Hit 100 hand-painted sign boards last week, never thought I'd get there

I always wanted to run my own sign shop but figured it was just a pipe dream. Last week I crossed 100 hand-painted boards for local businesses around Portland. That number surprised me because I only started painting in my garage two years ago. Each board takes about 4 hours so hitting that milestone means I put in around 400 hours total. Seeing my work out on the streets makes all the tired hands worth it. Has anyone else here surprised themselves by hitting a random number in a hobby or side gig?

3 comments

3 Comments

susanb341mo ago

Jumped into hand-painted signs about a year ago myself, after getting sick of seeing the same vinyl font everywhere. @rowan_thomas84, you're totally right about the letter S being the hardest, I redid my first one like five times before it looked half decent. For me, the thing that really pushed me over the hump was just doing one board a week no matter how busy I got, even if it was just a practice piece for my garage wall. I hit 50 boards last month and honestly didn't think I'd get that far, but 100 feels like a real mountain now. The local coffee shop guy saw my work on a neighbor's sign and asked if I could paint his menu board, that word of mouth snowballed faster than any ad I could have run. Just keep showing up and painting, it's wild how the numbers add up when you're not obsessing over them.

the_lisa1mo ago

Wait, 100 boards in just two years while starting from a garage? Thats wild, I figured it'd take way longer to build that kind of client base. Your 400 hours of brush time really puts it in perspective, that's like a full-time job on top of everything else.

rowan_thomas841mo ago

I actually just read an article in SignCraft Magazine about how hand-painted signs are making a comeback because people are tired of vinyl looking so cookie-cutter. 100 boards is no joke, 400 hours of brush time is serious dedication. I saw a documentary on PBS once about an old sign painter in Chicago who said he could tell how good a painter was just by looking at the letter "S" on a sign. Something about the curves being the hardest to get right. Your Portland businesses are lucky to have real craftsmanship like that instead of a machine-made sticker slapped up on a window.