Signs of growth for city startup

SIGN OF THINGS TO COME: Shawn Gilheeney, above, is co-owner of Providence Painted Signs, a company founded by three local artists with an eye for traditional typefaces. It’s currently tackling work for businesses going into the new Arcade. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
SIGN OF THINGS TO COME: Shawn Gilheeney, above, is co-owner of Providence Painted Signs, a company founded by three local artists with an eye for traditional typefaces. It’s currently tackling work for businesses going into the new Arcade. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

For generations, hand-painted business signs were the backdrops for American central business districts, providing a unique splash of color and lettering to each Main Street.
The transition to machine printing in the latter half of the 20th century made those handmade signs rare and most downtowns a little more anonymous.
Now Providence Painted Signs, a company founded by three local artists with an eye for traditional typefaces, is helping bring the original form of commercial advertising back to Rhode Island.
The bright colors and traditional fonts of Providence Painted Signs’ work is now noticeable from above the doors of restaurants, boutiques, food trucks, condominiums and bowling alleys throughout the city and some parts of the state.
This year the company has been working on its largest and highest-profile job yet, the interior and exterior signs for the renovated Arcade in Providence’s Financial District.
“This is our first big job and it’s keeping us really busy,” said Shawn Gilheeney, Providence Painted Signs co-owner and chief executive.
With about 16 exterior signs and at least 18 signs for the new shops opening in the building, the Arcade should become a high-profile advertisement for Providence Painted Signs’ work.
Among the roughly 50 businesses that Painted Signs has made signs for are some of the Providence area’s more popular establishments with the creative set.
They include local-craft shops Frog & Toad on Hope Street and Craftland on Westminster Street; restaurants Local 121 on Washington Street, Flan Y Ajo on Westminster Street, Bodega Malasana on Union Street and a new Gourmet Heaven on Thayer Street; apartments at the Pearl Street Lofts building on the West Side and bowling alley Lang’s Bowlerama in Cranston.
A Coventry native, Gilheeney was first introduced to hand-painted signs while working at a high-end commercial print shop in Seattle.
An older colleague at the print shop who made signs back in the day taught Gilheeney the techniques used.
When Gilheeney returned to Rhode Island in 2004, he found a community of other young artists interested in traditional lettering and design that included Buck Hastings and Greg Pennisten. After making some signs individually, Gilheeney, Hastings and Pennisten decided to form Providence Painted Signs in the spring of 2012.
Gilheeney said each member of the company comes to sign making from a different background and different strengths. For example, Hastings comes from a fine arts and portraiture background, while Pennisten comes from graphic design.
Providence Painted Signs’ first big break came from Julian’s restaurant on Broadway.
Julian’s was looking to decorate its “Omnibus,” the giant double-decker food truck that it uses to cater events around Rhode Island and had been investigating a digital graphic wrap for it.
Gilheeney had already made a door sign for the restaurant, which asked him how much it would cost to hand-paint the bus.
As it turned out, Providence Painted Signs was able to paint the bus for $4,500, more than $1,000 less than it would have cost them to wrap it.
Not only did the Omnibus show what Providence Painted Signs could do, it gave the company an opening in the growing Rhode Island food-truck market, which has turned out to be a good market for Gilheeney and crew.
Finding someone with the artistic skills to make signs isn’t impossible, but teaching them how to do it quickly, consistently and to the company’s standards takes time, Gilheeney said.
In most cases, in the time it would take to show someone how to do a job, he could have already finished the work himself.
Traditionally, the way to solve that problem would be to bring people on as apprentices. Gilheeney said he plans to bring one on to be the company’s fourth employee this summer.
“We would love to do some bigger stuff in other places, but it is such a specialized skill and you have to be able to do it fast and clean enough,” Gilheeney said.
Another challenge for sign makers is making businesses aware that hand-made signs are an actual alternative.
“I feel like people don’t think it’s an option,” Gilheeney said. “We just have to keep up and do it fast enough to be competitive with the machines.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Providence Painted Signs
Owners: Shawn Gilheeney, Buck Hastings, Greg Pennisten
Type of Business: sign painting
Location: 275 Harris Ave., Providence
Employees: 3
Year Established: 2012
Annual Sales: NA

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