Learn how to build a better sign and print shop from a few
crusty sign guys who've made more mistakes than they care to admit.
Conversations and advice on pricing, sales, marketing,
workflow, growth, and more.
You are listening to The Better Sign Shop podcast with your
hosts, Peter Unis, Michael Riley
and Bryant Gillespie.
Before we jump into the episode, I'd like to give a shout out to
our sponsor, G C I Digital Imaging Grand Format Printer to the Trade.
We talk a lot about outsourcing on the podcast and the importance of having a.
Good partners and G C I Digital Imaging is a good partner to have.
Owner TJ Beak and his team focus on providing killer customer service just
the way grandmother used to make it.
If you're interested in learning their approach to business, hop
back into the archives to episode nine where the guys and I interview
TJ about customer experience.
So if you're looking for a high quality trade printer for banners, wraps,
and other printed graphics that your customers throw at you, check out
GCI Digital imaging@printgci.com.
Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of the Better Sign Shop podcast.
As always, while Peter, the sign shop, Yoda is missing in action
today, I think he's on vacation.
Uh, so kudos to you, Peter.
Enjoy vacation.
My other co-host, Michael, the Sign Design Magic.
Mike Samurai.
Chimichanga Chimichanga Burrito.
Tito The the All Around Sign guys.
Sign guy.
Michael Riley.
How are you my friend?
Good,
how are you?
You look good in the, the, the sweater
there, the sweat.
Yeah.
You know what, it was like 95 degrees here last week and this week it's 50.
We've got the heat on.
It's ah, have the flu before long with this crazy weather.
Yeah.
Never on the East coast.
We've been slammed with rain.
I got to spend Memorial Day cleaning up my basement, which was, uh, had a nice bit
of standing water in it, so that was fun.
That's always fun.
That, that makes me, one of the few things that makes me thankful
that I don't have a basement.
I've been there a few times and it's always a nightmare.
It was supposed to be a man cave.
It is actually a kid's playroom.
You know, I was fortunate that we put like the vinyl waterproof, like
planking floor down there because I knew that this was gonna happen.
Happens like once a year whenever we just get like a nasty rain.
But the worst part is just moving all the stuff out of the way so you can flip the
couches over so that they dry properly.
It's just a pain.
And this is the room that you just had remodeled not too long ago too, right?
Oh, I'll do that.
It's been like the pandemic.
It doesn't feel like that long ago, but it was, it's honestly
like, uh, yeah, like three or four
years ago at this point.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's crazy, isn't it?
It feels like it was two months ago.
Yep.
Yeah.
Post pandemic time.
Yeah.
Boy.
So what's new with you, man?
What are you, what are you've been up to?
I don't, oh, not much.
Just, uh, just staying pretty busy, uh, pretty steady with design work and,
uh, working more than I wish I was.
And, uh, just started painting the house.
Part of the house project has progressed to, uh, the exterior
paint stage, so that's a lot of fun.
I could barely walk today.
I, I climbed up and down the, uh, extension ladder like
five or 600 times yesterday.
My, uh, my, my step tracker on my phone says I, I walked like
four and a half miles and it was all up and down a ladder, so, oh,
you should have got a lift.
Yeah, if I could get one on my yard, somebody, oh, hey.
Surely we've got somebody that listens to the podcast that could
bring over a truck and just Yeah.
Right.
Set you up in the bucket.
Anybody in Oregon hook me up free chimichangas.
Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you what, I'm happy to be doing this episode of the podcast.
I don't.
I, I think this is the first one since my emergency appendectomy.
So that was a fun experience.
Yeah.
I wasn't sure if you wanted to talk about that, but how, how are you recovering?
Uh, yeah, I'm happy
to talk about it.
I, I will say word of advice to the audience if you are over the age of 30,
and even if you're not, um, but more so if you're over the age of 30, if you
are experiencing pains that are kind of weird, you're not really sure what it is
or don't just ignore it, go to the doctor.
Um, I woke up, it was like a Wednesday, several weeks ago.
Had some stomach pain.
I had assumed, just like I've had acid reflux for years and, you
know, I fought with it on and off.
I'd assume it was something like that, or maybe an ulcer, something non-serious.
Got involved in meetings and kind of went away, ignored it.
By the time I got done with meetings and like actually stopped, And sat down and
didn't have anything to do at the moment.
I was like, man, the pain is really awful, so go get the kids.
My wife's driving like I'm sweating in the passenger seat.
It's like we're getting up there on the pain scale, like six,
six or eight maybe come back.
I call Mr.
Mike here because I'm thinking that it's an ulcer.
Mike's like, Hey, try pickle juice.
I'm standing at the refrigerator like trying not to gag and suck
back some of this pickle juice.
Wait 45 minutes to an hour, still no relief.
And then the pain is just mounting at this point.
Uh, go to the local urgent care.
Wait 45 minutes there, pacing around in the actual like waiting room, thinking
okay, like making everybody uncomfortable.
They weren't sure if I was gonna like shoot up the place or cough
and give everybody covid or what was gonna happen, you know?
So finally I see the doctor and they send me to the er.
It turns out I have a severe acute appendicitis and have
to have emergency surgery.
Damn.
Buta, bing, buta, boon.
Well, I'm glad that you, you know, it sucks, but I guess
it could have been worse.
I'm glad that you, um, were in and out quick and seems like
you had a really quick recovery.
Sorry about the pickle juice.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
That was by far not the worst part of it.
It was pretty bad, but I'm sure it wasn't, not the worst part of it.
Yeah.
For,
for now, modern medicine is great.
I've got three little scars on my stomach.
Like the, the worst part of that was I'm a, this is probably tmmi for the audience,
but I'm a naturally pretty hairy guy.
So like, they shaved all of my belly and left, like the top part kinda looked
like I was wearing like a, a hairy bra, you know, it was like my kids
were laughing at me, so I had to just go ahead and like shave all of it off.
Now I'm in like the Wolf Man stage.
Man, that makes me think of the scene from, uh, the 40 year Old
Virgin where, uh, Steve Cor goes.
Oh, oh, Kelly Clarkson.
Yes.
That's, I think we need to see like a side by side comparison of, of, of you
and, and Steve Corll from that moment.
Oh God.
See if, who
wore it best.
Yeah, babe.
That'll get the next cease and desist letter.
A hundred percent.
Well, I'm glad that you, uh, recovered so quickly and it wasn't, um, I
mean, I, I wish it was something less serious for you, but I'm glad
it wasn't anything more serious.
And I, you know, really in, in the long run, I, I'm glad it wasn't
an ulcer, cuz an ulcer is really something you can't get rid of.
So at least this was something that Yeah.
Stuck temporarily, but it's not a long-term thing,
so.
Yeah.
And the, the appendix is useless, so yeah.
Why not get rid
of it?
Did you keep it?
Did they like give it to you in a jar?
Uh, I didn't ask.
I, I should have though.
I did go back, feel like they shoulda that I went back this You
could like, sent that to somebody.
Yeah.
The doctor said the path pathology results came back and he said,
um, it did not rupture, but it was very close to rupturing.
So
anyway, I guess they caught it in time.
I, I've heard that's just like absolutely miserable.
If it does, does rupture.
It's a pretty, oh yeah.
I was, I was a total baby about it.
Like, I, I was, you know, I was like, they asked for your pain
scale and I was like, oh, it's 10.
It's 10, it's 10.
And my wife's over there like, eh, like childbirth bro.
Like, just come off of it a little bit.
But, uh,
that's hilarious.
Well, so I'm excited for the episode today, man.
As am I I'm, I'm so close.
What
do we, what have we
got on the slate?
We have got, uh, gentleman by the name of Shane Deford Canada.
He is, uh, been around for a long time and he is a prolific sign,
carver sign, painter, sign designer.
The guy does just absolutely phenomenal work.
I've been kind of social media stalking this guy for a long time, most of my
career, I would say on, uh, he, his work is just absolutely phenomenal.
It's on a, it's on another level.
I, I, there's a lot of really talented, fantastic sign makers out there, but
something about Shane's work is just, I don't know, it calls to me or something.
It's beautiful.
So really excited to have him on the show and, uh, pick his brain a little bit.
And, uh, yeah,
I, I think for me it is, it kind of goes back to like the signage
that you got in the business for.
Totally.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, everybody gets into this industry.
They wanna make signs like he makes, I mean, it's like, You the
pinnacle of handcrafted signage that, you know, anybody would be
jealous to have this guy's portfolio.
Yeah.
Super excited about it.
Couple different threads I think we're gonna touch on.
I know that like Shane was in the industry for a long time, took a
break, I'm assuming because of burnout.
Uh, very real story for you and myself.
So curious to get his take on that.
And then, you know, I I, I feel like there's a lot of folks out
there who want to do this type of work, uh, but don't necessarily
know where to get started with it.
You know, like how do you, how do you break into this side of the industry?
Yeah.
I'm excited to talk to him about both of those topics for sure.
Especially the burnout topic.
I, I think that's, I mean, you know me, I mean, I'm, I'm always kinda going off
on tangents about mental health and, and uh, you know, keeping your head
about you in this industry cuz it, it can, can definitely drive you crazy.
So I'm really anxious to talk to him about his experience with, with burnout and
how he, you know, took some time off and came back and recharged his batteries.
I mean, I think that's something that probably everybody after, you
know, probably true of any industry or career, but, uh, something that
probably everybody can, can relate to, to some degree or another.
I know I can for sure.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Me as well.
Yeah.
You, uh, I, I definitely want to do like a, a, a serious like mental health
episode, but I think this will be a good primer leading up to that as well.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
For sure.
All right, well, uh, let's bring him on.
All
right, here we are.
We've got Shane Deford.
Shane, welcome.
How are you
today?
I'm good, thanks.
Yeah.
Good to be here.
Awesome.
Thanks for asking me on the, uh, on this podcast, Mike.
Well, I've
been, I've been geeking You
gotta set 'em up a little better than that, dude.
Come on now.
I don't normally do the intros, man.
I don't Yeah, right on the spot.
I, I just, I just like, I did the, the lead up to him before we brought 'em
on, so maybe you should do the intro.
We just gotta warm up.
Yeah.
A couple takes practice.
No, without a doubt.
Shane really doesn't need any introduction.
If you don't know his name, you've seen his work a hundred different places.
We were saying before we jumped on with you, Shane, that like the work
that you do is like some of the, like the work that we got into the industry
to do, like the really beautiful carved signage that kind of blends
art and commerce at the same time.
Mm-hmm.
How, how was that?
Was that solid?
Yeah, that's good.
That okay?
Pretty much No, that I'm just writing up my workshop here.
And that was, Basically what define what sign makers should be so problem
solving with our full solutions.
So yeah.
You you got it.
Nailed it.
Perfect.
Well, uh, for those who may not be familiar with you, why don't you kind
of go into your backstory a little bit?
Well, I was, um, I started in 81, 82 as a sign writer.
I went to George Brown College for sign writing, and I was a
sign writer for eight years.
And, you know, just plywood signs, trucks, everything.
And I was okay.
I, I was a little bored with my work.
Uh, I felt I was stuck.
And to be honest, I was going to leave the industry,
especially when plotters came on.
I thought, okay, that's it for me.
And then I met a mentor who's a, a designer and a branding person,
and he said, so I'll help you out.
I'll mentor you.
And so for the next five years I stayed, I opened up a studio in Crear
and, um, He taught me everything I need to know about color marketing,
branding, design, and then I, you know, taught myself how to carve at the same
time, and it just, things switched.
It was just like a, a switch.
It just changed everything, changed the work, changed my clients, and
it just, um, it just showed me the road to the never ending journey of
learning and improving and striving.
So I I, I'm curious about that, Shane, you said that it kind of,
kind of switched your outlook on, on the industry in general.
What, I mean, I think we can all take a guess, but going from like just, you
know, flat pain and, you know, sight signs and truck doors to the stuff that
you do, that, I, I don't think it's an exaggeration to call it art, works of art.
I mean, these are, these, these definitely take signage to an
elevated level that you rarely see.
Was it just that it became a better creative outlet for you or what.
And it was more fulfilling or, or what, what changed that, that made you enjoy it
again?
Yeah, I think it is shifted my mind how I approached design and
approached the sign industry.
You know, I was very much a sign writer and a sign link, and I learned, uh,
through the mentoring is that if I changed the perception of sign making, so if I had
someone come into my shop, I, I would, uh, I was, everything that represented sign
making, I, I was not, for instance, my business cards looked like banker's cards.
My front room looked like a, a, a studio as an art studio.
So everything, it was changing the perception of writers.
And so through a series of process, I would, could educate my client and get.
And get them to, to invest more in the product.
So, and what I would do is say, yeah, I, I can do that.
I had no idea how to do these things.
I just, I'll figure out how, how I, someone says like throwing a
hat or a fence and I just kept changing my hat or the fence and I
just had the right people coming in my door and it was easy for them.
Once they were educated, they could see it was a great investment.
And rather than selling, I would, I would just educate them and they'd say,
well, I wanna spend this amount of money.
And it was it, it was effortless that way.
And then, After that it was up to me to perform and to develop
my design skills and my sense of color and shadow and all the rest.
And it was a learning curve for sure.
Do you remember like,
what the, like the do like one of the first, or like second projects
that you did, like going from like sign writing into actually
like carved like high end stuff?
Was that, do you Yeah.
Are there any that stick out to you?
Well, my sign was the first one and I had to re carve it three or four
times cause it was crap the begin.
So every time I looked at it like, I could do better now.
So yeah, it was, um, I remember my first high relief carving because
it, I used a book called High Relief Carving, I forget his name.
But anyways, I thought, okay, this, this should work out.
And yeah, it was very fussy, overworked, you know, I had lots to learn.
I was very tight looking work.
Uh, I was young too, and, and I was just, the, the learning curve was
steep, but, Yeah, it's, it took a while for me to grow into that part.
You know, I have a lot of work that doesn't look very good.
It's okay.
So I look at that once in a while.
I think that's good.
You know, it's like follow a journey, you know?
It's really about adopting this process that just allows me to,
it's like a revealing process.
It allows me to keep to, it's like removing what's
not necessary, if that makes
sense.
That, that, that's interesting.
If you.
I, I was studying, I, I went back through your Instagram page and your website, kind
of studying some of your work the other day to prepare for a conversation today.
And that's, that's an interesting take on it, removing what
doesn't need to be there.
And I, I think that something that all sign designers probably struggle
with to, to one degree or another is, is, is the art of restraint and,
you know, where, what do we remove?
What, you know, what, what do we take away from this to, to get the
point across without it looking, you know, tacky or over rot or whatever.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and, and your, your work, I think more than just about anybody else's,
I've seen definitely strikes a balance between what's there and what's not
there and, and, and, and what color is present and what color is not there.
I mean, you use a lot of monotone, you know, color schemes or color tone on tone
and, and, and you use a lot of shadow to create color, for lack of a better term.
That, and it's, it really, I mean, I think it, it's strikes
you especially, it strikes me as a designer anyway, to see how.
Simple and clean, and I'm not try trying to get the right,
I'm, I'm not doing it justice.
There's like, there's a word I'm looking for here.
Just, just very restrained, I guess.
I mean, your, your designs are incredibly restrained and yet they're, they work
so well and it's, it's interesting to see how, how you've accomplished that.
That is interesting.
Yeah.
I, um, one of the first things this mentor told me was, it's always about one thing.
You have one thing going on the sign and it's like everything
else is in support of that.
It's like an orchestra.
There's a main theme to the, to the, to the piece.
Everything else is in support of that.
So, um, that was a, that alone was a huge lesson.
And then when building approaching design, I build a criteria.
So it's, it's storage.
So I gather as much information as possible.
Uh, everything, even I don't analyze it or, or think of design at the point
I just, I'm searching and gathering.
And then from that list I'll take a, I'll build a criteria, all the key
points that describe that, that business, that person, you know, it's things
about where they wanna be, what kind of traffic is going by the door, the
architecture, their, their building, the history of that, history of them.
So all of it just goes right.
It's like, it's like putting all these ingredients into a recipe
and it gets distilled down.
It's gets boiled down to the, it's essence.
So anytime I'm designing, I'll just create, I'll look for that one thread
that runs through the whole design.
And of course I'll take into consideration where it's going because it should
become part of the building or its surroundings and that's what gives it,
its grounding and a sense of belonging.
So after that, anything I'm designing or, or something, I
try to keep my mind out of it.
I don't think it through, I just kind of feel it alone.
I.
Something that just comes up, pops up a picture or an idea, and I'll put it in.
I won't question it, I'll just put it in.
And how I cross reference that is, does it visually, does it align with the criteria?
For instance, if it's a, a shop that sells leather chairs, does it feel
like it would be part of the chair, for instance, as it, because colors and
designs and shapes are all emotional.
So what I try to do with the signs is to communicate in an emotional way.
So it was there, they're essentially visual cues and they have to
line up with this criteria.
So basically the criteria drives the design as opposed to me
thinking what it should be.
So I think it's like a bottom up feel, uh, approach.
Then top down, do you
have this criteria listed out, like at the start of the process, or are you
like going through and like sketching, like, okay, like here's the, the main
notes that I want to hit, or is it just, it's all like up here or in
here?
Yeah, it is heart-centered because, because, you know, people purchase
85% of our purchases are emotional.
So, and, and visual language is an emotional language.
So you can, you know, inject sense of smell and sound and
all these little cues in there.
You don't, it's not a conscious thing.
So when I, when I list this criteria, I just gather, list the criteria.
I just, the criteria.
It's not, it's not about what I think or my agenda.
I just list it and then I just read through it.
I get a feel for this, for this thing.
And, um, and then I just start to choose components, like, what are
the sign shape, like, where's it gonna go, how big does it have to be?
So those questions have to be asked, but, so this criteria just kind of guides it.
There's no, it's like method acting, you know, you have to learn a,
everything, all the background stuff.
So, When you do, when you are creating it, it's believable and
it's related closely to the business.
So if someone's driving by or walking by, they gather so much information
from that, such a simple image that it, it not only just entices people
to come in, but it targets the right clientele for the business.
So, and that's a selling point to the business as well.
In most, uh, when I people come into my studio, the conversation
started with, I'm different.
I'm more expensive than anyone, but this is what you're gonna get.
And I'm a designer first and a sign expert first, and I just
happened to craft my own signs.
But I'm not a signed guy, so to speak.
So right away, and I aligned myself in the language and the surroundings as.
As an architect would.
So their perception has changed.
So if you can change their perception, now you're having a different conversation,
now you can start talking about what their investment will be and and educating them.
And sometimes I'll say, you know, go think about it.
Don't, you don't have to de decide right now.
It was, I wanted the work, but I never.
Pushed it.
Uh, you know, I just, you know, go home and think about it and
if you're still interested, we'll we can make an appointment.
There was never a walk-in traffic to be my appointment.
Yeah, right, right.
Just a little hard to cut.
Yeah, well, exclusive.
So those little exclusive paints and two, you know, with the signed
company, they, even when I had nothing and I didn't have any money, I didn't
have any business, I tried to make my front of my shop look successful.
And I was told years ago that people with money wanna be part of success.
So it was always psychology involved, but it was just everything I could
just to not appear as a assigned guy.
That sounds, uh, it sounds counterintuitive.
No.
Yeah, I, I would say it runs counter to like, what most of the audience
does is like, Hey, we are sign guys.
Like we need to advertise.
We need like giant channel letters out front of our shop.
We need like a, a giant showroom with every single thing that showcases every
sign, particular product that we sell.
Uh, so it's, it's interesting to hear you say things like that.
Like, Hey, immediately, like I'm shifting gears into like, I'm not a signed guy.
Yeah.
And I have to background on that.
You know, I was doing a lot of, uh, truck lettering and crappy little a
hundred dollars signs with names on it.
And I worked for the ministry Natural Resources making no dogs on the
beach signs, just so I could be, you know, I just didn't jump into it.
It was like a concept that I, I believed in and long, it's
a long game strategy, but it.
Put me into areas that I wouldn't normally get into.
You know about being a consultant.
I consult with, uh, municipalities as well and, and streetscape.
And so, yeah, it's, it's a long, it's not gonna, it doesn't happen overnight,
but, and there was times too where I would refuse work that would come back
to haunt me if I wouldn't put my name on anything that was not of quality design.
Gotcha.
And, and like those projects that you turned down, were they at points where
like you had enough work coming in that it, like you could turn that away?
Or was it no painful?
Was it painful at the time of like, Hey, I, I can really
use this money, but, but I,
it drove my wife crazy saying, what are you doing?
I said, no, believe me, it's gonna work.
Cause sometimes, you know, I had to, when people come in,
I had to evaluate them too.
Had to parse them.
It was, do you wanna hire me and do I wanna work for you?
They have to get it.
If they don't get it, then it's, It's gonna be an
expensive long process for them.
So I had, yeah, there was times where I had to refuse the work, but it's like
anything, sacrifices have to be made.
I, I feel like you've just obliterated every sign guys business model and like
the first 10 minutes here I'm looking.
Well, there is, you know, and that's, it's the kind of thing if you wanna go into
making these types of signs, you know, for me, I had to be, I had to be creative.
I had to always be challenged.
And I, I got bored easy.
But there was a place, you know, some people command and I said, I, I don't
want all this, I just want a sign.
And I said, it's fine.
I had a, I never said I couldn't or wouldn't I, I wouldn't turn them away.
I would say, here's someone that could take.
Better care of your needs.
And they, you know, wrap people do wraps and large format printing.
They do that really well, but they could also have two parts of their business.
They could have a premium handcrafted business and, you know,
the regular stuff that comes in that, the day job, so to speak.
But there's something, for me, it was not only challenges me and pushes me,
but also it just gets better clients too.
I find, you know, you're less, less about price, more about the quality.
Okay.
But that really resonates.
Mike, you look deep in thought.
Yeah,
no, I,
I, um, it looked like some of my clients that come in the door, it's like, okay,
the are just turning in my head.
I'm like, I'm like thinking, okay, I've gotta like rewrite all the copies.
No, I, I, I mean, I mean, I, I love it.
I think I, I've heard people in this industry, you know, say, or
may or maybe wonder like, is sign shop a dirty word or is sign guy?
Like, is that a bad thing?
Do we wanna be a sign shop or not?
And, and it is really interesting to like, I mean, you are taking sign shop model
and like, just we're talking about fires.
I mean, you're just setting a fire to it.
And it's, and I, and I, and I love it and it's, I, I wish that it, it
was possible for everybody in this industry to do what you're doing.
I mean, in reality, you know, depending on the market you're in, in, in your,
your skill level, obviously it's not, I mean, you, you've got the, you,
you've got the toolbox to back up, you know, being a little choosy on it.
But it's, it's awesome.
I mean, I'm, I am, I, I am, I'm, I'm sitting here thinking like, how,
how can I, How can I be like Shane?
Well, you know, I, you know, I think it can apply.
I had a lot of guys come to my workshops.
I had CNC machines and they, I didn't abandon the sign crafting.
I just, I just wanted to appear.
That sign crafting was not some guy in the back corner when I started out.
You know, they'd said, pull this, don't drink on the job.
Cuz that's what Signwriter do.
And, and so it was like lifting the craft cuz on my sign I said, you
know, Shane Erford sign crafter.
And it was a, it was like a, an honored craft.
And, but that had to change perceptions with people.
But even if you any sign shop that does any type of work, it's the same
approach in the way of, I'm a designer first, I'm a sign expert and I, you
don't tell me what you want because that's not letting me do my job.
You tell me everything about your business and I'll.
And I'll bring it in and I'll turn around and I'll give you the de design you need
so that, that's a whole switch around.
Because I know a lot of sign shops and myself, I get frustrated.
People come in and this is what I want.
I saw this down the road, I like this other thing.
So you create this Frankenstein, so to speak.
Clients not happy.
You're not happy.
And they tend to be, they don't really value what you do.
So they're crapping about money in the bottom line all the time.
And instead of coming back at it, turning it, reverse the flow
and said, I'm a signed expert.
So that changes everything and, and educate why that's important and what.
What value they get it out of that.
Yeah.
You can say, you can go to a shop and they, you tell 'em what you want
and God bless, but this is why I how I do it, and this is why I do it.
So whether it's a wrap or any kind of signage, it is design oriented.
You know, I, I feel like maybe you're not really backing away from the idea of
being a sign maker or a signwriter or sign painter or whatever you wanna call it.
Mm.
I kind of feel like you're just sort of pushing that title back to
what it used to be and what it Yeah.
What it should be.
You know, it's not like you're changing it.
You're, I, you know, I would argue the, probably the vinyl slingers out there
maybe are the ones that have say that.
I don't mean that in a bad way against them, but, you know,
I, but you know what I mean,
like, you know, read the room.
Mike, read
the
room.
No, I don't care.
I mean, I've been there.
I've, I've, look, I've sl I have, I have flung my share of vinyl.
And polluted our visual world more than I ever should have.
And I, I'm the first, yeah.
I'm the, I'm the first one to admit that.
And anybody in this industry who's been doing this long enough
needs to be humble enough to step back and say, you know what?
This isn't where I thought I was gonna go with this and this.
You know, I'm not doing the type of work that I wanted to do, and I'm, I'm not the
type of sign maker that I wanted to be.
And I think Shane's attitude here, or, or outlook on it, I think is the
reason that he is doing, you know, the type of work that we all wish we were.
I'm gonna get on the soapbox a minute and say like, I think a lot of it is
driven by the equipment and like the, the technology and like the manufacturers.
It's like, Hey, how fast can you print?
How wide can you print?
Like, you know, a lot of it is driven by that.
Totally.
And, and just cost mean I've been equipment being stupid cheap compared
to what it used to be as well.
Where, yeah.
Like, and it's all we test that on.
Yeah.
It's all about the
payment price.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Or the equipment being so stupid expensive that now you feel beholden to it and
you've got to, you know, churn out vinyl by the pound or crappy banners
and, you know, stickers all day long.
Just just to make your, you know, your payment on the printer every month.
I mean, you know, we've all been there too.
And then that suddenly you're like, you're working for the printer leasing
company and trying to pay that thing off instead of making signs that you wanna
make, you know, I mean, I, I, and then so
comes along with a faster machine or a better machine.
And, you know, I think it too, I think people are, are shops, you know, if
they're tired of just losing jobs or people shopping for the lowest price
and they all look the same, you know, I heard Tom mention that it's just all in
the mud, you know, it's just trying to grab, grab the best fruit off the truck.
But I think if.
Even a vi like I had, there's nothing wrong cuz I'm a sign crafter.
You're straight through, you know, man laddering carving, but I have nothing
against vinyl or C n C machines.
But you're right, it if they tend to lean on that too heavily, it's just a tool.
The designs first just design to the criteria designed to the business,
adds value to their design, which adds value to the signs sign what
adds value to their business, and they start to rise above the rest.
It's like, yeah, okay, you could, everyone else has CNC machines, everyone else
has vinyl cutters, but we are designed and we're going to make you money
by having you invest in our company.
And the fact that we are designers, not just pretty, not pretty, but
strategic connective design that will the psychology of design.
So yeah, that's, that's not a big reach.
You know, I, I think it's a good business model for most sign shops,
regardless how they do their work.
Cuz it doesn't matter how anyone does it.
It's, I know you guys, uh, agree.
It's, it's all about the design.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
There's definitely a lot of shops out there that just have a vinyl cutter or
wide format printer that are producing absolutely phenomenal, mind-blowing,
beautiful work that is designed, you know, designed first, designed forward.
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I agree totally on that.
Okay.
So, plugging along, you're making your signs, eventually you hit a wall, right?
I mean, you, you stepped away from the industry for a little while.
Yeah.
You know, that's, uh, I worked all the time.
I, I mean, I loved it.
I mentioned to Bryant before, I said, I get up at three in the morning.
I was like, you know, I'm gonna work.
I, I have some, or I would fall asleep and a design would pop in my, I'm
gonna go down there and make that.
And many times I'd work around the clock and I loved what I did and I
had a young family, two buildings and, and renovating and, you know,
I'd have to be honest, a bad marriage.
And I just thought if I just work harder, longer, things can get
through the other side of it.
You know,
you hit me right in the heart.
Unbelievably familiar.
Yeah.
That, and then I just feel it coming.
I felt that it was just my bone marrow was being, my life.
Energy was leaving me.
And I was doing workshops and I was still designing.
It was like I was not connected to myself anymore.
So I, I think, um, One day, I, I came in the shop.
I couldn't do it anymore.
I couldn't pick up my tools.
It was the strangest phenomenon.
I just stood there.
I said, I can't.
So I, I just, same day I ended, said, I don't wanna be married anymore.
I don't wanna do this anymore.
I was like, I'm just, I'm just toast.
So it, that was tough.
That was a hard wall to hit.
And it's a cautionary tale.
And I, you know, I was gonna go off and be a cop, do something different.
That was my plan, only because I just couldn't do the work anymore.
Nothing wrong at work.
I was, business was great.
Um, it was going exactly where I wanted to go.
Uh, but it just, yeah, I just, I had nothing, nothing, nothing in the gas tank.
So, yeah, I just took hiatus.
I thought, you know, I'll give it a bit of time.
I'll come back to sign crafting and it's, I did one last year.
Uh, I designed it and they couldn't find someone to make it.
So I thought, ah, I'll make it.
And it was, it was tough.
It was like swallowing glass, to be honest.
But, you know, I stood at the end of it, I thought, oh my God, I love this.
I love sign making.
I love the whole idea that having something draw it from their
stuff and form out of thin air.
And there it is in three dimension, interacting with the landscape and people
and yeah, there's nothing like it really.
It's, it brings in design, psychology, you know, environmental design, you
know, have to bring in so much knowledge.
You know, I've learned about so many things cuz every job I do, the design
part of the criteria is, is research.
You know, for, if it's an old building, when was the building built?
How would they have thought about things back then?
They, they wouldn't have brought in certain things so, And what
that does is make it look like it.
The sign was established same time the building was.
So, and that's, yeah, so it, I I love the craft.
I really do.
I just burn burnout's.
Not good.
And what, what, what year did you hit the wall?
2010.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And, and you were away until just last year?
Yeah, pretty much.
Wow.
I did one, I did one, uh, one carving.
But yeah, essentially until last year, I, I, you know, design logos and
package design and the same approach to all of it, but it just didn't
have the same satisfaction as sign crafting and working with my hands.
Okay.
So talk to me about the period.
In between like you were a, a cop for a bit.
No, I did.
I, oh yeah.
Oh, you, I applied, yeah, I applied for it, but there was hiring freeze on that.
Well, that, how am I gonna do now?
Right.
Oh, gotcha.
I hung out onto all my equipment and carving tools and uh, you
know, I, I still studied design, I still, you know, approach, you
know, package design and, and the rest, you know, I enjoyed all that.
It was okay, but it just didn't have that thing.
So I just, I became a better designer, I think, cuz I still follow that
path of discovery and, and just, you essentially, you just get, I just,
with good design, it finds you, so you need just to get out of the way.
So I, that was the practice.
So each project that came along was practicing that and I designed a few
signs as well, so, Yeah, it was, it was tough because it was so much part of my
life, so much part of my identity and, and I was, you know, in a community
assigned community and in the small community where I, I had my business
for 25 years, so it was, yeah, it's a kinda lost my identity for a while.
I, it resonates with love with the craft.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Something love with the craft.
Yeah.
And, and, and it was most frustrating time of my life cuz something I loved to
do that I could do well and I had such a, a healthy business, I just couldn't even
look, I couldn't even open my toolbox.
I went to, they asked me to come in and fill in for someone at the,
one of the letterhead meets down at the Sign museum Cincinnati.
And I was, I had to show them how to carve.
I didn't wanna do it.
I woke up in the morning, I said, I can't do this.
I just like, I'll just tell 'em how to do it.
So, but that, you know, that's how, that's how strong burnout
is when you hit that wall.
It's a hard road back.
And I, I think it's for anybody who, who just, it's imbalance.
And I think the way to fix it is just kind of swing it, you know, the benzo
has swing back the other way before it finds its, you know, center again.
And what
worked well for you to, to come back from the burnout?
I think, yeah.
I had to, I had to, for me personally, I had to get rid of, I had to come to
an understanding about how I came to burnout and, and let go of the past.
You know, I was this, or I did that or I had this.
And so I had to let all that go.
And it's like, here I am standing here now and I still love what I do.
So I just kind of, and it with that was that simple.
And I love my sign crafting days.
Not so much, but I'm going more into carving the same approach to
architectural carving, but that allows me to really go further into
the elaborate work carving and such.
But, um, still signs, you know, designing signs.
Yeah.
I still, I still do that.
Okay.
Do you think there's a way to avoid burnout or do you think it's
just like part of the process, uh, like part of the journey?
No, I, I think it, yeah, fine.
You know, for me, like I, I don't know that I, I would be sitting here today
without like, flaming out as hard as I did back when I was, you know, mid
twenties of working 60, 80 hours a week and yeah, not taking care of myself and
just burning the candle at both ends.
You know, my dad, I should have learned from my father.
He was a, had his own iron, iron shop fabricating iron, and he said,
if I can't make my living nine to five, then I, I won't do it.
And he always took time to, I.
To do other things.
I think, you know, as in design, as in nature, as in life, if we don't, uh,
work towards balance, imbalances will, something will force us to find, to
go the other way, will, whether it's health, whether it's emotional health, or
whether it's, whatever it may be, it just forces you to find centric and it wants
to find center so it'll correct itself.
It's usually in harsh ways.
The farther you go, the longer you go, the more harsh the pullback is on it.
So, yeah, it's brutal And uh, you know, a lot of people thought, what if he,
you know, if I'm leaving the industry, what does it hold for the rest of us?
But I don't think they ever, the story was ever out there about me
burning up personally as I did.
You know, everything basically collapsed.
Marriage, business, everything.
So, yeah, just kind I, you know, I just jumped out of a moving vehicle.
That's what I
did.
But hey, I was so loved.
I luck of the craft.
Yeah, I, I mean, if, if the vehicle's going off the cliff, like what else are
you gonna do at that point, you know what,
I wish I would've heard that Let go.
That could save me some time.
Yeah.
So
in, in hindsight, do you feel like hitting that wall could have been
preventable or at least you could have slammed on the brakes earlier so you
didn't hit it as hard or Absolutely.
Was it totally inevitable no matter what you, you could have done?
Was it just
gonna happen?
No, I, um, yeah, I could have easily prevented it by taking more time to,
so I'm not working today, I'm not at, this are my times and that's it.
Nothing more.
And then balance it with more fun things, you know, there was a time I
didn't get outta my workloads, I just.
You know, I, at first I had my, we lived upstairs, my studio was downstairs,
so there was times where I would leave the building for, for a week at a time.
And yeah, I could have prevented a lot of that.
Just balance, balance, life more, exercise, more fun, you
know, work hard, play hard.
I just worked hard.
That's it.
Yeah.
This one, uh, definitely hits hard for, for me.
I, I'm a notorious workaholic.
I, I, yeah, I, for whatever reason, I mean, I, it's this weird, like, sadistic
pleasure that I find and just working and working and working and, um, as I've,
as I've gotten older, I've definitely tried to, Keep myself off of that path.
And, and, you know, I've experienced very similar to what you have.
I mean, I, mm-hmm.
I hit a wall at 500 miles an hour and it was, it was tough.
And marriage didn't survive.
Sold the business fortunately.
But burnout's burnout is really tough.
And yeah, I feel like I'm on the verge of it again, and I'm, and I'm,
I'm like trying to look, look back and, and, and figure out how to, you
know, how to not have it happen again.
And it's, it's tough because like when you, when you're, when you do ultimately
enjoy what you do and you are a workaholic and that work is, is fulfilling to you,
like, it's, it's really hard to look at that objectively and say, listen, this
is not a, you know, a healthy place to be and I need to step away from
it, or I need to go do something else.
Yeah.
And that's a tough place to be.
I think for me it was, um, I mean, I loved what I did and, and everything
else, but there was something else underneath it was, you know, just.
You always have to look back to our early beginnings, but my dad
was a workaholic and that's how you showed love for your family.
That's how what you did for your family and you just, oh yeah, shit hits a fan.
You just work harder.
So that's a recipe for high speed collision if there was one.
Yeah.
So I think it's just understanding why we are a workaholics.
You know, some people are alcoholics, you know, and I was neurotic too.
Part of my thing too, I was very neurotic when I was lettering science.
The letters had to be perfect.
I spent so much energy worrying about such details of my work and it, I
had to come to grips with that too.
So, yeah, I think.
Working too hard.
Burnout is us, the end result of something deeper, something more
profound, because there's something that doesn't, we know the wall's coming
and we know we're picking up speed, but some way we say, I don't know.
What did you,
yeah.
If you go, if you go fast enough, you'll go through it
or you just hoping you won't hit the wall sometime.
Yeah.
You just,
I, I think that's the mentality everybody takes.
Okay.
I see that wall coming.
I'm just, I'm just gonna speed up and hope I just break right
through it and I'll be fine.
Right.
Yeah.
No choice.
Yeah.
You know, it's a's kind of, it's a joke, but I think it's really true.
I mean, and it's, and you're right too.
I mean, I think there's a societal pressure on, on us that that's
how we have to provide and that's what, you know, like this.
Subconscious measure of success we have is how hard we work and how much we work.
And if you, you took a day off, then you're, you're not successful.
You're not providing for your family, you're lazy or, or whatever it is.
And it's hard to overcome that mental block too.
And that's something that I definitely, you know, struggle with.
And, and, and still too, to this day, I mean, I'm, I'm getting better
at forcing myself to take days off.
And there are times I come in and sit down in my office and I, you know, I've
got a stack of signs, I've got a design, and I, I just, I, I physically, like you
said, you couldn't pick up your tools.
Like sometimes I can't touch that mouse.
Yeah, yeah.
And I just have to get up and, you know, and, and walk away.
And it's the worst feeling in the world sometimes It
is.
It's like there's a force field around it.
Yeah.
It's weird.
You just, Yeah, it's like magnetically, like repelling your hand and it,
and it's, and then it's hard not to fall down like this hole of kind of
beating yourself over it, you know?
And, and it's a vicious cycle.
I can touch the mouse, Mike.
I just can't, like, I just stare at the screen.
Like, you just kind of move around.
You throw it around and click on stuff like, oh, hey, hey, here's something.
Let me click on it a hundred times and just move it around a little.
I'm
working,
I know.
I, I'm a, a bagpiper and I knew this, uh, this guy he played since he was
a kid and he was, you know, grade one piper and he was always go practicing,
practicing until one day he said, my hands wouldn't, fingers wouldn't move.
And it wasn't anything physical.
It was an emotional, it's like your body's like enough, no more.
You know, it's, it's like, you know, it's just something says no.
So, and especially when we're younger and think full of everything and.
And then we just keep going, you know?
And I burnt out small burns along the way, but once the big one happened, I, I never,
I don't think I ever came back fully.
Like there's something in me that just kind of blew, blew something and, and it
just didn't get, it just doesn't fit back.
Do,
do you think that you, do you think that something like broke in you
when you hit that wall and, and it just hasn't, can't repair it?
Or do you think that something changed in your priorities or
your outlook changed in, in you?
I think yeah, just approach
it differently now.
Bit of both, I think, you know.
Yeah.
I find, you know, there was a song by Blue Rodeo.
It's like, you know, he is basically, it blew apart and then some of
the pieces went put, were put back together, but they were wrong with
some of them missing, you know?
Yeah.
And it's a weird psychological, um, It's a powerful thing.
Like I, you think, oh, burn, well, I get tired.
You get, you know, exhausted.
But no idea.
The emotional toll it takes and you know, that I couldn't touch my tools.
I, I'd open my tool, but I really feel nauseous.
I get such a strong thing.
Yeah.
And I just kept pushing.
And I think it's just, I dunno if something got broken, I think it
just, I think, um, you know, if you pull something out, you know, and
it, it just won't grow back anymore.
Like if you just keep mm-hmm.
For me, if I just, I pushed it and pushed it and pushed it and once it
just broke, it just never came back.
It never regenerated.
So I feel like there's a piece missing.
I don't have the same push or drive, but the love of the craft, but I don't
have the, the longevity in there.
I don't, and part of it's too is like, ah, I just don't, I
don't wanna do that anymore.
Yeah, I think for me it was like the patience was the, the
part that didn't come back.
Like the, the, the willingness to like sit down at every minute detail because
that was, yeah, I used to think that was part of why the work was great is
like obsessing over every little detail.
Uh,
I hear you.
You know, that's why I couldn't sign craft anymore.
Couldn't make, cuz I'd spent hours, you know, everything was so crafted
to such a fine touch and I just didn't have that in me anymore.
Yeah, it's a strange, it's a strange phenomenon.
It's, um, it was gonna some it's gonna say something.
I forget what it was.
It's
funny you, you're talking about, you know, I was, I've been thinking just
about my career here, but Brian, I mean, you know, I'm in the middle of
this ridiculous house renovation too.
And, um, Shane Shaney the backstory here during Covid, my wife and I
got bored and we bought a fixture upper house and completely gutted
it down to the studs and have.
Are restoring it and renovating it, and for like nine months straight.
That's all I did.
I mean, it was, it was 12, 16 hour days of this house and it, and it's,
we're not doing just like a, you know, like a DIY type flip on it.
Everything's gray.
I mean it, like, I, I handmade all the trim.
I, I've handcrafted all these beams, hand laid, all this hardwood floor.
I mean, every single square inch house is touched by my hands, but
nine months of doing it all day, every day, like eating, breathing, sleeping.
This house, I hit a wall two years ago and like, I can barely, I can
barely bring myself to even, like, vacuum the house now, let alone
make it's, it's only half done.
Right.
But I just can't, I can't
do anything on it.
I think it was so bad, Shane.
I had to send him, um, do you remember the, the show home
improvement with, uh, Tim, the tool man, Taylor and his assistant Al?
Yeah.
I got on, uh, cameo, which is a service where you can like order videos
from celebrities to your friends.
It's, it's great fun.
I ordered a video from Al for Mike and his wife to give them
a pep talk about renovating his
house.
It was, it was the greatest thing too.
And I, and I, I tell you what, like I really needed it.
Like, it was, it was great to hear from Al Borland in his flannel shirt that like,
oh my gosh, you know, there was light at the end of the tunnel and you're gonna
get there and remodeling is hard, but.
Yeah, but I mean, it was the same thing.
I'm, I'm just listening, talk about, you know, obsessing here of these details and
like, you know, I must have spent 30, 40, 50 hours driving around trying to find
just the right type of nail for my floor.
You know, not even, you know, let alone actually, you know,
driving all those nails in.
And it's, like I said, we just started painting in front of the
house and, and we went through 40, 45 different color samples until we
picked a color that we like and just obsessing over all these details.
Yeah.
And it just, you know, it, it drives you nuts.
I think there's point in talking about that.
I think there's something to that, you know, getting so deep in the weeds and
obsessing over things that nobody else would even notice, but you, that really
leads down that path of, of burnout.
And I, and I think that, that that obsession.
I think anybody who's really great at what they do, ha you know,
has that obsession or that that obsessive quality within them.
And I think it's probably what makes them great.
I, it would help me a lot, as I heard along the way was
the illusion of perfection.
You know, there's no such thing as perfection and that released a lot of
stuff for me, I think too, part of being the business sign business, having your
partner, having like a good partner.
You know, that was part of my burnout too, is like I had someone that
would just like sabotage and, you know, spend money and, you know,
I wanted a break in a lot of ways.
Like I said, I'm re needs.
I need a break, but so a partner's big, big deal and a good home life too.
I mean, it's all connected.
There's no separation.
I think signing
that's a really good point.
I mean, that's a, this is a difficult industry and it's an exhausting
industry and one that takes a lot of tolls on, on you and, and you know,
having a spouse or you know, somebody at home that's supportive of you, or
if they're actively in that business.
I mean, you've gotta be working together towards the same goal.
And it sounds like you were kind of in a similar boat as me, where, you
know, we were definitely not working in the same direction and constantly
trying to undermine each other and, and that definitely, I mean, it's,
it's really hard to do good work when you're, you know, fighting your own
internal battles and demons like that.
It, it just, and it's not conducive to creative life, a creative life.
No, it's not.
No,
it, it, it's not.
And it, and it makes, I mean, come hell or high water, you.
If you're a creative person, you're gonna live that life and
that's what you've gotta pursue.
And there's no, there's no way you can get off that path.
I mean, you know, creative person can't go work in a factory
all day long and be satisfied.
That's just not how it works.
No.
So creative person has to be, you know, pursuing a creative job and, and it's
so easy to be derailed from that and everything, just that kind of emotional,
you know, baggage makes creativity the part of your brain that, that is creative.
I mean, it almost makes it stop functioning
in
a way.
It is.
It comes from, yeah, that good place.
You know, I always think creativity is more of a, a, an allowing.
So if there's other things, you know, clamping down on it or heavy sitting
heavy on it, it's just hard to do.
And, and that was always in my amazement when I was still designing.
I don't know where these designs are coming from, but, you know,
I discovered though, and it was through that process, you know,
people say, well, you're talented or, you know, I, you love what you do.
It's like, well, it's really not comes from me.
All I do is facilitate.
The process of coming through me and I've heard it.
Others, other authors like novelists talk about it, music composers and
many other, and they talk about, it's just they get out of the way and
they allow things to come through.
So even when I was physically and emotionally and mentally exhausted,
I still had these designs.
I was just like, it was as if I was almost an observer as well.
But it takes the pressure off.
But I think it's a good way to think of design cuz there's no pressure.
It just set it up so things come through you and it's basically
designing from in, in intuition.
Yeah.
This is the part that I really wanted to talk about of like what your creative
process looks like and just mm-hmm.
Like how you achieve that, that flow because it like looking
at your work, it's easy to see.
Like, I like if I look at it and I try to picture like, how would I have come
up with this like, I could form no words as to like how something like that would
come together, but I feel like it's a, like a series of steps and like mm-hmm.
To get into flow.
Maybe I, I don't know.
Like what, what do you, like, what does your creative process look like?
How would you describe it to everybody?
Mm-hmm.
So, going into understanding that it comes through me.
So, you know, when I gave my workshops, I said it's almost like, or opening a portal
and letting things come through because I, it might be a little deep for sign making,
but it's true for everything I believe.
And everything's connected to everything.
And I think good design connects us to everything, to each other.
And we're all part of the universe.
We're all part of the same thing.
We're ourselves are, are arranged as the golden means.
So there's a, that's why.
When we see certain faces or see certain buildings or something,
it's all within that golden means.
So there's a connection there.
And then the book, uh, the old way of seeing talks about that
we're innately all good designers.
We're innate.
Yeah.
Put it right here, folks.
That's it.
And so
we'll drop it in the show
notes for sure.
Yeah.
And it's like, great book.
I think everyone should read it because it changes, can change our whole society.
Like if you're surrounded by good design, with good design, meaning
authentic, universal design, that we feel better, we function better.
Everything there's, we're all in that flow.
So as a designer to get there, I need to, when I design something, it's never about,
I, I like this, or I think it should have that there's, I'm, I'm out of the picture.
I'm a facilitator period.
And I let my clients know.
It's not about what you want.
It's not about what I want.
It's your story.
But how it's gonna come about is.
It's going to come forth.
It will, it will find me and it will find the solutions for you.
So, so yeah, I just, again, that cri writing criteria, getting in, in the
feel of it, repeating the criteria.
And to be honest, if I'm just relaxed, I have good, nice classical music
plan or some old jazz and I'm just in a good place and there's a picture
usually comes up, pops on the page and I'll look at it or else what I'll do.
If that's not happening, I'll go and for instance, I dunno if
what signs you're familiar with, there's a bank cafe has a B on it.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That's one that sticks out in my mind.
Mm-hmm.
So I think.
Okay.
Didn't want the bank.
It was a former bank.
So what started was, I gather everything else, what they wanted to achieve, who
they wanted as a client who was coming into town, the history of the town.
And she wanted to look, feel as if it was always established, always been there.
So I'm thinking, okay, the pioneers of the time, I did a little research.
What they did was plant apple trees and created bee colonies cuz the
bees were the health of the farm and health of the natural environment.
So I thought, oh, and then I looked in the bees, and bees were community,
which lined up with the bank, cafes and wellbeing and everything else.
I said, well, there we go.
There's a B.
That's the one thing, it's gonna be the B'S going on it.
So, and what I'm doing too, when I, when I'm going through this criteria,
I'm scribbling I, my hands scribbling.
I don't.
I don't, I don't look at other signs.
I don't look at anything.
I just, it's all about the topic and I'm thinking, so now, so inside it has, it's
a really tall, it's classic bank building.
So I have really tall ceilings with heavy cornice and, and
classic, uh, metal ceilings.
So I left, okay, should have the reach.
And then I thought, I'm playing it.
So I'm just playing as well.
And I'm playing around.
It's like, well, there's honeycomb.
Well, in the honeycomb there's these little edges, you know, the sides.
And I just cool with the line.
So the whole, I'm just intuitively sketching and I think, oh,
there's something there.
And I, I came across the sketch of that.
It is such a rough scribble, but I'm just getting the feel of it.
And so I'm looking back at the storyline, getting the feel.
So now I have in the top cap was the cornice and the up, you know, up lines.
And the honey corner across the top just says, traditionally
they would've done back then how they would've built the molding.
And then the teardrop is basically honey that has a drip, you
know, just a, a drop of honey.
And it has a nice feel to it.
If you look at that shape.
It exists so many places in nature and we identify with that, you know,
it's very, uh, and two, the shape holds, the bee like cradles it as well.
And so the bees in the middle.
So there's a lot of.
Then I'll go through crafts referencing of, of design elements.
You know, the border all are naturally proportion and they're
all related to each other.
So every aspect of that sign is support of that B.
And there's nothing on that sign that is just put on there cuz it's
pretty, or I've seen it down there.
It's cool, you know, it's just kind of this natural process.
And I cross reference it with good design.
Does that work?
Why does that work?
You know, the shadow of the, the upright with all the geometric shapes
and then you have so strong geometric shapes, contrast to the organic shape.
It's a really nice, it's like you always look for contrast, whether it's texture,
color, dark and light, and then colors.
You know, why those colors, you know, some recede, some proceed.
So, and then the idea of just a bit of gold and a, so it's decade, so
they're saying was gourmet fruit or.
Extraordinary food with a gourmet twist.
So it was,
yeah, I, I can remember seeing that one.
And it's like, that's the exact, that's how I would describe it.
This is like a gourmet sign.
I mean, it's,
yeah.
So, so the process is, I wasn't, I never thought, how am I gonna
design this or what should I do?
Or I start looking at other, don't look at anything else.
And actually my, my inspiration, I look at glass blowers.
I go to the museum, I look there at painters.
You know, I hear like everything.
I don't look at signs and the, that's such
a good tip.
Yeah.
Like, hey, because that's usually like the first place that people started.
And I can remember back when I was like throwing out 20 designs a week.
It was like, Hey, hey.
That's the first thing I would do is like, okay, like I gotta get pretty good idea.
Let me Google this and see like what everybody else has put together for Yeah.
This type of business or something, you
know?
And it's a, and it's an easy common mistake.
And I did that for eight years until I met my mentor and he said, he says no.
And it's, I call it top down stuff.
He's tried to make it work and, and it doesn't work because it's not authentic.
It's coming from our heads.
It's our minds are very limited in their ability.
You know, I like the saying of, we never saw anything by thinking.
And so it's more of a, from the ground up, it's more of a felt thing.
And it makes sense because, you know, when I.
So a client comes to me and, and so after I've designed it, I sit down and I
reiterate their business and the criteria I've made, and they, they agreed to that.
I said, so, and here's the design.
I don't show them design right off.
Usually it's a half hour conversation before I present design and then
say, here have these elements, uh, communicate these values you have.
And then, and then it's okay.
Some say, okay, what happens?
I think with a lot of sign companies, the client goes home and they ask their
janitor or their friends or their husband or their wife, whether they think of the
design and they'll put it in the 2 cents.
And I, so I usually give them the advice.
I say, if you ask.
People in your life, your opinion on this.
I said ask 'em how it makes them feel.
Cuz that's the language we're, we're using.
And that's the language that's gonna get people in your store.
You're essentially, you wanna seduce them.
I, I had a lot of clients where they say, I had people come into my store
and they didn't, they said I was, I saw you sign and I had to come in here.
Where do you do?
How can I sign up?
And I think it's because when you design that way, there's
a, there's an intuitive natural elements that go into it, you know?
Um, I think, and then in the book you'll read that.
And I think that's, there's a lot of power to that.
You know, especially, we don't see it a lot.
We see square buildings and really bad architecture, and we're surrounded by,
you know, disconnected food, you know, fast food, disconnected architecture,
you know, bigger, cheaper, faster.
Like how, yeah.
Yes.
And our society is like, we're just.
It's like eating fat, junk food.
You just want more and more and more and the more you eat, the
more you fast you want to go.
And I think, you know, you just get numb to that.
But then there's something that speaks to our true nature in all of us,
our true beings as part of nature.
That's why we all love going in nature, not just cuz there's birds tweeting
and it's fresh airs because we look around and we see ourselves in nature
proportionately and and structurally.
So there's something in that that's quite powerful and such a great tool
for sign designer and also ultimately, your client who's going to have.
Lots of people come through and the right people come through through their doors.
And the thing is, you know, typical too, a lot of them have a business
and they spend all this money inside.
I said they have no idea what's inside unless you get them in the door.
Not just people, but the right clientele.
So it's a whole art and science to that and whole psychology to it as well.
I just, I look at Mike and like, I, I dunno if you, you just like
put him in like a design coma or
Mike's at a trance right now.
I know.
I used to my workshops, I'd have a whole day of that and just take
I, what I do, put my designs up and I deconstruct, deconstruct.
And it's like worlds within worlds within worlds.
It's, it's like something so simple.
They can say so much.
I think that's when they, I think when people look at the design
set, Created that I've done.
They see, they feel it, but they just don't know what it is they say it's
so simple, but they're say so much.
I think it's along those lines.
I think we're all great designers.
We just, our heads get in the way, you know, and it's easy to do in
our world, you know, it's just fast, cheap, and, and lots of it.
Yeah.
So if you were to, oh, Mike, I'm sorry, I interrupted you.
I, I heard you take a breath.
You're about to launch into it.
Oh,
no, no, you're fine man.
Go ahead.
Okay.
All right.
I was gonna say, SHA like if you had to give like the average sign shop that
is doing like the standard stuff out there, like one or two bits of advice
right now, what would you tell them?
How can they be better?
Yeah.
You know, this isn't gonna, doesn't happen overnight, and I.
You know, you have to carry on with business and commerce.
I think if there's something creative in you that you want to express, or
you're feeling frustrated with your work, frustrated with your clients,
or, or frustrated with not getting the jobs you want, or competing on price,
hold on, then start injecting that.
Start, start bringing the designer to the fore, uh, and go learn about design.
You know, don't look at other science, don't look at other things.
If you are looking at other things, don't look at science,
but look at things you see.
Just could be anything.
Architecture or what, what someone's dress, you know how they dress.
And try to understand what is it in that, that I really like and try to understand.
So if you try to understand.
Design that way and start to educate yourself on design.
There's some good books out there, and even just the fundamentals of design
and color theory and all the rest, and just start injecting it into your work.
Start coming forward and say, you know, I'm a designer first.
We are a design oriented company and this is the value and this
is how we, this is why you should come to us instead of someone else.
Does anyone get assigned anywhere?
You know, and, and mediocre signs are everywhere and it's, it's not
a judgment call, it's just the fact that they're not designed well.
It's like McDonald's, it's still food, but it's not healthy.
It doesn't do anybody any good other than the bottom line.
So yeah, I would just tell him to start to become better designers and,
and look into what that is and, and stop looking at other people's signs.
You can look at them and say, that's, that's wonderful, but
that's someone else's solution for a very specific problem.
And, but if you wanna, if you insist on looking at science,
what is it about that you like?
I mean, take away the goal, take away all the, the glitz and, and the bells
and whistles, and it should stand as black and white image without any
color, without anything like that.
And I, I, that's another thing with design too.
It'd have to stand in on two dimension if, and then all the three dimension
does is enhance those features.
It just tunes that design a little more.
So, yeah, just, and you know what?
Get away from the computer.
Start, start sketching.
Start.
You know, we have, I heard a scientist say once that we have
ancestral memory in our hand.
And I know a lot of intuition comes through our hands.
So, You're not even aware of what you're doing sometimes, and you think, oh,
what that is cool and what's going on?
So you follow it.
So yeah, get out, start sketching, start using your hands and look at type,
like typography too is misunderstood.
I only use about three or four typefaces and type has a, uh, an expression and
has, uh, expression, uh, in so many ways.
You know, the, like Roman lettering and some block lettering, gothic
lettering is all proportion to our human body, you know, so there's,
there's a connection there.
So educate yourselves.
Mike a makes better designer, just
a handful of typeface.
I asked Mike for a recommendation the other day.
He gave me like, he's like 12.
I was designing a t-shirt for my kids' preschool graduation.
He's like, here's 12 possible ones.
I was like, dude, I came to you because I just wanted one.
Like that's,
I never give my clients choice either.
I never, I don't do three designs.
I do one design.
Yeah, it's so true.
You know, I, you know, my, when I was first getting mentored,
he said, it's so simple.
I have to think of as, it's either circles, rectangles, or triangles
or circle squares and triangles.
That was it.
Everything in the world is of those things.
So it's, I always say it's a, you know, English is my second language
and visual language is my first.
And I think, you know, as people as human race, we have tens of thousands
of years of development in that area.
So if we, if we understand that, the more we can understand
it and it'll be lifetimes.
Before we can articulate it, but if we can understand that somewhat,
we can communicate through signs or any, any other visual medium.
I think it's all about connection.
Bottom line.
We all wanna connect, you know, whether it's doing more, doing more
drugs or working or, or searching for that, you know, the next product that
you're gonna throw in the garbage.
It is just, we want connection.
So I think good design does that.
And you know, I always think it was, um, people have always liked my signs, but
I think it's not, not because they're signs because of this other, they just
connect with it on a, on a deeper level.
Yeah, yeah.
That, that we don't normally do in, in everyday life.
So, you know, there is, there is a place in the sign industry for that.
If anything, there's a big opening for that because everybody's going this
way and you can go do the other thing.
And even if it's just really good design, understand becoming the sign
experts, the design experts, no, it's just in the way of, you know, this
is how I think your sign should look.
It's like this is the solutions for your, for your business.
Very powerful.
Mike, what were, did you remember what you were gonna say?
No.
This is either
very encouraging or very discouraging.
No, my, my brain is, is running a million miles an hour.
I'm, I'm thinking of, there's a lot of parallels with what Shane is saying to
what Dan Antonelli said when we had him on, you know, he, he, he talked a lot
about psychology of, of branding and marketing and, and, you know, the thought
processes and psychology behind consumer buying patterns and everything like that.
What, what attracts a person to, to something.
So I'm thinking a lot about, about that and I, I, I love Shanes.
Suggestion to, you know, if you're looking for inspiration, don't look at signs.
I think that's something that on a daily basis, I'm on Google images, like
I, because I after a while, like, how many monument signs can you design for?
They all start looking exactly the same, you know?
And I, and I love the.
The advice to, to not look at signs, to look at anything else.
And, and I, you know, I, I think that the rules of good design apply to
anything that is designed, whether it's a sign or whether it's a, you
know, a mouse or car or, or anything.
You know, good design is good design and I, I think there's probably a lot
that you can, a lot of inspiration that you can gain from looking at other
well-designed objects or things that have nothing to do with signage or
typography or advertising or anything.
Uh, is, is interesting when you're talking to our, remember Toyota,
that they design a, a lot of their.
Cars at first with by hand.
Mm-hmm.
So their idea is that human body kinetics create lines that
are within the golden mean.
So, and everything they do is a lot of hands-on.
And what happens, you sit in a Toyota or you look at a Toyota, you just feel good.
And when you sit, I've heard people said, I love my to, it just sin.
It just feels right.
It fits.
But I don't think they're talking physically.
I think emotionally, like it's a really, it's very interesting as we,
you know, no matter how sophisticated we become, we are still the same.
We still get lit up by the same things we did thousands of years ago.
Right.
Jillian thing.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
It's interesting when you describe it that way.
Let's transition to the future, Shane.
Mm-hmm.
What's, what's the future for you and for your business?
Like, what is, what is the, the future?
Well, I think, you know, You know, where I am, uh, in my life and my career.
I would love to, I always, in my workshops too, I'm not just doing two more,
but in the workshops I said like, I'm just wanna hand off what I was given.
Like, it's not like I know everything and this is the way to do it.
It's more or less showing how to open a door instead of
tell 'em what door to open.
So I just wanna pass on the knowledge that was given to me because it is
such a simple concept, but is so overlooked and missed in today's society.
And I think it'll just make the world a better place and, and make your business
more run better, more satisfying, and, Better clients, but so many signs I
see everywhere, it's just so, there's such disconnection around there.
So I, I want, hopefully in some form I pass that forward, whether it's
someone suggested Zoom, cuz it's, it's expensive to come, you know,
to get on a flight to pay for the workshop and, and the rest of it.
But perhaps a book, uh, someone mentioned, you know, book with all
of the design philosophy, all the processes, all the pictures deconstructed.
So it's just one book you can keep on hand and just kind of re
remind yourself how to go about, not to get in your head too much.
So, I mean, perhaps a book for me, but as far as work goes, you
know, always be a sign sign guy.
I always design signs and consult that way.
Um, but my focus now is to go into hand carving fully.
Cause I missed that, that part and I never got a chance to fully explore that.
So, and it's the same approach as I did with signs, but now I'm.
It can go and create art.
It's more art than Yeah.
Than just functional.
Yeah.
And that carving, that's, they've been staring at me the whole time.
We've doing the podcast behind me, right, yeah.
Behind you is like, ugh.
It's amazing, man.
And, and to think, like, when I look at stuff like that, I, I just,
I'm like, I could never do that.
But I, I, I, I'm sure like at one point you were probably
feeling the same way there.
It's, it's so interesting you said that, you know, I feel I've learned so much
about life through my work, and not just through the work, but striving to,
as you say, you know, to keep getting better, to, I want to do more and better.
And with carving was a big one because when I first started carving, I
think, I think I know what I'm doing.
I get it.
So, and it's just this mess.
It's like chunks missing.
And I think I, I can't see anything anymore.
And I think it's like life, right?
It's like we just kind of, I thought I knew what I was doing.
Now I'm just in this mess, soap.
How I started was I think, okay, I'm gonna break it down into small pieces.
And I picked my highest and the lowest points of the carving and now I'm just
going to break it down to simple steps.
And so by the time you finished, you arrived.
But I could never look at that.
People like, I think we just carve it.
It's like, no, it's a series of processes and steps to get to that point.
And at the end it just looks complex, but it's complex cuz there's many layers,
but I can only do one layer at a time.
So there's a, I think a lot of people could carve.
I think, uh, I used to have a little bit of carving classes and I say, we all know
an apple, so we'll carve an apple first.
And it's amazing, um, how well people can carve and, and.
Do this kind
of work, especially when you can turn, turn your head off
always away, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I know.
Yeah.
So, uh, this is a, like a, a tougher question.
What do you wanna be remembered for?
That is a good
question.
Um, I have a hard time with that question.
I kept, you know, coming up with nothing.
But I think, cause I thought my work was never about me at all.
And I'm always uncomfortable when people say, you have lots of talent or love,
you know, or I'm the master of this.
It's like, no, I'm not.
I'm just found a way to communicate to something bigger than myself.
And I, I just learned to facilitate and, and I'm glad it,
it's taught me that humility.
But I think if anything, if I remembered for anything, I think it
would be that I honored the craft.
I was steadfast in my honoring of the craft and didn't compromise
in any way with that, you know?
I
love that.
Yeah.
It, it, it, it definitely comes through in your work.
A hundred percent.
So,
yeah.
Thanks Mike.
Are you just, I think I've disturbed.
I see it.
He's, he's like a little, like, I dunno, anything.
I dunno.
Shane broke me.
That's step one though, right?
Oh yeah.
Mission accomplished.
Yeah.
You can't fix
anything that's not broken, right?
No, I, I, I, I have, I have his Instagram and stuff open over here on my other
screen, so I'm kind of scrolling through it as he is talking and looking at all
these signs and stuff and just, it's been, it's been a little while since I look
at some of your work and, and it's just, you know, part of it makes me just wanna
like, throw my hands and quit, you know?
Right now.
Screw it.
Uh, your, your, your walk through life is really interesting and,
and really resonates with me.
It sounds like we've kind of had some, some similar experiences with, with, with
hitting that wall and, and, and burnout.
So I, I'm just, I'm really, I apologize.
I don't mean to be quite so, so quiet.
I know I'm usually not quite the, the quiet guy on these, but I'm just
kind of absorbing what he's saying.
It really, a lot of it really hits home and it's, it's very pertinent to,
you know, kind of some of the things that I'm dealing with right now.
Burnout work and, and thinking about the future.
And yeah, for that matter, what do I wanna be remembered for?
You know?
And I don't wanna be remembered as being a workaholic.
Yeah.
I think that's my biggest fear myself.
Mm-hmm.
Um, especially to my kids of like, I, I don't want to be
remembered as that to my kids.
Like, uh, hey, like, dad was working, I, this big thing
happened and dad wasn't here.
That's big.
Oh my God, that's huge.
And I was lucky enough to work downstairs and my kids would come
down and, and for a lot of it, for a lot of years they wanna talk to me.
It was down in my shop.
So they'd come down, I'd stop what I was doing and, and give them full
attention and, and talk with them.
But I didn't go on camping trips.
I didn't go hardly anywhere with them cuz I was working all the
time with such great regret.
But I have to say though, for my kids, every time they smell
sawdust or the smell of wood, they think of those fond memories.
So as, hopefully I got quality time in there.
But yeah, life.
So life's tough when you have regret.
Regret's a tough one cause you can't do anything about that.
But guys are still in the position.
I think it, I think it's just striking balance, just creating, creating balance
and understanding why you feel the need to work so hard and you think of, you
know, just this whole conversation I.
You know, Dirk Rampling, his work, are you familiar with Dirk?
He's in Australia.
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they came, took my workshop, his, and through the workshop he had the same
expression as Mike, actually, more so his eyes on him, he looked so tired, he just
like, like exasperated and beleaguered.
And it took him, he, it took him, uh, he went back home and it slowly
absorbed, uh, into him, like processed.
And he approached his work entirely different and differently.
And it just, he work in a matter of few months to switched right over
completely into a whole other level of design and did doing his own thing.
It didn't look like anyone else's, which was pretty cool.
So, yeah, it's, it, it is, it's like learning a new golf swing.
It's a brute at first, but after a while it's so, so simple in.
And it's application.
And, um, Shane, tell us about the workshops real quick.
Mm-hmm.
I know we've mm-hmm.
We've, you know, hinted around at them a little bit, but,
um, just give us the Yeah.
Elevator pitch on those things.
Yeah.
Well, I think, you know, I, I call it, it's, it's just a rethink on design
and it's pretty much what we've talked about, and it's just a whole shift.
It's a, a full weekend.
People have taken it before they, you know, it's game changer.
Danowski took it and he uses a lot of it in his, his business.
It is, uh, it is like a, a light bulb moment for a lot of people,
and it's changed the way they, they do business and, and, and design.
Uh, it's three day workshop starts Friday and goes till, uh, Sunday afternoon.
The, um, a lot of it's in class de uh, dissecting or deconstructing
design and selling signs and.
Pretty much everything we've talked about is the full package on that.
And also at the end of it, they, um, they get a free design consultation
on one, uh, project for me.
Good for a year.
The first one is in, is this weekend, and the second one is July 14th to 16th.
And, um, I have, if you know, uh, Roger Cox, he's coming, he
had a host of signs, um, yeah.
Gary,
Gary Johnson.
His signs are unbelievable too.
Yeah, that's, that's another one that's worth looking up if
you guys have never seen it.
Yeah.
And, uh, Noel, Noel, ham.
Ham, she does sign signs in Chatham.
She's been sign crafted quite a bit.
Yeah.
That name sounds familiar.
I've heard it.
Yeah.
Sign it.
Yeah.
Caught.
I'm sorry.
Sorry, Noel.
I forget your last name.
Uh,
that's okay.
Yeah.
We'll, we'll try to include all these in the show
notes for sure.
Yeah.
And Gary Johnson of Great American Sign Company, so he's coming and, and
a few others have expressed interest.
So it's interesting though.
I thought I'd get more, but you know, it could be signs of the times.
I mean, I used to do them.
I, they were full all the time.
But, um, you know, it's a, it's a commitment.
Not just come to the workshop, but to wanting to change how you do business.
And, and a lot of people think, I can't just be on me.
That that's not, not the way at all.
I mean, if you saw my work before, It was, it was mediocre at, at best it was.
And um, I keep it around.
It's just like, well,
yeah, yeah, sometimes you gotta keep yourself humble.
Certainly Uhhuh.
It's just like, you know, it's like playing in the wrong ballpark.
It's all by myself thinking I'm doing a great job until
I go over to the other ones.
Oh, this is how you play baseball.
There you go.
That's so cool.
Well, Shane, uh, can't thank you enough for coming on, man.
This has been such an interesting conversation.
Definitely one of my favorite episodes that we've recorded so far.
Uh, just we hit on so many different things and it's.
Uh, I'm kind of like Mike in some aspects, but I, I could still move my
mouth and words come out, so we're good.
We're good there.
Yeah.
I, Shane, I, I apologize advance.
It's, I feel like I'm gonna like, no, like, in like two days you're gonna get
an email from me with like 8,000 questions and thoughts and like, as this stuff just
like works its way through my brain and all it, you know, hits me Exactly once
I'm like, oh, I should've asked him this.
I should've asked him this, so I apologize.
Cause I'm gonna overwhelm you with questions
pretty soon.
That's why, you know, that's why I was telling my clients if I saw
that same look, I think just go home and let it absorb in, come back.
Call, man, what a marinate.
You let him marinate.
Yeah.
But I, yeah, I've enjoyed this a lot.
I feel like I sit down at a kitchen table with you guys.
The only thing missing is a beer at hand.
So it's, I've enjoyed it a lot.
It's been great.
It's great to talk to sign, sign people as well.
I don't, we'll
have to invite Shane to our next happy hour, uh, podcast episode.
Yeah.
That last one was a little rowdy.
Yeah.
Since you had alcohol.
Anything.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, I'm, I'm definitely more, more verbose when I had a bottle
of that Costco Chardonnay.
There you go.
Yeah.
That's all it takes to get my Matt or Mike in the flow.
I can't even say his name.
Yeah.
Shane, really, really awesome.
Um, talking to you.
I'm actually gonna, um, look up your, Design versus here in a minute
and, uh, maybe see if we can come out there to the July one, cuz it
I'd love to participate in that.
Yeah,
for sure.
And I think that one will be, you know what, I've, it's just gonna be such a
great exchange of good sign people, you know, Roger and, and Noella and Gary.
And, and if you guys came, I think it would be a really, uh, memorable,
uh, event, you know, a small group.
Yeah,
I, I'd love to, I I'd love to.
I I've been wanting to get out to, you know, I did, I did j Cook's
Science School years ago, like 25 years ago or something like that.
And that was the last one I did.
And, um, you know, I thought about doing Dan's up in, up there in Canada
too, but I don't really, I don't make signs anymore, so I don't know
how much I would, I would get from his, but I, I, this, this definitely
appeals to me a lot, so, um mm-hmm.
I'm hoping I, I get to meet you in person here in the next
couple months.
It'd be great to see you.
And, uh, Pauling Wood's a beautiful area.
It's stunning.
Truly, we have the nigro department in Georgia and Bay.
Yeah, it's pretty
area.
I've been up in that area before.
It is, it is lovely.
Especially in July and not the middle of winter.
Yeah,
that's such right.
That's got skis strapped to your feet.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
All right, Shane, thanks again.
Yeah,
thanks.
Pleasure, man.
Yeah, awesome, Shane.
Uh, let's keep in touch too.
I'd like that.
But hopefully you'll see, uh, both of you, one of you at the, uh, workshop in July.
That'd be amazing.
Yeah,
I'm gonna try to come.
I'd love to be there.
Super person.
So.
All right.
Thank you for your time.
Really appreciate it.
It was a great talking to, it was a great pleasure.
Great listening to you.
All right, thanks.
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