Nutmegger Workshop sees making signs as an art form

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When I'm sifting through reader submissions, I never know what I'll find. From a fresh-faced illustrator hoping to get their first published piece or a seasoned creative who has turned a new leaf and is looking to share their new direction... surprise and delight are the hallmarks of a good submission.

The work of Peter Vogel of Nutmegger Workshop in Portland, Oregon prompted an immediate response from me—I began to follow him on Twitter, sent out a tweet, emailed a thank you and planned this blog post.

Peter introduced himself as a "30-year graphic designer/design director/creative director now making vintage sign art." His talent for lettering and his love of old signage is combined into his business of making vintage-looking signs. His signs are not meant as functional signage—they don't fabricate signs and to site installations—rather the signs are art meant to be hung interior settings, somewhat like charming set decoration or as interior design features. 

"Generations ago, sign writers were a busy, sought-after bunch, but the heyday of their hand-lettered art was no match for the rising tide of digital sign-making technology. Nutmegger Workshop was created to celebrate the alluring charm of this long-forgotten art form. It is our mission to offer the finest period reproductions and original designs — handcrafted works of typographic art that add unique personality to any well-designed space."

Enjoy a leisurely stroll through the Nutmegger gallery of signs and read more about Peter's approach to his art.

behind the scenes of our video

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All in a Day's Work

Here's the simple setup for our Surface Pattern Design Guide video... I sat behind my laptop where I had my Top Ten Tips on "How to Stand Out in Surface Pattern Design" written out with the examples I had chosen for reference. Using Erin as a "stand-in", I set up the camera and tripod to frame the shot and then Erin sat in the chair in the foreground pointing the microphone at me. (I have to invest in a better mic next time!)

That afternoon, I edited the video using FinalCut Pro and added in the pattern sample files. (At this point, I realized that I had worn the same outfit as our last video! ha! I guess that's my favourite shirt.) I made the full screen graphics in Indesign and saved those as jpegs. For other graphics, I copied them from Indesign into Photoshop and exported them as transparent gifs to place into FinalCut. (Perhaps there's a quicker way, but that's what I figured out without the time to learn any new programs like After Effects.) Other credits and titles were created directly in FinalCut.

I edited and finessed for the rest of the day. The video was nearly done by suppertime and after dinner I put in the credits. The file was prepped for export. And, after an unsuccessful upload overnight (trying to sleep/multitask!), I tried again the following morning. At over 200MB, the file took its sweet time so in the meantime I built the web page for the Surface Pattern Design Guide.

Once the video was online in Vimeo, I placed it on the webpage and made some preview graphics for Erin to use in our emails and social media.

And that's how we made a 5-minute video in less than 24 hours. Thanks for watching and sharing!

lost & found

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Kathryn John sent in a pitch, which led me to explore her website where I discovered this collaborative video project made with Jo Keeling. An ode to collecting, Kathryn writes, "That is my voiceover and the script came from something I wrote for Jo, the filmmaker, with a few tweaks from her to suit the shots she visualized." It was their first effort as part of a digital film making class—I hope they continue their collaboration!