Signs of the Times at 120 Years

THE STORY OF Signs of the Times over the past 120 years is the story of signs themselves and the people who make them.

Our story is your story.

1906 → 1920

In 1894, Col. William H. Donaldson (1864-1925) co-founded Billboard Advertising magazine — later known as The Billboard — with James Hennegan. The forerunner of the Billboard entertainment magazine we all know today, originally it literally covered billboard posting. By 1906 Billboard Publishing Co. (Cincinnati) was so successful that Donaldson (who had bought out Hennegan) started four new publications, one being Signs of the Times for the sign, outdoor advertising and display fields.

H.C. Menefee (1882-1962), an associate editor for The Billboard since 1903, was made ‘assistant to the manager’ of ST in 1906 before assuming the role of editor in 1907. The first issue comprised 16 pages. A subscription cost one dollar a year. At the time, before radio, TV and other mass communication, signs were the primary — and only — form of advertising for many companies, thus “advertising men” (marketers for large companies) formed a significant part of the magazine’s readership in addition to those working directly for sign companies. The young industry welcomed ST — a house ad in the debut issue claimed 42 electric light companies had subscribed in advance for a total of 4,650 copies to be distributed among merchants in 42 different cities.

ST covered signpainting and billboards, of course, as well as the extensive practice at the time of show card painting. Goldleaf and smalt signs (created by embedding finely crushed pigmented glass or sand into thick, wet paint) dated to the end of the US Civil War in 1865. More recent were early electric signs, invented in 1901 by Federal Electric Sign Co. (Chicago). An ST subhead under “Electric Signs” in the first issue stated, “Beats anything yet invented.” Another company influencing electric signs was Flexlume, which moved to Buffalo, NY in 1911 to showcase their white opal-glass sign. Their signs helped christen Buffalo the “City of Light” — sorry, Paris — the first American city with widespread electric lighting.

Then in 1914, after some growing pains and the closure of the other three publications launched in 1906, Col. Donaldson decided to fold ST as well and have Menefee rejoin The Billboard. To all our relief, Menefee instead purchased ST and assumed ownership. In 1917, when the US joined World War I, ST supported the sacrifices made by the industry, such as not lighting electric signs in observance of coal rationing, while still advocating for the signs’ importance.

1920 → 1940

Another group of professionals reading ST a century ago were “display men,” who arranged not only in-store signage but also merchandising and store displays in general. After years of including a section devoted to the trade, Menefee spun off Display World in 1922 into a new publication. It merged in 1938 with Merchants Record and Show Window, which had been founded as The Show Window in 1897 by L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz and, at one time, a “display man.”

Menefee stepped down as editor in 1923, though remaining head of the company. The same year, Georges Claude and the French Claude Neon company introduced practical neon signs to the US, which led to their proliferation and visual contribution to the Jazz Age. Outdoor advertising advanced as well, with more steel sign structures, along with the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) that formed guidelines bringing outdoor into the modern era.

E. Thomas Kelley became editor in 1924, serving until just before his death in 1943. Kelley introduced cost studies, a feature that would continue for 67 years. He also started the “Art and Design” section, offering galleries of pretty pictures of signs readers have always sought. The magazine continued to run sign contests, a tradition maintained to this day.

One sign artisan, Alf R. Becker, began to contribute alphabets in various styles of letterforms in 1932. The alphabets proved an immediate hit and Becker produced 320 alphabets before his death in 1959. Also during the ’30s, David R. Swormstedt Sr., who had married one of Menefee’s two daughters, joined the staff and seven years later became vice president in 1937.

The Great Depression caused businesses to seek out low-cost advertising, and signs fit the bill. The industry also received a boost with the repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933, ending Prohibition and instantly spiking demand for beer signs. Later in the decade, fluorescent lighting entered the luminous-tube market. Along with the development of plastics in 1938, many companies left the sign industry for lamp and interior-lighting manufacture.

1940 → 1960

This proved fortuitous when war again encroached on the sign industry during the years the US was fighting in WWII, with metals conserved and a number of companies converted to producing items for the war effort. More shops pivoted to fluorescent lighting — still not yet used for signs — so ST offered a section for it from 1942 to 1949. After Kelley’s 1943 death, Menefee and Swormstedt co-edited ST until 1948, when Dave M. Souder left the OAAA to become the new editor. “Mr. Souder,” as he is affectionately known now, would be the longest-serving editor to date: 1948-1981, a third of a century and touching five different decades.

Meanwhile, Swormstedt played a prominent role in founding the National Electric Sign Association (now the International Sign Association) in 1944 as well as the Screen Printing Association (ancestor of PRINTING United) in 1948.

Rapid technological and other advancements during the war — modern plant layouts based on lessons from war production, principles of accounting and cost estimating, even employer-employee relations and salesmanship — caught a number in the sign industry unaware but also created many opportunities. A new world and new signs stood on the immediate horizon.

Technology surrounding plastics had advanced immensely during the war, and the late ’40s brought fully plastic illuminated signs to market en masse, developed and fabricated by Artkraft Sign Co. (Lima, OH). These contributed to the standardization of brands. For electric signs of the 1950’s, less was not yet more. Blinking, flashing arrows and “zip sticks” were often attached. Plastic letters ran large — all to capture the more-often moving attention of drivers. Big, multi-poled, often off-balance ID signs gave form to some of the most famous and enduring examples, including McDonalds and Holiday Inn.

In 1953, ST started Screen Process magazine (now Screen Printing) to serve the quickly growing screen-processing industry. David R. Swormstedt Jr., who had joined the company in 1955, became advertising manager and assistant publisher of the magazine in 1961. In 1959, Jerry R. Swormstedt joined the company as associate editor of ST. The brothers would eventually serve as presidents, Dave from 1979-92 and Jerry from 1992-99.

1960 → 1980

Into the 1960’s, signs continued to get bigger as highways expanded, but in 1965, at the request of Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the US, the Highway Beautification Act was passed to call for control of outdoor advertising, including removal of certain types of signs along the nation’s growing interstate highway system. In spite of that, $2 billion was spent on corporate-identity advertising during the decade.

In 1966, Signs of the Times converted from letterpress to offset printing, which increased the inclusion of color illustrations, just in time for signage to evolve from bigger to more complicated in the ’70s, not only in terms of design and construction, but also in employee relations, an energy crisis, inflation and other concerns. Designs during the decade were all over the place: Victorian art, airbrush, a neon resurgence, plus new LED message displays, aluminum composites, sub-surface graphics and more. Tod Swormstedt started in 1975 as ST’s editorial assistant, working his way up to editor in 1981.

Also in 1975, seven Denver signpainters formed the Letterheads, a group dedicated to preserving the designs and techniques of classic signmaking. Shortly after their first few meetings, the Letterheads came to Swormstedt’s attention and ST began to cover and promote their efforts and expansion as a group.

1980 → 2000

Then everything changed when Gerber Scientific Products (now just Gerber Scientific) introduced its Signmaker III cutting plotter in 1982. The device could cut letters and graphic shapes from thin, adhesive-backed vinyl. Signpainters’ days were numbered as the predominant producers of commercial signs. The year before (1981) Wade Swormstedt had become editorial assistant on Screen Printing magazine, before moving to ST in 1984 and becoming editor in 1991.

The computer-aided signmaking technology spawned additional machine and vinyl manufacturers, and in this last full decade before the internet, ST’s issues swelled often to 200 pages or more, a great deal of those touting the latest machines and films. The April 1986 issue clocked in at 328 pages, our record. Without the internet, sign pros consulted the ST “Buyer’s Guide” issue starting in 1983. This annual resource continued until its final iteration in 2021 as the “Black Book.”

Also during the mid-’80s, Fastsigns and Signarama started as sign franchises, creating a new type of sign company and support system. Signs of the Times Publishing Co. launched Identity magazine for the corporate-identity market in 1988. The magazine completed its run in 1995.

During the 1990’s, Wade Swormstedt transitioned the annual State of the Industry reports to a format they would maintain for more than 25 years. He also brought Darek Johnson on board in 1994 as CAS editor, and when Swormstedt moved into the publisher’s role exclusively (1996-2001), Johnson became editor-in-chief until Swormstedt’s return as editor/publisher in 2001. He would serve 14 more years as editor/publisher before retiring in 2015. Johnson remained a senior editor until his retirement in 2018.

In 1991, “Wildman” Walker, a DJ for local Cincinnati WEBN radio, camped atop ST’s headquarters at the downtown corner of 8th St. and Broadway, vowing to remain until the hapless NFL Cincinnati Bengals won a game. Walker took perch on Sept. 5 and finally came down Nov. 3 after a win against the cross-state rival Cleveland Browns. Current “Tech Products” contributors Chris and Kathi Morrison debuted in ST with monthly “CAS/Tech” column in 1997, CAS being short for “computer-aided signmaking.”

Young Electric Sign Co. (YESCO, Las Vegas) created the Fremont Street Experience in 1996, a 2-million-bulb,
quarter-mile-long illuminated canopy above a stretch of Fremont St., transforming interest in “old, original” Vegas.

The first issue of Signs of the Times en Español appeared in March 1995. The Big Picture (now just Big Picture) debuted as a 64-page insert in the July 1995 issue of ST, and SignWeb, ST’s first website, premiered in August 1995 — a big year. Our Spanish publication ceased around 2018, but the other startups are still going strong.

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2000 → Present

When ST reached its centennial in May 2006, the magazine employed a six-person editorial staff. (Now it is two.) An incredible amount of work was put into a beautifully designed and bound centennial edition. A great deal of the research for this article stems from our centennial edition, so to the 2006 editorial staff plus Senior Art Director Jeff Russ, all thanks and respect.

In 2015, after Wade Swormstedt retired as editor/publisher, Robin Donovan was promoted to editor-in-chief, becoming the first (and so far, only) woman to do so. She presided over many makeovers, including the transformation of SignWeb into SignsoftheTimes.com, a redesign of the magazine, and just prior to her departure, announcement of the forthcoming Women in Signs Awards.

SmartWork Media (Montclair, NJ) acquired ST and all ST Media Group publications, tradeshows and other holdings in September 2020, shortly after which Donovan resigned and Mark Kissling, who had been hired in 1993 as director of ST’s Book Division and then joined the ST staff in 2016, served as acting editor for the rest of the year, being named editor-in-chief in 2021. Later that year, Northern Kentucky University student Mildred Nguyen completed a highly successful internship with ST, later to return part-time as editorial assistant until she graduated and was hired full time as assistant editor in 2024.

As we end at the present, please allow me to thank everyone who contributed to 120 years of Signs of the Times: the hundreds who have worked on the magazine and the untold thousands of sign professionals who have provided not only our content, but our very reason to be.

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