Traditional pub sign artist Andrew Grundon's business is booming, despite the financial crisis claiming more than 50 bars and inns every month.

Andrew, 56, worked as professional painter for 12 years before applying for a job as the sign writer at St Austell Brewery, Cornwall.

He now runs his own company, Signature Signs, and uses the traditional method of hand-painting pub signs which dates back to the 14th century.

It takes Andrew and average of eight days to complete each sign.

And despite an average of 750 pubs closing in the UK every year, demand for his handiwork is at an all time high.

According to accountancy firm Price Bailey, pub closures reached a decade high in 2023.

The data, which was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, found that 769 pub businesses entered insolvency in 2023, up from 518 in 2022.

This equates to an average of 2.1 closures a day, up from 1.4 per day in 2022.

Andrew, from Wadebridge, Cornwall, said: "I still paint pub signs just for pubs as well as for people's private bars and pubs."

"I often re-paint pub signs and each time I do it I try and make them more detailed and better than they were before. I try and take them up a notch."

Andrew, who was once told by a school teacher he was "as much use as a twiglet without marmite" is now in demand around the world."

As well as breweries and pubs, Andrew has recently painted a pub sign for Hollywood actor Paul Rudd.

He added:

"I've since marketed my business on the internet and I do lots of work for clients around the world and celebrities."

"It's an interesting collaborative process with the client to make sure they get what they want from a sign."

"The one I did for Paul Rudd, he had a portrait of his father who he was very, very fond of."

"He was an expert on the Titanic and used to take people from America to visit the Titanic museum in Belfast. "

"Paul wanted his father painted as Captain Smith from the Titanic in his uniform. He also had some other interesting ideas which enhanced the final result."

Andrew says his biggest passion is creating the perfect painted sign for a pub.

He said: "I think that pub signs are starting to come back."

"They had been dying off, but there seems to have been a resurgence lately."

"I'd always admired pub signs for their artistic merit - I don't think people always realise how much work and detail goes into them."

Andrew also believes that hand crafted artwork is still in demand, despite the increasing use of AI.

He added: "I think AI has lost its way. "

"It's a great tool for surgical processes and number crunching and analytical work but when you start trying to use it for creative work it's universally destructive."

"It's derivative, it can only churn out what it has been fed in and because it's derivative, a lot of the time it's theft."

"It's artists who have learnt how to paint or take good photographs, they are having their images taken and altered by a computer and chucked back out again."

"You might get something that on the surface looks quite attractive but there is a soul and integrity that is missing."

A Royal Act passed in 1393 made it compulsory for pubs and inns to have a sign hanging outside, allowing official ale testers and a largely illiterate population to identify them.