By signcraft
Posted on Saturday, March 23rd, 2024
Like many readers, one of the things we here at SignCraft miss about the print edition of the magazine was the cover photo. In 41 years, we featured over 250 outstanding signs on the cover. Now the “cover photo” is back—not six times per year, but every week.
And besides showcasing a great-looking, well-designed sign, we’ll give you some of the story behind it. We hope you’re glad to see signs “on the cover” once more. We hope you enjoy it.
The cover story of the first issue was “The Signs of Sanibel Island,” a resort island near our sign shop here in Fort Myers. There were plenty of outstanding signs there, and this was one of them. The first three issues of SignCraft back in 1980 were black-and-white, so this sign ran in black-and-white.
At the time, we were unable to find out who designed and made it, but it landed on the cover of issue number 1, Spring 1980. The 10×10 treated posts were cut at random lengths and wrapped with steel bands that carried the painted copy.
The oyster graphic was cut with a jigsaw from layers of rough-cut cedar plywood. It was a simple design, but it made a striking appearance along the tree-lined main road of the island. It’s still as appealing a design today as it was 44 years ago.