Making a Hand-Painted Storefront
The story of making a storefront for One Man's Vintage in Huntsville Alabama.
Caleb and Anna reached out about getting some signs for their store in Huntsville. They knew they wanted hand-painted work but didn't have a firm direction yet, which is honestly one of my favorite ways to start a project. We got together and I put together some old lettering books, photographs of vintage signs, and reference images to get us on the same page. The kind of stuff that does the talking for me. From there, I roughed out a few sketches to get a feel for what was going where.
A lot of the early work on a project like this is distilling the message. You've only got so much space on a window or a transom, and if you try to cram too much onto one sign, everything fights for attention and nothing wins. So we went back and forth, trimming and tweaking until it said exactly what it needed to and nothing more.
Once the copy was locked, I got to design this big, arching script across the front window. Sort of a 1950s feel, loose and confident. It was a blast to draw and even more fun to paint. I also lettered the transoms and made a small panel sign for them to hang.
The whole experience was just easy in the best way. Caleb and Anna gave me a good space to work in and took great care of me, even if the whole store did smell like paint fumes for a couple of days. No complaints, though. Or at least none loud enough for me to hear. It's one of my favorite projects I've done, and the kind of work I want to keep making. Hopefully I can find my way back to Huntsville before too long.
