San Francisco’s denizens have cultivated a community rife with apparent contradictions. It’s a bastion of high culture, yet its sports fans are among the most fervent. Also, although the Bay Area has become a mecca for software companies and other purveyors of technological products and services, it reveres traditional craftsmanship. New Bohemia Signs, a San Francisco-based shop that paints and gilds signs, has successfully plied its trade with old-school techniques in this fast-paced burg for nearly two decades.
Damon Styer, a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, is New Bohemia’s current owner. After having worked for five years as an options trader at the Pacific Stock Exchange, he embraced his creative passions with an apprenticeship at New Bohemia in 1999. Under Maurice O’Carroll’s tutelage, Styer learned strokes and serifs for an array of fonts, as well as the intricacies of glass gilding. He said, “Signage appealed to me because it combined design and handcrafted components.”
Styer and his team principally paint flat, MDO panels and paint or gild windows. For most signs, he prefers decoration with 1Shot® lettering enamel because of its sheen and fade resistance. He credits the late Rick “Daddy Finegold” Glawson for teaching him how to embellish his 23k-goldleaf projects with a mix of resin gel and damar varnish. He’s passed on his knowledge to several shop apprentices, some of whom became employees. One alumnus, Josh Luke, crossed the continent and opened Best Dressed Signs in Boston.
His business grew enough for him to hire Scott Thiessen as a partner – Styer admits he’s an artist first, not a businessman. The company’s model has undoubtedly proven fruitful; New Bohemia’s reputation helped it earn a job for one high-profile client. The shop painted a sign for Facebook’s Palo Alto, CA campus — a replica of the signature Facebook “Like” thumbs-up against a gray backdrop. New Bohemia also rendered handpainted signage for a pizzeria and BBQ joint on the Facebook campus. Its handiwork is also visible throughout Haight-Ashbury and the Mission District, which attract the creatively inclined. The shop was also profiled in a June 2011 edition of the New York Times, which helped it gain several East Coast clients.
“The market for what we do will never be enormous, but it won’t go away either,” Styer said. “There will always be a niche of clients who want the authenticity of hand-rendered signage. A sign that’s actually crafted by someone’s hands carries an undeniable air of authenticity.”