21Truelove, Ten Feet Tall
Hand-lettered wall sign for Truelove Bar, 414 Franklin Ave, a bar open since 2012 · sign painter not on record · on the wall by November 2014, painted over an older cursive ghost sign that still shows through the black · a small painted mark on the bottom border we haven’t been able to read · know who lettered it? Tell us.SIGN
Some walls beat around the bush. This one says TRUELOVE in letters taller than you.
Black panel, cream border, a gold star pinned in each corner, and one word big enough to read from a moving car: TRUELOVE. Underneath, in ghostly letters, WACO, TEXAS — as if to clarify where such a thing might still be found. The bar behind the wall has been pouring since 2012, with a hundred-and-some craft beers and karaoke nights where truelove has, in fact, occasionally begun.
It's painted in the style of a hundred-year-old tobacco ad, which is the joke and the charm at once: the one product no wall ever actually sold, rendered with total vintage-advertising confidence. Couples pose under it constantly — engagement photos, anniversary shots, first-date dares — because where else does the word just hang there, pre-painted, waiting for you to stand under it with somebody?