Sign Shop Grows Out Of Owners House
When she’s driving around East County, April McIntyre says she likes to note how various businesses have their signs and banners displayed and designed, and how well they get their messages out.
It’s a natural instinct for McIntyre, whose own business, The Sign Shop, has contributed a great deal to the businesses and organizations in the area.For her, a sign’s success depends on two elements: content and layout. Does the sign have the right amount of words on the right size board? Is it simple enough that someone driving or walking by will see it and understand it? Is it catchy and pleasing to the eye?
The Sign Shop offers everything from custom signs, banners, outside A-frame boards and window and vehicle lettering to political signs, vehicle graphics and wall decorations. And although McIntyre co-founded the business just four years ago, examples of her own work abound throughout East County.
With the help of her father, who used to co-own a sign shop with her mother in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., McIntyre and her husband converted the living room and garage of their Troutdale home into a design and production studio. McIntyre says she handled all the design work during the day while she took care of their children, and Mark would handle the production side of the business on weekends and evenings when he got home from work as a full-time truck driver.
McIntyre credits the Gresham Area Chamber of Commerce with helping the business take off. Through the chamber’s many business connections, the store managed to secure its first major project, producing signs for the Oregon Employment Department’s Gresham store. After a successful job for the Gresham store, which attracted the attention of the department’s other regional managers, word of mouth for The Sign Shop quickly spread and business grew.
“We just really had a high-quality standard that I think gave us a good reputation,” McIntyre says. “We decided that if there were mistakes, we weren’t going to let mistakes go. We were going to try and make things as perfect as possible. We made our dedication to really making sure that things were done right and on time.”
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