The Man Who Hand-Lettered 320 Alphabets

Every month for 27 years, readers of Signs of the Times magazine opened to the Art and Design section to find a new hand-lettered alphabet waiting for them. Roman, Egyptian, Gothic, Script, Poster, and Novelty. 320 in total, without a single missed issue.

And they were all created by a single man: Alf R. Becker, a sign painter from St. Louis. Beginning in 1932 and continuing until 1959.

Sign painters across the country clipped the pages out and compiled their own Alf Becker alphabet books. These became an invaluable reference and source of inspiration for many sign shops. An entire generation of hand-lettered storefronts, show cards, and billboards were all designed with alphabets that came from Becker’s hand.

When Signs of the Times editor E. Thomas Kelley first approached Alf, the plan was a modest two-year run, maybe two dozen alphabets. But readers kept writing in and demanding more. He wrote in a 1935 letter to his readers: “When I started making these alphabets, I expected to present about twelve or fifteen designs, but the work became so interesting to me when I discovered how many persons both in and out of the industry were following the series.” [An Open Letter from Artist Alf Becker — Signs of the Times, May 1935]

In 1941, Signs of the Times compiled 100 of his designs into a book, printing a limited run of around ~2,500 copies. All of them sold. When readers asked for a reprint, the publisher declined, reasoning that Becker’s style had become dated. Many of his alphabets have a strong Art Deco sensibility, full of geometric forms and bold contrast that read as unmistakably of their era.

The series ran until January 1959, ending two months before Becker died on March 10 of that year. His failing health had finally forced a stop. Editor Kelley, who had commissioned the whole thing, had already been dead for 15 years. The series had outlasted him by a decade and a half.

To this day Alf Becker is a household name for sign painters, a foundational reference, whose alphabets were collected, scrapbooked and passed down. But his influence didn't stop at the sign shop. The letterforms he spent 27 years designing filtered into the broader visual language of American commercial art, storefronts, packaging, advertising and print. That kind of reach deserves recognition beyond the industry that knew him best. The least we can do is know him by name.