Bye Bye Blogger!

Long lost Blogger followers!

Obviously I've dropped the ball on this blog for the last year or so but that's all about to change! In fact, there are a lot of changes happening for Best Dressed Signs right now, including a major surge in business and exposure (thanks in major part to Josh being featured in Sign Painters, the companion book to the forthcoming documentary also called Sign Painters and all the media attention that's been getting), a new website, a few interns, and a boost in management (that means me!).

To keep up with all the demands of a rapidly growing business in the rapidly changing world of the internet, we're moving our blog to Tumblr. This one will still remain here as an archive (so we can remember how happy and thankful we were to get our first sign job in Boston and that we were reaching 100 Facebook followers!) but in order to reach an ever-widening audience, we feel it's best to move where the party's at and apparently for the time being, that's Tumblr (am I even right about that? Maybe there's already something even newer and better that I'll join years from now thinking I'm on top of my social media shit).

So please follow us on Tumblr (and Facebook and Twitter and Flickr and Pinterest and maybe even Instagram soon--jeesh!) to keep up with our every move! We're even planning to start keeping a video diary (maybe on Vimeo? Is that the latest and greatest?)!

The Best Dressed Blog may be moving, but Best Dressed Signs isn't going anywhere!

Best Dressed Signs' photostream

Best Dressed Signs' photostream on Flickr.

Check out our most recent work!

The 2011 Best Dressed Signs Year in Review

First Edition Support Your Local Sign Painter Tshirt

available here 

2011 was a busy year for Best Dressed Signs! In addition to cranking out signs for Orchard Skateshop, Facebook, Follow the Honey, Goorin Brothers, and a new glass gild for Chameleon Tattoo, among others, Josh also participated in five gallery shows and completed his first year of grad school! 

In February and June, Josh showed work at the Summit Gallery and Guerrero Gallery, both in San Francisco before beginning work on the behemoth sign for the new Facebook office in NYC. In November, Josh contributed work to the Type Show  and the Hundreds Show, both at the Lincoln Arts Project in Waltham, MA while also curating and showing work in the Pre-Vinylite Show at Orchard Skateshop. In the midst of this artistic frenzy, Josh and Kenji Nakayama conducted a sign painting demo at Orchard in which they shared their knowledge with a sizable group of sign enthusiasts! Josh was interviewed about the Pre-Vinylite show and sign painting demo by Boston's Weekly Dig magazine. You can read the article here. 

As the year is winding down, Josh is gearing up! He is currently working on a piece for another upcoming art show at Guererro Gallery called An American Language and he's been commissioned to paint the chapter titles for the forthcoming companion book to the Sign Painter Movie. All before beginning a new outdoor job painting a plaza on the Harvard Campus. Gotta pay the rent!

Stay tuned for more adventures in sign painting in 2012!!

Lone Wolf Tattoo, Bellmore, NY

This past week I made a trip down to New York to gild a sign for Lone Wolf Tattoo in Bellmore, Long Island. I took the Bolt Bus down from Boston in true journeyman style with my sign kit and pattern in tow. Upon arriving in Manhattan, I met up with my friend CJ and stayed with him the first night. CJ joined me on the Long Island Railroad and helped out with applying the pattern. In return I showed him how the gilding process works. For the next few nights I stayed in Brooklyn with my friend Nicki and made the trip out to Bellmore for the rest of the week. I had a great time hanging out with everyone at the shop and gett'n a real Long Island experience! 

Pre-Vinylite Society Artists' Statement

Artists’ Statement

The name, The Pre-Vinylite Society, is inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of young English artists in the 19^th century who were tired of the contemporary trend in art that venerated and imitated Raphael’s classical model. They held that the kind of rote, mechanistic replication that permeated the paintings of their day corrupted art and made it devoid of emotion and humanity. In a similar vein of rebellion, The Pre-Vinylite Society proposes to subvert the recent convention of lifeless vinyl signage as a digression from the time-honored institution and rich history of hand-painted signs.

The craft of sign painting has survived through the tradition of mastery and apprenticeship and The Pre-Vinylite Society Sign Art Show highlights the skills and techniques that have been passed down through the ages. However, though The Pre-Vinylite Society’s signs serve to represent the classic signage of yesteryear, they are nevertheless very much products of the present day. While the signs in this show reflect many traditional techniques of sign painting, such as letter design, gold leaf, and glue chipping, they also push the boundaries of sign making as a solely mercantile art and assert the art of sign painting as a gallery-worthy endeavor. The Pre-Vinylite artists challenge the idea of sign painting as purely commercial by combining fine art mediums such as oil painting and sculpture into their works and employing ironic materials for their surfaces such as polyurethane and vinyl records.

The Pre-Vinylite Society Sign Art Demo

Thanks to everyone who came out for The Pre-Vinylite Society Sign Art Opening on Saturday night. It was a huge success and we have a lot of people to thank for helping it all come together. Thanks also to the bloggers who posted photos so quickly after the opening. Here are some links:

That's the Hookup

This Artist is Working

If you missed the opening, have no fear! The show runs through mid-December and there will be a sign painting demo/workshop this Saturday, November 19th at 2pm in the gallery upstairs at Orchard Skateshop. Pre-Vinylites Josh Luke and Kenji Nakayama will explain basic sign painting tools and techniques such as basic letter strokes, pattern making, pinstriping, and gold leaf.

Unlike the opening, which was 21+, this event is suitable for all ages! Come by and let the masters show you how it's done!

The Pre-Vinylite Society Sign Art Show Opening Nov 12

This unique art show features signs artists and lettering enthusiasts from across the nation who are associated with the Pre-Vinylite Society, a loose network of like-minded letter junkies. The show will emphasize sign art as a gallery-worthy craft, exhibiting the talents of several generations of sign painters in what is quickly becoming known as a Sign Painting Renaissance.

The time honored trade of sign painting has survived through the tradition of mastery and apprenticeship and the Pre-Vinylite Society Sign Art Show highlights the skills and techniques that have been passed down through the ages. 

Curated by Josh Luke of Best Dressed Signs, the Pre-Vinylite Society Sign Art Show is the first of its kind on the East Coast. Among other talented painters from around the country, the show will include artists from San Francisco's New Bohemia Signs, a renowned sign shop owned by the venerable Damon Styer, whose artists have participated in several West Coast sign art gallery shows, including the recent Guererro Gallery show (as seen in Juxtapoz Magazine) featuring Steve Powers and Jeff Canham. Many of the artists in the Pre-Vinylite Sign Art Show will also be featured in an upcoming documentary by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon, titled "Sign Painters," due out in 2012.

Opening at 8pm on November 12 at the Extension Gallery at Orchard Skateshop. 156 Harvard Ave, Allston, MA. Free beer and vegan pizza! 

Check out the event on Facebook! 

Tip of the Day: Glass Gilding

These are the steps I take when gilding gold on glass. I've been posting one step at a time on the Pre-Vinylite Society facebook page. As I add steps onto the Facebook page, I will compile them here so you can see all the steps in order. These are condensed explanations as Facebook only allows for so many characters in a single post.  Hope this helps, and happy gilding!

Tip of the Day:
This is Step One of a series on glass gilding. I'm no expert, but this is how I do it.


Supply List
-Gold (Book of 23k Surface gold / loose leaf) 25 sheets per book
-Gelatin Size (I'll explain in next tip of the day)
-Gilders Tip
-Gilders Mop
-Vaseline (or a greasy head)
-Cotton (surgical with out seeds is best)
-Black back up paint
-Lettering quills-Sign pattern / pounce / blue tape
-Bon Ami 
-Windex / paper towel
I'll explain more as I go!



Tip of the Day!
Glass gilding Step Two: Making a water based gelatin size

-A pint size mason jar with lid
-Pour a small amount of water (room temperature), enough to submerge two gelatin capsules (I haven't found an alternative to gelatin, but I'm searching! Get these at a health food store).
-Pull capsules apart before putting in water and make sure there are no air bubbles trapped inside the capsules
-20 or so minutes after submerging capsules, pour in hot water (no more than is needed to dissolve the capsules completely) and swirl the water a bit
-Fill the rest of the jar with cool water, swirl and inspect the liquid to insure that the capsules are completely dissolved.
Screw on the cap and you are good to go!


Tip of the Day!
Glass Gilding Step Three: Preparing the glass

-First clean both sides of the glass with glass cleaner(windex) and paper towel.
-On the inside of the glass (the side you'll be applying the gold) take a razor scraper, and run it over the surface to be gilded, removing any tough debris or specks.
-Now take a paper towel piece, fold and add a small amount of Bon Ami and windex to the paper towel. Bon Ami is a cleanser that will help remove any oil or unseen residue.
-Spray the window a bit and the Bon Ami in the paper towel, then apply the Bon Ami/paper towel to the window. Apply in circular motions. It will be frosty looking.
-Let the Bon Ami dry completely.
-Wipe off the Bon Ami with a dry paper towel. Make sure it comes off fairly easy, otherwise you may want to do a second round of windex and Bon Ami.
-After removing all Bon Ami from window, go back over with a clean paper towel and windex. If you hear that oh so sweet window squeak sound you are good to go!

Spring Time Sign Time!

Hey folks!
It's been a while since we've updated our blog but spring has sprung and we're back in action!

A lot has been going on for Josh and Best Dressed Signs these last few months, including: Josh's first MFA residency, a New Bohemia art show in San Francisco, a sign for Orchard Skate shop in Allston, preparation for a sign for the new Facebook east coast headquarters in NYC, and another art show with New Bohemia, Steve Powers, and Jeff Canham in June, just to name a few.

Boston has slowly but enthusiastically been embracing the hand-painted sign movement and Josh's work will soon be featured on a restaurant, shoe store, and tattoo shop near you, so keep an eye out!

"...left to the mercy of sunshine, soot, and shower"

This proclamation is about the poster movement in London in the 1890's but I think it's completely comparable to the PVS movement of the 2010's.

"Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash.
The popular idea of a picture is something told in oil or writ in water to be hung on a room’s wall or in a picture gallery to perplex an artless public. No one expects it to serve a useful purpose or take a part in everyday existence. Our modern painter has merely to give a picture a good name and hang it.
Now the poster first of all justified its existence on the grounds of utility, and should it further aspire to beauty of line and colour, may not our hoardings claim kinship with the galleries, and the designers of affiches pose proudly in the public eye...?
Still there is a general feeling that the artist who puts his art into the poster is déclassé—on the streets—and consequently of light character. The critics can discover no brush work to prate of, the painter looks askance upon a thing that achieves publicity without a frame, and beauty without modelling, and the public find it hard to take seriously a poor printed thing left to the mercy of sunshine, soot, and shower, like any old fresco over an Italian church door..." -Aubrey Beardsley, 1894

The Pre-Vinylites: Notes on a Manifesto

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of young, London artists in the mid 1800's who were tired of the proliferation of art made by imitation and repetition and void of emotional connection. They established a fellowship and detailed their ambitions in a manifesto which included such intentions as:

• to have genuine ideas to express;
• to study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
• to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;
• and, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues

They referred to themselves as "Pre-Raphaelites" because they believed that the tradition that resulted from the imitation of Raphael's classical model was a corruption to art, making it devoid it of emotion and humanity.

Our intention for a "Pre-Vinylite Society" proposes to subvert the recent convention of tasteless signage as a digression from both time honored design and the traditional hand painted signs. We believe that sign craft, if done with care and passion, can aestheticize our urban landscape. This ideal is not limited to the execution of hand painted signs alone, what ever the medium, if done with care, tact, and well executed design, can positively affect the surrounding landscape. These are just some preliminary thoughts on what we hope will become, itself, a manifesto. Please comment with any ideas that you may have about the resurgence of hand painted signs and let's make this "society" a reality!

-PVS

Moving Along

The Chameleon sign is completed and installed and receiving rave reviews! Josh is now working on a sandwich board for Good Faith Tattoo. He finished their glass door last week. Here's what it looks like:

If you want to see more photos of the sign-making and installation process , check out Best Dressed Signs' Facebook page!

Next up is a sign for Primitive Traditions Body Piercing (in the same building as Good Faith) and then hopefully some signs for Dame, a really cool vintage store in Jamaica Plain, if they accept the bid. So far, so good.

A Rant by Meredith and then some Hot Italian Beef!

Tomorrow is the big day! Best Dressed Signs is installing our first sign in Boston! The installation is scheduled to start at 9:00am and Josh is putting the finishing touches on the sign at this moment!

And now, what I think are some important implications:

I think it's imperative that signage, as the most basic form of marketing, should not only be conducive to generating business for the company that it advertises, but should also contribute to the beautification of a space. It is, after all, or should be, the most accessible art that we see every day. Boston spent billions of dollars on the Big Dig in an effort to (among other things, of course) beautify the city, with the expansion of parks and greenways. Why not extend that aesthetic progress to the the city's signs? I think this Chameleon sign is going to be the first step towards changing the way people think about their urban environment here in Boston. I hope so, anyway.

Okay, enough of that. Click on this video to see Josh in action, working on the last sign that he painted for New Bohemia in San Francisco. And check in again on Sunday, when I'll be posting all about our adventures in installation. It will certainly be the first time I've ever done it. Wish us luck!

Work in Progress. Still.

The Chameleon signs are in the works! I forgot that they're getting two signs and they're HUGE so it's taking a little longer than first anticipated (besides the fact that Josh obsessed over the precise geometry of the 3-D and tacked strings to the wall, making me angle them just so while he stood across the room contemplating with his hand on his beard). But they're coming out awesome and will be worth the wait!

He also just finished a sign for the 90th anniversary of a New York company called WWD, a fashion news website. The woman had originally contacted New Bohemia and they referred her to Best Dressed Signs since we're on the east coast. Thanks New Bo!

Here's the sign for them:

Next up: Good Faith Tattoo on Comm Ave near BU. They're getting their glass door and some sandwich boards done. We'll keep you posted.

And GO GIANTS!!!

Gettin' Goin'

This is the finalized sketch for Chameleon Tattoo. We've been given the go-ahead and Josh has started on the pattern. Here's a picture of him tracing the projected pattern:

Today he reserved another ZipCar and picked up the wood which the physical sign will be painted on. Tomorrow will begin "Covert Mission #1: rolling out the background paint in the basement". We'll see how it goes. Apparently, my cousin has offered to share part of his studio space so if things don't work out here, Josh at least has another option.

At this very moment, Josh is working on some sketches for Good Faith Tattoo. He is scheduled to start their window on Monday the 25th. After that, he'll start on some sandwich boards for them.

The Chameleon sign is scheduled to be installed by the end of next week and we'll be sure to post some pictures of the final product (including also, most likely, some more shots of Josh in mid-painting action). Stay tuned! This is just the beginning for Best Dressed Signs!

Open for Business!

This is the first sketch for Chameleon Tattoo and Body Piercing in the Garage in Harvard Sq. Josh submitted it to them and they LOVED it! It's obviously not finished, he's gonna tweak it a little bit, make it curve the other way so that "Tattoo" is to the left of "Body Piercing" but the idea is pretty much a go!
We're getting going on the equipment side of things. The Electro Pounce (a device that perforates the pattern so that a chalk outline can be traced onto the surface of the sign) arrived at our door today. We signed up for ZipCar so Josh can go and run errands like picking up the wood and paint and whatnot. He needs a saw and sawhorses that fold so that he can covertly sneak them into the basement of our apartment building to cut wood and roll out background paint. I think it'll go unnoticed, for a while at least.

The next step is advertising. The business card is finished and at the printers. Here's a preview (the real one has a phone number too):

The Website will be coming soon so keep an eye out! We'll update you here when it's up and running. Or at least up. Thanks for reading! And thanks for being Facebook fans, we're reaching 100!

Best Dressed Signs' First Bid in Boston!

Some nice gold leaf on Newbury St. Boston, MA

Today we visited our first potential customer in Boston at the Chameleon Tattoo and Piercing Shop in the Garage in Harvard Sq. They are one of the first tattoo shops in Boston, as tattooing was not legal in Massachusetts until 2001! (Crazy, I know. We all had to go and get shitty New Hampshire tattoos by curmudgeonly old Vietnam vets with American flag parachute pants back in my day! Mine are all covered up by now.)

The guys at Chameleon were PSYCHED! Josh showed up all professional with a Bid Inquiry Sheet adapted from one from New Bohemia. The old shop is really helping us out here in Boston. Couldn't do it without 'em!

On our way to Harvard Sq today, we also stopped by Stingray Tattoo on Harvard Ave in Allston to inquire about their need for signs and not only do they want and need some, but the owner, Scott, is an old friend of my sister's who I first met when I was 14! Small world!

Big day for Best Dressed Signs! Boston is the perfect venue for this burgeoning business!

Back to Real Life=Back to a SIGN blog!

Today we're moving into our new apartment and school starts next week for me, which means it's back to real life! Josh is starting to get Best Dressed Signs out there on the world wide web, so we have a new Facebook page. Become a fan!

We also got a new computer (!!!) so we can easily upload photos. Check out the pictures of cool signs we saw all across the country on Josh's new Best Dressed Signs flickr account. There's a variety of signs that we liked, from gold leafed, hand painted, neon, to ghost signs from yesteryear.

Stay tuned to this blog as it will chronicle Josh's transition from a laid back New Bohemian to a bad-ass Boston Best Dressed Sign Painter!

We made it to Boston!

So I let the blog go: sorry.

It was getting too stressful trying to upload pictures and a find places with wi-fi, etc. But we made it! And now I have use of my brother's fancy new computer so the pictures are getting uploaded to Facebook. You can view the three albums that comprise the trip! The first one documents our trip from our first stop in Ojai, CA through a drunken night in Vegas. The second one has the pictures from the Hoover Dam through Nashville, which includes the Grand Canyon, Sedona, AZ, Austin, TX, New Orleans, Graceland, and a few scenic views in between. The third one shows our adventures at the Jellystone Campground in Mammoth Caves, KY to Chesterton<>

Josh took this video at the Fiddle and Steel Guitar Bar in Nashville, TN. He also took a LOT of cool sign photos so we'll compile those all together and make a blog that's actually about signs, coming soon. That's it for our travels for a while. Now it's back to real life, if a totally different one than what we've been used to. Stay tuned for the cross country sign blog though.

New Orleans!!!

It's official. This computer will not allow me to upload photos without a WHOLE lot of time and trouble, so you'll all have to just come over for the slide show. ;)
So we're in New Orleans in a Holiday Inn just off Bourbon St: A HUGE step up from the Motel 6 in Lafayette, LA where we stayed last night. I think someone may have been murdered in our room at some point in the past. What I do know has not happened there is any cleaning of the toilet recently. We were planning on staying at a KOA, as we had a fantastic experience at one in Kerrville, TX just before Austin, but it was TOO HOT and we were too tired so we sprung for a crappy motel.
Speaking of Austin: WOW. When we arrived it was about 100 degrees and nothing was open on 6th St so we (for some reason) decided to walk up to the capital. Pretty. And pretty boring, so we bar hopped, ending up at Lovejoy's where we met a very friendly local named Kevin who told us about Barton Springs, a public pool fed by natural spring water. What an oasis! We cooled off, went to a rockabilly club on South Congress and slept (barely) in oppressive heat in the van before we promptly drove back to Barton Springs in the am, ate a snow cone and headed to Lousiana.
We arrived in New Orleans around 5:00 this evening and walked around Bourbon St drinking extremely touristy Hand Grenades and ducking into bars to pee. We decided to walk to Jackson Sq to check out some historical buildings and on the way back to the hotel we ran into my old friend from the beginning days of Whole Foods (2002), Josh. What a CRAZY coincidence! I'm still blown away! He's moving his friend, Nija, to Chicago and it looks like we'll be there around the same time too! What a small world! Okay, so I'm pretty drunk on 2 hand grenades and a few Abitas (a local brew) so I'll end this rant now. More to come!
I got SOME of our photos up on Facebook, from Ojai through Vegas. You can see them here if you have a Facebook account.