The Letterheads celebrate 40 years
The American Sign Museum hosts the 40th anniversary meet
By signcraft
Posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2016
It’s hard to imagine a more ideal setting for the 40th year International Letterheads meeting than the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over 350 enthusiastic sign artisans from a half dozen countries turned out for the event September 23-27. The story of how a small group of apprentice sign painters in Denver began meeting weekly to swap ideas and learn traditional sign techniques came to symbolize a Renaissance in the industry that’s still underway.
Noel Weber, Mark Oatis, John Frazier, Rick Flores, Bob Mitchell, Mike Rielly, Earl Vehill, Mike Author, Joe Tedesco and Jim Schultz meant to rediscover techniques that were on the verge of disappearing and share their enthusiasm for creative sign making. Simultaneously they helped ignite those same desires in so many other sign makers around the world.
Cincinnati was the classic Letterhead event — five days of learning, sharing and camaraderie. There’s no way to capture it on a few pages. There were workshops (both organized and spontaneous), idea and photo sharing, story swapping and good times. The age range ran from young Los Angeles Trade Tech students to the venerable Bill Riddell. That enthusiasm brought creative sign makers from as far away as Germany, Netherlands, UK, Australia and even Aledo, Illinois (just kidding, Michael!) to be a part of it.
