Some times when I tell people about my work as a sign painter, I’m met with a blank stare and quizzical follow up questions about what exactly I mean by that. I understand their confusion: signs are so ubiquitous in our daily lives that it can be easy to overlook them without a second thought. They are so omnipresent that we may read them, take in their message, and respond to them all without ever wondering how that sign got to be in front of us in the first place.
Furthermore, a lot of the signs we interact with on a daily basis have the appearance of being totally machine made: picture a computer generated graphic printed out on adhesive vinyl by a large format printer and stuck to a piece of machine-routed metal for instance. But even these signs require the human touch throughout their creation. Someone of course creates that initial design that’s sent to the printer and then another person takes that product and affixes it to the chosen substrate and then a whole other group of folks might be required to install it in place. Even the “machine-made” products that surround us require a whole group of people to create the finished pieces we see on display.
In the middle of the last century the nature of sign making began to change considerably with the creation of adhesive vinyl (and plotters, the machines that cut the vinyl to shape). To this day, vinyl remains the most ubiquitous material for most of the signs you see out and about in our modern landscape. And to be completely honest, I love adhesive vinyl. I use it to craft one-of-a-kind stickers as well as whole fine art pieces and I don’t hesitate to use it in my sign work when the job calls for it. But adhesive vinyl has always had its limitations and it never has (and never will) completely replaced the need for painting by hand.
For one thing, paint is more versatile. Vinyl absolutely requires a smooth, clean surface for it to stick properly. Paint, of course, can go anywhere you will it to. Wood grain, brick, cinderblock, stucco, these are just some of the surfaces that can take paint but not vinyl. There continue to be great advancements in adhesive vinyl but properly applied paint will always out perform vinyl, especially on irregular surfaces.
Another thing to consider is durability. Vinyl may be quick and cheap to apply but that’s also a liability over time. You’ve probably seen old sun-baked vinyl somewhere out there. Old vinyl fades and cracks, then starts to peel up before chipping off entirely. Paint of course fades with time too but you won’t see a painted sign missing entire letters because the paint started to curl up like an autumn leaf and blew away. A vinyl sign outside may last you 10 years before it needs complete replacing but a hand painted sign has an almost indeterminable longevity and it can always be touched up to extend its lifespan.
