Santa Claus Custom Banner

A custom hand painted banner reading Season's Greetings done in enamel paintI always liked doing custom banners and I still do. I use scaled artwork converted to a transparency and hand letter my banners with one shot enamel. When I had my shop in Anaheim I could do 40’ banners if necessary. Most of the time they were around 8’ in length. Today there is the option of digital print and vinyl letters to use instead of hand lettering. The banner material has greatly improved from the ‘drill’ cloth that I used when I first started out in the sign business.

I’ve always loved the Coca Cola Santa done by Haddon Sundblom and all the work he did for Coke.

I wanted a Christmas banner to display over my girlfriend Anne’s garage door for a Christmas party we were having in 1984.

As with all my hand lettered work at the time, I made a pattern using a transparency and the overhead projector.

I did the script on paper with a marker until I put together the right combination. You can use a marker, charcoal or brush. It is a method I learned from a book on Graphic Design and because it’s done with the natural flow, when it is enlarged it looks like it was hand scripted.

This was a lot of fun to do. I had my daughter Amy help me paint the background with bulletin enamel. The banner has worked as an invitation for Christmas parties for many years and is still in good shape. My wife Anne and I have had Christmas Sing Alongs yearly since that first banner.

Digital Print for Ray’s Barber Shop

A digital print sign I designed and applied to the exterior window of Ray's Barber ShopThis is a case where a digital print did exactly what the client wanted. The barbers wanted to be able to see thru the solid background of the logo because of it’s size and location in the middle of the two front windows.

Ray’s Barber Shop is one of the oldest barber shops in Old Towne Orange. I started going to Ray’s back when I started working at Disneyland. Roy and Ray have become friends of mine and I’ve done several signs for them.

Because they wanted two window signs that they could see through I had to research material that would work. I remembered the material they use on buses.

So, I designed the artwork in CorelDraw and had Sign mart make the prints.

After hand cutting the shape, I installed them on to the glass. Sitting in the chairs you can still see the girls from the college walking by.

Monument Sign for Placentia Lakes

A monument sign with gold leaf
One of the best ways to enhance a sign is to add gold leaf, just like on this monument sign.

I used to play piano for Kirkwood Assisted Living, here in Orange. Danielle lived at Placentia Lakes and put me in touch with the management company who needed two new entrance signs. The Management Company asked me to come up with a design and after it was approved and the deposit made i started on the signs.

A monument sign like this is done on 2” HDU board and router cut. I asked Frank Smika at Letter Perfect to route the signs and he completed the job. I had to have a local graphic designer prepare the artwork for the router.

I did the drawings for the construction of the sign and also the artwork for the new design. The sign was painted with Mann Bros. acrylics and ‘placentia’ was gold leafed with 22k gold. Both signs are double faced and this job was a real challenge but turned out well.

Monument Sign for the Placentia Unified School District

This is a concrete monument sign I designed and carvedThis concrete monument sign is at the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified District Headquarters. I designed the artwork based on their font and what was allowed for the monument sign. I cut the letters and mounted them to the form and contracted the concrete work to a local construction company.

It was the first job of this kind that I did and this sign still stands today and has held up really well. During this time I did a lot of work for the PYLUSD and their many schools in the area including wall signs, sandblasted wood signs and directional signs.

McFadden’s Irish Pub Custom Metal Sign

This custom metal sign was hand painted
This bar & grill has a ground level custom metal sign by the entrance and is located in Tustin and was known for many years as McClures Bar & Grill. The new owners wanted a new look and of course a new name.

The logo was designed by a graphic designer and I incorporated it into the oval format of the existing sign. I designed the artwork in CorelDraw, made a transparency and then a pattern to pounce onto the surface. The background is primed and painted enamel and the lettering and logo are hand painted. All the lettering was done on site for this out door sign.