continued: SIGNS STORY 1.03
continued from Nov. 20th: The industrial revolution, and the proliferation of signs - the mass production of signs.
The last purpose of the sign was developed - To Promote Massive Sales. The machines of merchandising and advertising required the endless churning out of signs.
Nowadays, a donut shop might have 50 signs, a convenience store 500, a chain store 5000 to the point where they might even have there own sign making department to churn out a thousand or two each shopping season or each month. Or even each week.
Buy one - get one free, two for the price of one, Three for the price of one, 50% off, 60% off, Up to 80% off ! ( if you buy the complete set) ( no rain checks or coupons.)
For sale, yard sale, white sale, garage sale, closing out sale, all sales final. Biggest sale ever!
I want to tell you about my Dad.
He told me not to be a signwriter because I’d never make more than a living. But if I did learn the skills, at least I’d never be out of work. He said robots like the one on “Lost In Space“ would never be able to make a sign. I had been around his sign painting all my life - I was filling in his outlined letters when I was five. - I picked it up.
He had started in the maintenance department at AV Roe and it was asked if anyone had any talent painting with a brush. With his interest in art, my dad stepped forward and was asked to letter the dials and buttons in the cockpit of the prototype ARROW, the famous Canadian Avro Arrow supersonic jet plane of the 50's. He became a signwriter that day and continued on for 33 more years. He also hand painted the sign that went on top of the crane that built the CN Tower which while under construction was arguably the highest sign in the world.
I’d been out of school about four years and working at Harbourfront and in a similar way I became a signwriter. Within a few months, I set up shop on my own. As my skills and creativity improved, came to a time where I mastered the brush and the creation of Nice Looking Signs. In that era of mine in ‘79, I went to my first convention and discovered my nemesis, the New Sign Making, Vinyl-Cutting Computer. It’s like an upside down automatic ETCH-A-SKETCH except it’s got a sharp point instead of a stylus, and it cuts mac-tac instead of drawing on a screen. I tested it & tried to beat it. But it wasn’t just a little easier to make signs. It exploded on the market knocking me and many others in the trade out of competition. It was cheaper for me to buy cut vinyl letters from another sign shop than it was for me to paint them. I was hurt. My business went bust. The opportunity came for me to leave the country and so taking up my lost teenage dream of travelling the world, I left, with my lavishly decorated paint box, for an indefinite time, to travel.
My first stop was Iceland and I thought an omen had taken me there ! I wandered the streets of Reykjavik - I‘d expected it to be barren of trees, not signs ! If I‘d arrived on my own, I would have attempted to set up business before I’d unpacked my suitcase! But, my travelling companion, a native, halted my knee-jerk reaction and my thought processes in one foul swoop. “Cliff, Icelanders don’t need signs and they don’t want them”.
How Incredulously Foreign this thought was to Me !
Fish Mongers had Fish hanging in the windows. Book stores had books on display. I didn’t have to look 10 feet up to see that there was a clothing shop. There were some names on buildings and streets. But what stood out as the dominating form of communication as I recall was SYMBOLS - another word in the dictionary defining Signs. But not like I had known them until then. That was ‘86.
to be continued.
The last purpose of the sign was developed - To Promote Massive Sales. The machines of merchandising and advertising required the endless churning out of signs.
Nowadays, a donut shop might have 50 signs, a convenience store 500, a chain store 5000 to the point where they might even have there own sign making department to churn out a thousand or two each shopping season or each month. Or even each week.
Buy one - get one free, two for the price of one, Three for the price of one, 50% off, 60% off, Up to 80% off ! ( if you buy the complete set) ( no rain checks or coupons.)
For sale, yard sale, white sale, garage sale, closing out sale, all sales final. Biggest sale ever!
I want to tell you about my Dad.
He told me not to be a signwriter because I’d never make more than a living. But if I did learn the skills, at least I’d never be out of work. He said robots like the one on “Lost In Space“ would never be able to make a sign. I had been around his sign painting all my life - I was filling in his outlined letters when I was five. - I picked it up.
He had started in the maintenance department at AV Roe and it was asked if anyone had any talent painting with a brush. With his interest in art, my dad stepped forward and was asked to letter the dials and buttons in the cockpit of the prototype ARROW, the famous Canadian Avro Arrow supersonic jet plane of the 50's. He became a signwriter that day and continued on for 33 more years. He also hand painted the sign that went on top of the crane that built the CN Tower which while under construction was arguably the highest sign in the world.
I’d been out of school about four years and working at Harbourfront and in a similar way I became a signwriter. Within a few months, I set up shop on my own. As my skills and creativity improved, came to a time where I mastered the brush and the creation of Nice Looking Signs. In that era of mine in ‘79, I went to my first convention and discovered my nemesis, the New Sign Making, Vinyl-Cutting Computer. It’s like an upside down automatic ETCH-A-SKETCH except it’s got a sharp point instead of a stylus, and it cuts mac-tac instead of drawing on a screen. I tested it & tried to beat it. But it wasn’t just a little easier to make signs. It exploded on the market knocking me and many others in the trade out of competition. It was cheaper for me to buy cut vinyl letters from another sign shop than it was for me to paint them. I was hurt. My business went bust. The opportunity came for me to leave the country and so taking up my lost teenage dream of travelling the world, I left, with my lavishly decorated paint box, for an indefinite time, to travel.
My first stop was Iceland and I thought an omen had taken me there ! I wandered the streets of Reykjavik - I‘d expected it to be barren of trees, not signs ! If I‘d arrived on my own, I would have attempted to set up business before I’d unpacked my suitcase! But, my travelling companion, a native, halted my knee-jerk reaction and my thought processes in one foul swoop. “Cliff, Icelanders don’t need signs and they don’t want them”.
How Incredulously Foreign this thought was to Me !
Fish Mongers had Fish hanging in the windows. Book stores had books on display. I didn’t have to look 10 feet up to see that there was a clothing shop. There were some names on buildings and streets. But what stood out as the dominating form of communication as I recall was SYMBOLS - another word in the dictionary defining Signs. But not like I had known them until then. That was ‘86.
to be continued.
posted by Cliff Perry at 10:11
<< Home