Forest Hill Mural - The Reaction :star_struck:

Continuing the discussion from The Forest Hill Mural:

The new mural has created a massive buzz, especially on Instagram:

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Is it just me but after looking at all the photos, my brain isn’t quite sure that Forest is spelled quite right? Semantic saturation apparently - love learning new things out of random occurrences.

Great to see such a positive reaction

For me, it’s the typography, with the F too far apart from the R, which over-elongates that part of the word compared with all the other lettering. I’m guessing that a more oval shaped O (0) would be 00TA character (forgive the pun) with the traditional railway signage.

I still absolutely lOve it though!

BIG fans here!

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Also, in my world, “hipster mural” is a compliment (in case anyone was going to protest!) and I absolutely love our 2D walrus. Almost as much as the 3D version!

It certainly brightens up another dusty old railway bridge

After all the discussion about the colour, and us debating between dark red and British Racing green as well as a darker blue, I am beyond delighted that Lionel went with this sky blue and orange. It positively glows under the bridge even in this miserable weather.

That was more than a [brush] stroke of genius - it was truly inspired!
(And there we all were debating the hows and wheres of hard-wiring or solar power for the lighting that was needed to even see this mural)

Oh but the debate was fun…

And we can do it all over again for the next one lol

Spotted a couple of businesses capitalising on the new Forest Hill branding - good to see!

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Here’s hoping they contributed to the crowdfunding, and if not will be first in line for the next one.

Hang on - isn’t Winkworths the mock-up that Lionel supplied as opposed to a photo of the actual mural? Wonder where they got that from

Winkworth mention SE23.life as a feature of the area in all their property listings. I’m a fan!

That Walrus was such a great idea, but I’ve forgotten who suggested it?
And, again, the orange… another thing that sets this sign out from the rest and catches people’s attention.
Great design!

@Armadillo (Simon Spark). And he’s started a trend - watch out for the next area with a vintage sign + animal mascot - I am reliably informed there’s more to come

That was @Ed’s idea and also @Lionel’s idea (great minds thinking alike)

Looks great. A fine job, really well executed. And think the Overground orange works particularly well, making it look more current than the ones using dark green which feel more retro, even though the typography is identical.

I’d have preferred a squirrel, at least they are more representative of Forest Hill. Also the colour of British motor racing green and cream for the lettering. Green would have been more representative of the Forest.

Winkworth’s seem to have changed the lettering to gold in their advertisement, which looks great.

Winkworth used Lionel’s earlier mock-up, which had yellow lettering.

Lionel changed the colour to Overground orange in order to better represent the area’s local features.

I have lived in the area for sixteen years now and I have never once associated Forest Hill with a squirrel!

The walrus is an excellent and thoughtful choice.

Every single borough of London has squirrels! As do areas outside of London, and outside of Britain…
I can’t think of many neighbourhoods that boast an over-stuffed Victorian walrus (who incidentally has his own Twitter account, further cementing him as a bit of a local icon).

In that case, since this is a forest, maybe a bear would have been more representative than a walrus.

We’re drifting off topic here.

In Forest Hill we might not always be the first with a good idea, but we know how to raise the bar! Well done to Penge for taking on the challenge. I look forward to seeing their prehistoric friends taking up their place under the bridge.

Very cool. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs. Especially physically inaccurate ones.

I wonder if they missed a truck as the design of the Crystal Palace was sympatico to the sign design.

WHY DID WE NOT GET IDRIS ELBA WITH OUR MURAL?

Is it too late to get my money back?

I thought it was a clever 3D like addition to the image ?

Is it the real Idris ?

If it’s 3D - we could have @Lionel add him to the right of the Forest Hill mural - looking - say - pensively at it.

If @Lionel gave us a flat rate per additional character - you could then add a cast of selected characters - whatever and whoever floats your boats.

My joke is dead. RIP my joke.

I thought it was good.

Did I kill it somehow ? - if so - sorry.

Well, just to throw another sod on the grave of my joke, no, it’s not the actual physical Idris Elba in this computer mock up, unless we’ve already reached the point of technological singularity.

My joke relies on the notion that crowd funding a mural could also buy us a particularly toothsome celebrity to stand in front of it. Clearly ridiculous, and once you start to question it, the joke is dead.

I’m sticking to the defense that i thought it was - and is - funny.

I’m intrigued by this white splodge on the mural - been there since it was done, pretty much. Is it graffiti?

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I always took it to be light glinting from the metallic edge of the sign. It’s been in the mock ups since the start, so definitely intended and not graffiti.

It presumably allows the orange band to love from the outside edge to the inside edge.

Bang on both of you.

Oh yeah! Ego now on fire!

Ah cool, thanks!

And here I thought was some pending street artist feud. Not quite Banksy vs King Robbo… but you know…

Not just businesses - i got a leaflet through my door with this photo…

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Lee, well known for its Heron population. Apparently.

Read that as Heroin - of which there may be more in Lee than Herons…

Indeed. I read that as heroines. And thought I’d finally found tge fabled London home of Diana Prince and the Amazon’s.

I just noticed from the crowdfunder link above that interestingly somehow the people of Lee managed to persuade Network Rail to contribute to the cost of painting their mural. They have also chosen not to use Lionel Stanhope to paint it, which feels a little bit cheeky to me, since it’s so similar to his other designs.

Interesting, I had a brief email conversation with one of the organisers and waxed lyrical about Lionel, thought at the time she was remarkably quiet in response. More than a little bit cheeky. They were also under the impression The Horniman had paid for half of ours, which I corrected.

It does seem to have been a cheaper mural, but then there are less letters.

Update: Pretty sure that Lionel is involved. So, not so cheeky after all.

Pretty vibrant!

Lee… Green. Very clever.

I always thought I was spelt LEA. You learn something new every day.

Nunhead is the latest to be blessed:

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