beautiful Losers (film), folk art, fairgrounds. Everything aligned nicely, including meeting Jake, and through a lot of hard work meeting supportive and passionate sign-people (and a dose of luck) I continue to surf the sign painting wave I leapt on in 2014.”
Jake Tyler (JT) – “A lot of my fascination with letters and design came from graffiti and skateboarding, I remember I used to invent skateboard brands when I was a kid and having a lot of fun making up and drawing their logos and graphics. That I guess pushed me in the obvious direction of graphic design which I studied at University. That’s where I met Hana and we quickly began to share a passion for lettering and sign painting. Things have progressed over the last four years since moving to London and I now work on a nice balance of design and sign painting projects from my studio in Deptford.”
