Mike Meyer Creates Branding that Sticks for Caramel Shop

Mike Meyer is the proprietor of a self-titled signshop in Mazeppa, MN – in 2005, I attended a Letterhead meet in Meyer’s hometown, and discovered Mazeppa, population 832, is the only burg I’ve visited where I was unable to get a cell-phone signal downtown – and has gained a global reputation for his artistic and fabrication talents, and his willingness to share his knowledge with future generations of signmakers who respect traditional methods.
In between his global, instructional sojourns, Meyer blesses the Land of 10,000 Lakes with an array of handcrafted, 3-D signage. Knudsen’s, a Red Wing, MN-based confectionery known for its butter caramels, hired him to revitalize its curb appeal.
“The store used to have a paper sign inside that pointed to the restroom, and a beat-up, MDO sign outside,” he said. “I helped them out by donating a gilded-glass panel to replace the paper sign, and hoped to one day get another chance to work for them.”
His chance came when Knudsen’s, which has been in operation since the mid-‘80s, hired him to replace the exterior sign. The Knudsens set the table for the job by purchasing a scroll from the landlord of a nearby building whose tenant had vacated.
Meyer retrieved a redwood panel from his stock, traced the pattern of the old sign with a damp rag swept over a piece of paper, and made a pounce pattern to create the new sign’s template. Next, he hand-cut a sandblasting-stencil pattern, and then fired away with his sandblaster abrasive at 80 psi with garnet-sand abrasive for approximately 10 minutes.
To fabricate the 3-D letters, Meyer used a 1/2-in.-thick layer of 15-lb. PrecisonBoard® HDU, which he cut by hand with a scroll saw, and then sanded with 120-grit sandpaper. After having used Rolco slow size, he gilded the letters with 23k goldleaf. He adorned the ring and blasted letters with TJ Ronan oil-based paint, and painted the redwood with a warm, caramel-like color using TJ Ronan’s Aqua Cote water-based enamel.
“It was a challenge to persuade the customer that using slightly more expensive materials would yield a vastly better completed sign,” Meyer said. “But, they make an excellent product, and a quality sign better reflects that.”