Growing up in the sixties, I gained much of my inspiration from watching my dad draw and sketch out plans for building his hot rods. I would spend hours looking through the stacks of his old Hot Rod magazines enamored by the wild lettering styles and custom paint schemes, imitating them using crayons and markers on white t-shirts for me and my buddies to wear.

Later on in my thirties, after 15 years as a class A finish painter, I had enough of the unfulfilling stagnant factory setting and began in 1993 as a sign maker’s apprentice to satisfy my inner artist to begin learning the trade of “Sign Writer” doing layouts and lettering by hand.

Late summer of 1995 I started my own business creating hand painted custom signs in Northeast Ohio as D’Signs Unlimited.

While working full-time, I ran my business out of my home and used borrowed space from family and friends for most of my production.  I soon began hearing from my customers about how much their new signs were getting noticed and that their business traffic was improving, that was when I new I was on to something real.