Sign Business Magazine, January 1996
Signed, Yours Truly: by Jennifer Orosz
Subjects: Nancy Beaudette and Noella Cotnam, Sign It, Cornwall, Ontario
If it's a personal touch you want, that's what you'll get when Nancy Beaudette
and Noella Cotnam create your sign. Their carefully handcrafted work bedecks
the towns and countryside of Ontario and western Quebec with a tasteful flair
that displays not only Beaudette's and Cotnam's signature style, but expresses
their client's personalities as well.
As co-owners of Sign It, a custom
sign shop in Cornwall, Ontario, the pair believes that
careful touches are of the essence. Though they handle
the express side of the business, such as commercial
banners and "fast stuff", their specialty
is custom wood projects that often take a month to complete. But their clients
don't seem to mind the wait; they walk away with the deep satisfaction of knowing
they have truly original, quality piece of work on their hands.
An integral team of fine artists makes up the Sign It staff. Along with Beaudette
and Cotnam, Ryan Ross, Lyndon McPhail, and Sue Stang dedicate their talents
to signage that is anything but ordinary. Using colour and detail with expert
eyes and hands, this creative team makes a strong statement about the people
and places in their locale each time thy fashion a sign.
NO FEAR
Beaudette lost no time starting her own business. While completing a three-year
graphic design program at St. Lawrence College in Cornwall, she gained practical
experience working for a local electric sign shop. In 1982, only on year after
graduation, she left the shop to set out on her own.
"I had no idea where it would of," Beaudette remembers, "But
I knew I just couldn't sit around waiting for someone else to give me a living.
Plus the opportunity kept arising where someone would call and say, 'Can
you make me a sign?' And from there I thought, why don't I just keep making
signs?"
Beaudette convinced her friend Cotnam to leave a comfortable
position and join her business "to be poor". Cotnam had received her training
in draftsmanship and fine art at St. Lawrence College and tat the Toronto
College of Art, and at the time was drafting for a Montreal aerospace company
that built flight simulators. Though the job paid well, Cotnam had been looking
for something new and welcomed Beaudette's business opportunity.
Cotnam explains, "Mechanical drafting was always a
little too formal for me. I guess the only person who would possibly have
been scared about me quitting my job was my mother, since it was the first
real job I'd had. My own philosophy was, never look back."
So they set up shop in a converted farmhouse in the rural community of Williamstown,
Ontario. Cotnam remembers that there wasn't much in the way of walk-in business,
since the store was on a dead end road at the edge of town.
In those early years, the focus was more on mastering the technical skills
needed in signmaking rather than the artistic. There were no mentors, only
trial and error. As Beaudette recalls, the first mission was how to hold a
brush and sign a letter properly.
GETTING THE KNACK
Things really came together a few years later, when Beaudette attended a seminar
instructed by John Cox of Thorough Graphic Signs. The workshop was devoted
to the teachings of Mike Stevens, author of Mastering Layout, and guru for
many sign makers and graphic artists, Beaudette included. Much of Stevens'
philosophy focused on how shapes and letters relate to each other.
" This was absolutely the most key revelation we had," Beaudette says of the
seminar. "I had read his book, but it was very wordy and a lot of the things
he talked about just didn't sink in until we sat in at this workshop. All of
a sudden it was like - whammo, you've got me - and it really, really made sense."
Beaudette and Cotnam continued to learn about signage by gleaning bits and
pieces from experts in the field and incorporating them into their own interpretations
of the art.
"From Gary Anderson (Bloomington Design), we learned a lot about creativity
and how much fun it is to experiment," Beaudette says.
A technique that Beaudette calls naturalizing was discovered while watching
Anderson work. This method of handling colour involves toning down bright hues
by mixing them with complementary colors. For instance, red can be made softer
and richer by adding a bit of green paint. Beaudette explains that the overall
effect is calming and that the muted colors blend more harmoniously with the
environment that intense colors would.
Though Butler hasn't written a book - yet, as Beaudette stresses - she greatly
admires his work, especially the strong graphic silhouettes that he presents.
Because Beaudette and Cotnam began their business in a rural setting, it's
only natural that some of the first recipients of their increasingly masterful
signage were farmers, a 'neat market,' they say. The pair thoroughly enjoyed
meeting the rural clientele and doing their sign work, which usually entailed
highly personalized signs depicting the farm'' name, logo and token colors.
(Both would study pictures or explore the farm itself to see the buildings'
colors and designs, and get a feel for the personality of the property.)
On these jobs (and the many countryside bed-and breakfast projects that Sign
It handles), both sign maker and customer enjoy the no-hold-barred approach
that seems to take over as the sign takes shape.
Beaudette explains why this work continues to be so
enjoyable for her and the Sign It staff, "It's fun because you can be totally
outrageous on these; the people are very free about letting you design what
you want to design, and push some of the limits that hold you back in some
of the other commercial jobs.
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