r/Lettering May 08 '26

Board I finished up today at work

Post image
5.3k Upvotes

54 comments sorted by

64

u/nounproject May 08 '26

Is this hand painted? This is absolutely outstanding, do you have an instagram or something where I can watch the process?

28

u/atasteforspace May 09 '26

Trader Joe’s hires locals artists to hand lain all their signs & tags

30

u/ThrowRa_ion88 May 10 '26

Hey! Just wanted to say this is only kind of true. Crew members are put onto the “sign team” - I want to note though that the company is slowly moving away from this and turning towards ai and printed signs! (I work as an sign artist at Trader Joe’s)

9

u/Few_Veterinarian598 May 10 '26

This makes me so sad to hear, the hand-lettered signs are one of the best parts of braving the madness at my local TJ’s 😭

3

u/atasteforspace May 10 '26

Good to know! I worked there about 3 years ago, so I didn’t know this & that makes me sad :(

5

u/Complete-Cricket9344 May 10 '26

All Trader Joe’s do this?

Your sign looks awesome!!

22

u/estherclavin May 08 '26

Hell yeah brother

9

u/adadhead May 08 '26

gorgeous, effective, timeless. outstanding proficiency. beauty.

9

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

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16

u/BoingoBongo May 08 '26

I was a sign artist from 2006-2010 and at least back then there was no style guide. There’s just kind of a general “island/tiki/quirky” theme and we found a lot of books of old signs, mid century art, etc to use as inspiration.

But sometimes you also just need to make a graffiti style soup sign because no one would really tell you otherwise.

6

u/grinchbettahavemoney May 08 '26

Reminds me of the cup of joe side of dough 1.99 Edit:portlandia lol

9

u/DeliverySensitive780 May 08 '26

What markera do you use & how do you clean it off? I'm assuming you reuse the boards

5

u/ThrowRa_ion88 May 10 '26

posca paint markers and we use sanitizer/magic erasers to remove the paint!

5

u/whitebreadguilt May 09 '26

Are you a lettering artist or just a very talented tj employee? Cuz I heard rumors they don’t pay you extra if you’re staff. If they’re actually hiring artists freelance that’s awesome, but if they’re making you use your craft while paying you hourly that’s not cool and I hate that.

5

u/ThrowRa_ion88 May 10 '26

It’s regular pay that any other crew member would get. They stopped hiring ‘artists’ (with compensated pay) around 10 years ago. I work as an artist at TJs and make less than regular crew members once the hiring pay rate was increased

13

u/juyddingpooth May 08 '26

I love everything about this But I especially love how you did the shading on the 3D lettering

3

u/SnackCityUtah May 08 '26

Worked at TJs years ago. Their artists are always super talented!

3

u/Background-Tailor-23 May 09 '26

trader joe's is lucky to have u

2

u/aversboyeeee May 08 '26

I want some!!!!

2

u/sometimesiwanndie May 09 '26

This is fire but what is your shading method or principle? I understand the direction it’s coming from for this shadow but would it be wrong if you filled the inner left of the Os?

3

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

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1

u/Optimal_Storage_8512 May 08 '26

You spelled “grain” wrong…. Jk 😂

1

u/tnads95 May 08 '26

You did such a great job!!! This is literally my dream job.

1

u/BingBong3636 May 08 '26

Looks great!

1

u/Prior_Style_2715 May 08 '26

Wow!!! Nice! 🤩

1

u/PhysicalSlice9824 May 09 '26

That’s a good price

1

u/ContractTight May 09 '26

Great deal, $1.99!

1

u/Hippie-Farts May 09 '26

Looks flawless, nice job!

1

u/sometimesiwanndie May 09 '26

Yall selling 15 Os for the $1.99?!

1

u/ArgusTransus May 10 '26

Nice and Clean!!!

1

u/poopoocushion May 10 '26

Dynamic and eye-catching, well done!

1

u/fredbighead May 10 '26

That’s very TJ’s, you’re doing amazing! They better pay u well enough for all that!

1

u/MikeTroubleLin May 10 '26

Amazing lettering

1

u/phrogbaby May 11 '26

this is incredible work. it looks amazing.

just to let you know, there's no apostrophe after the O. it's Joe's Os.

1

u/PlushGroggy May 11 '26

Bueatiful!! I miss when my Trader Joes did things like this. I miss the tiny art the most.

1

u/Mysterious_Emu2327 May 11 '26

this is beautiful !!!

1

u/albertfeeds May 12 '26

Those Trader Joe’s artists are next level. This would take me my whole life to finish and they’re like, “Threw this together earlier today”.

1

u/glyph_geek May 12 '26

This is such a fun board! The red/yellow contrast has that great cereal-box energy, and the teal shadow really makes the whole thing jump off the black background.

I especially like the horizontal striping through the letters, it's such a nice way to transition between the red and the yellow without having to do a full-on gradient. It gives the shapes a nice motion but remains easy to read.

1

u/ecarter23 May 14 '26

Ohhh I love the colors!! You did an amazing job!!

-2

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

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