I was raised in a small town of 800 in the [American] Midwest which was very culturally shy about the world. My dad was a barber and he did signs in between haircuts. When I was babysat by him I would watch him and that’s what I figured I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I’m still at it.
I learnt by my dad showing me things. He would show me books like Speed Ball books and different jobs he had. He’d go, ‘Here, you like that? Try this. Don’t do it that way, do it this way,’ so it was kind of a homemade instruction from him.
How did you turn signwriting from a hobby into a career?
Well I discovered the lettering that was around me from watching guys letter trucks that would come into town and I’d go past them on my bicycle and I’d watch them. And then I got a little older and we went to the local stock car races and all the cars were hand lettered and I figured out who’d lettered them.
Then when I got my driver’s licence I would skip school and go find the guy in their sign shop and tell them that I wanted to do this. They were pretty negative about it but I stuck it out and when I saw them later after I got my own shop they kind of laughed and were like, ‘you didn’t listen did you?’ It wasn’t always easy but that’s how I did it.
I would just paint things that I thought looked like neat lettering and I just did it on my own and would show my dad and he’d be like, ‘wow!’. And then I found out there was a school for it in Minnesota which was 300 miles north so when I got out of high school in ’79 I went up there and I did a one-year class.
I went through it and afterwards it expanded to a two-year class, then expanded to even neon. I was in one of the first years of it but they closed in 2005 because they thought they could get on ahead of the technology train which you never do.
Now there’s only really one left in the US and that’s in LA, and that’s how my workshops really flourished.
Why is it important to share knowledge and skills like you do in your workshops?
I found out about a group called Letterheads in 1988. It started in ’75 when seven guys got together to share their ideas. When I went to a meet in Texas in ’88 I was very intimidated, but they showed me how you can open up these techniques to other people and share. It was hard to do at first as a lot of the old timers didn’t want to share anything. But when you went to the Letterheads it was like, ‘wow we have a whole network of people’.
It was in Texas in 1988 at his first meet that Meyer says he “got the Letterheads spirit in him”
Once I got the Letterheads spirit in me I thought, ‘wow this is fantastic,’ and I’m still carrying it out to this day. The things and the people you can meet is a network that never ends. It’s great.
Somebody told me early on in my first meet in ’88, he said, ‘one of you out there will be the next one to carry this on,’ and we all laughed. He said, ‘I’m not kidding. It’s not about my ego or yours or anybody’s. You just have to turn around and help the next person and be humble.’
I met that guy 30 years later and I said, ‘what you said to me in ’88, I’m living it today and I just want to thank you,’ and he said, ‘all I want you to do is just carry that on to someone else. Just keep it going.’ And he was still humble 30 years later and that’s what I’m trying to carry on.
As well as hosting workshops around the world, what work do you produce day-to-day?
Still a variety of things. Even just plywood signs, vehicle lettering, banners, and wall lettering. That’s what’s so great about it. When I was taught early on it was really hard but the guys working there didn’t have the passion that I did, they just thought of it as a job. They didn’t care what it looked like when it went out. I was looking at them like, ‘why? This is art. This is fun.’
Meyer hosts signwriting workshops around the world and has hosted 170 to date
Do you think the lack of entry points into signwriting is something that’s going to continue?
I don’t think I see in the future a bricks and mortar school starting, especially with the pandemic that made everybody do stuff from home. But I think sign painting does start in a lot of home-based businesses anyway. There’s a lot of people who don’t do it full time but an excellent way for them to learn and teach is other people doing Zoom classes.
When the pandemic started and I thought I’d have to do them, I really shied away from that. I really like showing people in-person because they need to see when I drop my brush and this and that. It’s more than just an instruction, you go out to eat and you converse with everyone. They’re people too. They’ve got families, there’s hard times and good times, and it really helps them with their confidence.
When I first started, I used to say, ‘I’m not a teacher I’m just a sign painter,’ but then it came out in me and it just started flowing and I really, really enjoy it”
When I first started, I used to say, ‘I’m not a teacher I’m just a sign painter,’ but then it came out in me and it just started flowing and I really, really enjoy it. I also have to thank the film Sign Painters for starting that because I wouldn’t have started at all. Once that came out in 2012, people said, ‘hey, maybe you should teach a class.’ And I said, ‘well I’m not a teacher,’ and they said, ‘well you’re gonna have to figure it out because you’ve got 15 people coming this weekend.’ I was very nervous, which naturally you should be. But it worked pretty well and it just started to snowball from there.
You also recently published Sign Painting: A practical guide to tools, materials, and techniques. Where did this idea come from?
Well I think a lot of it comes from the feedback of people at all the workshops. There’s so much information that’s thrown at them in four days, that they don’t have time to really write it down.
Sam Roberts of Better Letters who wrote it with me said, ‘we need to write a book so after the workshops are over, they can use it.’ I just thought, ‘there’s no way I can do this, carting all over the world and then when I get home doing all kinds of signs.’ So Sam took on the role of the book writer.
Meyer and Roberts also recently published The Showcards Book as a celebration of Mike's work
A lot of it was interviewing me over email and any spare time I had was spent answering any questions from Sam. Any time I had an idea I’d just say, ‘hey Sam, I was thinking about this, this paint or this brush, we could do this, or this.’ It was largely on Sam picking my brain all the time. It’s a great combination because Sam doesn’t come from a sign painting background, he’s an advertising guy. So it was perfect, he’d look at things and say, ‘why did you do that?’ and I wouldn’t think of the angles that he was bringing with his questions. He’d be thinking, ‘that works great for the book because people will be like, ‘so what do you mean by that?’’ and Sam could then answer that.
I can’t say enough about Sam. He’s just a fantastic guy, and when we do stuff, it’s just yin yin, I just say, ‘whatever you want to do, I’m all for it.’ So, we went around the world, 16 different countries we’ve taught in, a lot of it was him on the internet booking everything and telling me to ‘go here, go there’. It’s fantastic.
Anything else to add?
I think in the future or commonly, when someone asks me what I do and why I do it, they’ll say, ‘well that’s dying isn’t it?’ and I’ll say, ‘exactly no. In fact, it’s a renaissance if anything.’ For the general public, whatever’s immediate, whatever’s in the media that’s what they think is the going thing. But behind the scenes there’s many-a-signpeople that are still doing it the traditional way and we have to field those questions.
There was a big fear of it when vinyl and computers really started taking hold but if you’re like me, you’ll just go, ‘well that’s just one more tool to make a sign but I’m still going to carry on with what I’ve learned as a craftsman’”
There was a big fear of it when vinyl and computers really started taking hold but if you’re like me, you’ll just go, ‘well that’s just one more tool to make a sign but I’m still going to carry on with what I’ve learned as a craftsman.’ So, so many people come in and I’ll not only show them the techniques, but they want to know business-wise. I don’t think you can put that in a book. There’s so many things I’m still learning to this day after doing it for 40 years.
Meyer works for lettering agency, Better Letters with Sam Roberts. Image: Tony Mead
There’s always something out of left field that comes in and you go, ‘oh no, I didn’t even think about that!’ But with new technology and how you can do things online and how it reaches people you can charge quite a bit more.
When I started doing it there were a lot of jealous people who could be vicious, where face-to-face they would never say it. But that’s okay I’ve grown a thick skin. There’s always going to be a bad guy and a good guy. I try to focus on the good guy, and if you start talking about the negativity then they’re winning. Stay with positive people around you and try to walk away from the negative stuff if you can. It all comes down to that in life and it makes me feel good.
