By Bob Behounek
Posted on Friday, April 4th, 2025
A few weeks ago I was planning an addition to my scale model railroad, and I needed to move some boxes to clear a pathway. In the top of these boxes were old photos from past sign projects. They caught my attention as I pushed the box to a new location. I had to sit down, thumb through a few and rekindle old memories.
I believe it was 1982 when SignCraft asked me to send in some photos on a regular basis, and jot down the hows and whys of each project. At the time, I never thought that twenty-plus years later I’d still be doing it! Many miles of signage have passed beneath my brushes throughout those years. As I flipped through the photos, the scenarios started coming back to me, though the details were a little fuzzy.
Some of the designs worked well at the time. Mind you, these were all done by hand—a pattern was drawn from a small-scale drawing, pounced on the sign or vehicle and hand painted. That was fun! Yeah, the memories started to return.
Making layout decisions can be difficult. No one is going to make the right decision every time. In fact, the more bad decisions we make, the more we learn how to make good ones. I remember there was a time to let it fly and a time to keep it crisp. This era in the sign industry seemed to be a transition from the “snapper” look to a more thought-out-approach look that was rendered briskly without lots of extra frills.
Most of these projects were completed not only for profit, but to give the customer the best possible signage and stay within their budget. Layout, colors and production all needed to blend together to form a finished, workable advertisement.
There were many local and nationally known sign craftsmen to look to for inspiration. These people often set the standards for good vehicle lettering and design. Often a design problem presented an opportunity to “borrow,” if you will, a design approach from another job one had seen. This often created competition between sign people to “out create” one another. That can get out of hand if the perspective is lost.
I remember our shop’s owners asking, “Who are you painting this one for? The client or other sign painters?” You get the picture. It was certainly fun. It made for a very creative environment, to say the least!
Now a majority of the sign industry has moved into the computer era, and some of the individual flair the sign painters used to lay down with a brush has disappeared. But we still must try to develop our creativity and layout skills. One way is to examine past layouts. During my travels I’m sometimes asked to use constructive criticism to critique sign layouts that others have done. I still often revisit my own layouts to see how they could be improved or updated.
The other day a customer stopped by with a new truck. We had done the original design ten years ago. It was a new business back then, and he liked the layout. He felt the design was working well. His customers recognized his business when they saw his logo and the typestyle that was used.
But he seemed interested in some change and asked if there were any ways to simplify or eliminate unneeded clutter. This update was a chance to critique my own work—constructively, of course. This type of project can let you blend yesterday with today’s trends, utilizing design foundations from previous established designs.
Some of these jobs are between 10 to 25 years old and could use a face-lift. But as I scanned through the photos, some need no changes at all. They still work. Even so, we can almost always find a little improvement to be made. I did some quick sketches to show how I might update these truck layouts today:
Zolltheis Electric was a product of the dreaded passenger-side panel window. This always created design problems—the customers wanted to have the same size graphic on both sides, but the passenger side had a big window in it. Most of the time, keeping the layout in the area that was usable on both sides was the way to go. Today, we have see-through vinyl and perforated material to use on windows to help a design work on both sides. Here I’m tilting and styling that Z to appear as if it’s bolting aggressively out of the sky. I’ve moved the small secondary copy away from the name for easier readability.
Aardema’s panel truck design was split almost 50/50 between the A graphic and the company services. An established company now, some of the small copy is eliminated, allowing for the A to be moved toward the front. This lets the service occupy and dominate most of the truck. In the early ’70s it was popular to angle some, or all, of the message to attract attention. Readability, however, suffered.
DynaSewer, unfortunately, is no longer in business. Michael Flately, the owner, went on to be one of the best Irish dancers of this era. If I were to redo his logo, though, I’d turn the dinosaur around to face the copy. This would direct one’s eye toward the information. Loosening up the secondary copy with a script would make sure the other copy would be read first.
A. J. Leonard wanted to retain his L pipe logo, so a scaled-down version for the door opened up the whole panel area for a more personalized script. He had used this identity and after all this time, his clientele know him as A. J. Leonard.
Tile Unlimited was another van with a passenger-side panel window. Today I’d use see-through perforated vinyl material to cover those nasty windows. I’d loosen up the rigidity of the original design by using a loose script and superimposing it over the tile graphics. This links the product with the name. Isolating the business name from the secondary copy again helps readability.
Well, so much for redesigning old lettering jobs. It’s time to move that box of pictures aside and start that model railroad addition. It’s been fun.
This article appeared in the July/August 2003 issue of SignCraft.
Bob Behounek has spent over 40 years as a sign artist and pinstriper in the Chicago, Illinois, area.
