Sean Beauchamp: Custom signs on the California coast

Custom sign shops are unusual, creative places. While many businesses buy products and resell them or manufacture a line of products to sell, a custom sign shop designs and fabricates a custom product—designed for one specific use for one specific customer. And they get good at that.

Consider Southpaw Signs in Oceano, California. Their knack for coming up with creative solutions for signs also brought them related—and not-so-related—projects: everything from interior décor to sculpture to making custom furniture. Their work was featured in the January/February 2013 and November/December 2017 issues of SignCraft.

“Over the past ten years,” Sean says, “we’ve become a problem-solving resource for architects. When they need something done that’s a little too artistic for the contractor to handle, they call us. We can weld, cut some glass, bend some neon, light it with LEDs. We can build the cool ‘selfie spot’ that’s become so common.