Hey Bob, congrats on a long and distinguished career! I just returned from visiting a cusomter in Cotati, CA, Hines Signs. Mr. Hines has been in the sign making biz for over 50 years, which blew me away. He was an early adopter of the Gerber EDGE, and now has a Summa DuraChrome / DuraSign combo. It's amazing to talk to him ... technology has changed a lot in his time.
Regards,
------------------ Jim Doggett Vice President Summa, Inc.
Posted by Terry Teague (Member # 796) on :
Ya got me hands down by about 20 yrs. Did my first job in '74 for my parents fast food restaurant, they paid me by allowing me to eat!
------------------ Terry Teague James River Signs Reeds Spring, MO tlteague@tri-lakes.net
Posted by Jon Butterworth (Member # 227) on :
I did my first paid job in the fifties too. It must have been the late fifties, because I was still in school. 8x4 Real Estate sign for a housing development, including a full colour illustration done from the architects plans! It took me another twenty years before I discovered square ended lettering brushes hahahaha Can't remember what the pay was, but I was rich beyond my dreams
------------------ Bushie aka Jon Butterworth Jonsigns old signwriters never retire ... they just fade into the background! Toowoomba,Queensland Australia.
Posted by Mark Fair Signs (Member # 289) on :
got me beat too. did my first paying job back in 74. i did a sign for a grocery store, Dunn's Grocery. i used the same typeface that was on a Boone's Farm Apple wine bottle. (you can tell where my head was at) LOL
"Mark Fair is a Proud Contributor to The Letterhead Site!"
Posted by Raymond Chapman (Member # 361) on :
1956 - Lettered the words "Air Conditioned" on an office door. Pay was $1. I was 12 years old.
------------------ Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas rchapman@vvm.com
Posted by Stephen Deveau (Member # 1305) on :
My first was in 1970 a small oil picture done for a german couple..I got a full $50.00 for it....Don't know if I amn a big star in Europe as I really haven't had any call backs on it....
Raven/2000
------------------ Raven/2000 Airbrushed by Raven Lower sackville N.S. deveausdiscovery@sprint.ca
Posted by cheryl nordby (Member # 1100) on :
First paying job in 1973. Opened my first sign shop in 1976. But don't let that fool ya. I am still a spring chicken.
Hah! Bunch of young whipersnappers.... I painted my first sign in 1948. Had my own shop since 1972.
Bill Williams who also has a shop here in Grants Pass has probably got us all beat. He started working in his dad's sign shop in 1938 and still works everyday.
Louie Ledbetter who had a shop here for years, and is now retired, is 90 years old but still painted an occasional sign up until a couple of years ago. I think I heard him say one time he started painting signs right out of high school, so that would have had him starting around 1927 or 28.
------------------ Jerry Mathel Jerry Mathel Signs Grants Pass, Oregon signs@grantspass.com
Posted by Dennis Veenema (Member # 833) on :
Well Bob you beat my dad by a couple years. It was 1956 for him. He lettered two truck doors, and got 5 bucks for it.
He remembers it quite vivedly, since it took him 8 hrs to get it done.
BTW he still works everyday with me, at 68 yrs.
Myself, it was 1982 and I was 13. We were doing a billboard. After we laid out the pattern, I started painting.
I did one panel that day, dad did the other five!
------------------ Dennis Veenema The Sign Shop Dresden, Ont. & GigaBytes Plus "Where the plus is the service!"
Posted by Mike Languein (Member # 319) on :
Well, I did some in-house wall graphics around 1947, trying to become a pitch man for Binney & Smith (Crayola). My 'pay' on that job would be considered an introduction into child abuse these days, at least a taste of S&M. Ha ha. First "Real Money" was paid by the Navy at the rate of 14 cents an hour, back in '67, so I could probably claim 28 cents or so for whatever I did for them first. And worth it.
Pictures of that old stuff is SOOOOO embarassing!
I think the main thing I've learned over the years is not to be embarassed by my work any more...
------------------ "If it isn't fun, why do it?" Signmike@aol.com Mike Languein Doctor of Letters BS, MS, PhD ___________________
You know what BS is, MS is More of the Same, and it's Piled Higher and Deeper here
[This message has been edited by Mike Languein (edited December 08, 2000).]
Posted by Stephen Deveau (Member # 1305) on :
I see that there is some Old Wall Dogs in this heading... Nice too know that the passion lives on.... Started my real profession with a ladder hook on the top of a 20 story building and had to climb down it to untie a 36" neon tube for repairs.. It told me that if I am sitting in front of the artwork I am in better shape than being the one installing it!!!! But we will do what we have to do in order to make a living!!!!!!
Raven/2000
------------------ Raven/2000 Airbrushed by Raven Lower sackville N.S. deveausdiscovery@sprint.ca
Posted by PKing (Member # 337) on :
Did you mean LEGALY?
------------------ PKing is Pat King of King Sign Design in McCalla,Alabama The Professor of SIGNOLOGY
Posted by Nevman (Member # 332) on :
I started sweeping my dad's shop at 8 years old. 50 cents an hour...1971.
I started filling in letters at 10; still 50 cents an hour.
When I was a kid, I used to watch my dad hand letter -- for hours...just leaning against the bench watching his strokes. It was so wonderful to watch him. Pop had a simple knack of making nice signs and he explained things as he progressed. I'll never forget those days!
Boy were those fun times.........
Thanks Bob for the flashback !!
------------------ Pat Neve, Jr. Sign Man, Inc. 4580 N. US 1 Melbourne, FL 32935 321-259-1703 signman@signmaninc.com Capt. Sign Letterville Constituent constituent: "One of the individual entities contributing to a whole"
Posted by Bob Rochon (Member # 30) on :
OK, I'm gonna make Dinasours out of all of ya!
My first sign job was in 1989, 4'x8' plywood ( not MDO ) painted it with xo-rust paint and artist brushes, got paid 100.00 for it. That's when I decided signs were more profitable then cartooning. The jury is still out on that one.
I gotta change my diaper now!
------------------ Bob Rochon Creative Signworks Millbury, MA bob@creativesignworks.com
"Some people's kids"
Posted by Dave Draper (Member # 102) on :
My first paying job was in 1968. I was a junior in high school, graduated in 1970 and kept on making signs. That makes me 48 years old and six months.
I don't wanna get old....help me!!!!!!!! There's got to be a way back!!!!!!
sigh,.........................
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Stop in and visit a while! 309-828-7110
Posted by Karen Tighe (Member # 1541) on :
1972 when I was 11 - my Dad was an estate agent and I made him two "on view now" notices with 6" letters on fluorescent card with jumbo markers. Next I made him some with poster paint. I also made some name signs for his office with big letraset burnished letters. I cant remember exactly how much I got but I do remember it was in coins not notes!
------------------ Karen Tighe, Strandhill, Sligo in the Wild Wet West of Ireland.
mIRC = cafe_cruiser
Posted by Ken Henry (Member # 598) on :
In 1964, I spent the summer employed by Switzer Signs coating out panels. When waiting for those to dry, Harold Switzer gave me a sample of script lettering that I could practice lettering. By the end of that summer, he trusted me enough to let me letter some 4 x 8's using a pattern.By the summer of '65 I'd become proficient enough to letter banners and larger signs from rough layouts that he'd done in charcoal. During this time period, I was also in high school taking art, so I got to make a lot of posters, showcards etc. for school plays, dances, and other events. Weekends and evenings were spent lettering pickups & vans as a "snapper". Back then, I got $25.00 to $50.00 for a small name/address/phone number on the pickups. There was a law at that time that ALL vans & pickups had to be lettered as they were considered to be commercial vehicles. If you had one for personal use, you had to buy special licence plates, and those vehicles were exempt. The fine for not having the lettering on a pickup was exactly $25.00, so they had the choice of paying me the $25 bucks and having their name on the truck, or paying the fine and STILL having to get the lettering done. I got to "practice and refine" my lettering on a lot of pickups...and at 25 bucks a pop.minimum. Some weekends I'd do as many as 6 vehicles, and this convinced me that lettering signs was what I wanted to do for a living. I wish I had pictures of some of those "early embarassments" done during my high school days...but alas, all have been lost, and probably for the better!
------------------ Ken Henry Henry & Henry Signs London, Ontario Canada (519) 439-1881 e-mail kjmlhenry@home.
Some days you get to be the dog....other days, you get to be the fire hydrant.
Posted by Chuck Peterson (Member # 70) on :
I still don't feel like an old-timer but I guess I'm getting there. I think my first one was a Christmas window splash in '71. I used a letterstyle from a Canned Heat album cover. It took me two days and I made $15. An old sign painter named Tom Jones who was in his 70s at the time was watching me as he painted windows up and down the street. I was amazed at his speed. He came over and gave me some pointers. He said the bristle artist brushes I was using were not for watercolor on glass and to loosen up on my layouts on window splashes.
1953, I think. My mother had a brand new Cadillac with the big dagmars parked in the garage. I was 2 years old. I spied a Folger's Coffee can of creosote up on the garage shelf with a brush sticking out of it and climbed up the front of the Caddy to put my hand securely around my future noble profession.
Proudly, I applied the creosote on the black part of the tire as I had seen done at my pappy's Used Car Emporium where the porters used to paint the tires black, making them look like 'new rubber' after the 'regroover' man left. I got a little on the whitewall . Well...I just had to make it even, so I painted the whitewall, but darnit, I got some on the hubcap. No matter, just paint the hubcap, I thought.
I was almost done when I noticed some of the bottom of the fender....well....I did the fender bottom.... THEN!!! I opened the driver's door and got in! In three minutes I had most of the dash done.
My mother came out and sorta got a little h-h-h--ot, you could say. She threw me in the back of the car by a lock of my hair and stormed the Caddy down the driveway toward town in a flash, peeling rubber at every intersection and all the while muttering something about me having to wait until my Father saw my artwork! Once at my Pappy's Car Lot the porters were all sequestered to remove with solvent the nefarious black creosote all over the place. There was alot of laughing and finger pointing, I seem to recall. My Father, bless his heart, announced succinctly that the only real solution was to rush the car out to Colorado 'up in the high altitude' and we left that night for a week vacation to Colorado Rockies. Needless to say, I had to live down the name 'PAINTER' from Charlie Troop (the sales manager) and his droogs the rest of my years as a youngster. In 1984 at my Father's funeral one guy came up to me to express his condolences and called me Painter! I was never so flattered.
I learned that one should always follow the lines and never paint the dash. Finally, at about the age of twelve I had the real chance to letter as I watched my Father, the master, letter some windshields with "Extra Clean" and "Low Miles" in tempera paint. I decided to give it my own try and immediately washed it off and parked the brushes. My Father chuckled. Lettering was way too hard and way too impossible. One simply had to have the gift and I certainly did not seem to be possessing much more than a modest ability to sling creosote.
One hundred thousand windshields later, I must admit. Nothing beats experience in both lettering and creosote slinging!
------------------ Preston McCall 2516 W 63rd St. Mission Hills, Kansas 66208 913-262-3443 office 816-289-7112 cell
Posted by Mike Languein (Member # 319) on :
Preston, thanks for the great story! You got Lenny beat all to Hell.
------------------ "If it isn't fun, why do it?" Signmike@aol.com Mike Languein Doctor of Letters BS, MS, PhD ___________________
You know what BS is, MS is More of the Same, and it's Piled Higher and Deeper here
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
It was a four door Fleetwood, baby blue with a white top. There actually is a photo of the tire and fender somewhere in my brother's archives. To this day, I have never used creosote again!
------------------ Preston McCall 2516 W 63rd St. Mission Hills, Kansas 66208 913-262-3443 office 816-289-7112 cell
Posted by Jamie Harju (Member # 191) on :
My first regular job drawing/painting was in 1960, but didn't open my first studio till the fall of 1969. I havn't figured how many miles of letters and stripes that equates to but its a fer piece.
------------------ Jamie Harju ( Fontzy )
Posted by Pierre St.Marie (Member # 1462) on :
First paying job in 1959.......Restored a fellow's antique clock face and pinstriped his model A car.
------------------ St.Marie Graphics & Makin' Tracks Sound Studio Kalispell, Montana stmariegraphics@centurytel.net http://www.stmariegraphics.com 800 735-8026 We're chiseling every day of the week! :^)
Posted by Larry Elliott (Member # 263) on :
Bob, 32 years in business with 5 more just messing around as a teenage brush monster doing posters and blackboards in school. I still enjoy getting up and coming to the shop 'almost' everyday, hope the remainder of my career is as exciting as it has been so far.
------------------ Larry
Elliott Design McLemoresville, Tn.
If you can't find the time to do it right, where gonna find the time to do it over?
Posted by Paul Jordan (Member # 1198) on :
I asked my dad when he became interested in our trade, here is his reply. "I won my first prize in an art competition in 1933 when at the age of three I coloured in a penline drawing of Shirley Temple in the local newspaper. Thus began a lifetime love affair, with art not Shirley Temple. I began my 5 year signwriting apprenticeship in November 1945. My first paid job was a 6x3 for a local store....$10.00 in 1944... loads of lettering but short on layout. Incidently, it took me about 10 years to buy it back enabling me to paint it out. I still love to paint, write and gild and will continue to do so whilst on this side of the dirt."
------------------ Paul Jordan Jordan Signs http://jordansigns.com.au paul@jordansigns.com.au Australia if you love what you are doing, you should always do it well.
Posted by Bill Biggs (Member # 18) on :
I did my first shrimp boat(fill in work for my dad) when I was 14, got paid 10 bucks. 1954. Also did kids names on the roof of a drive in in Freeport called the Alamo, Got two bucks a name, and that was when minimum wage was 50¢ Bill
------------------ Bill & Barbara Biggs Art's Sign Service, Inc. Clute, Texas, USA Home of The Great Texas Mosquito Festival Proud Third year Supporter of the Letterheads Website MailTo:twobeesusa@netscape.net
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
I was 16, now I'm 62 so there. I do admire all those who replied. Especially people who started around the 70's & 80's. Lotta heart! ............................Jack
