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DESIGN × DOCUMENTATION × BUILDABILITY

Great signs
begin with
better designs

We translate ambitious brand ideas into signage that can be permitted, priced, fabricated, and installed, without losing the thing that made the idea worth building.

30yr
on both sides of the sign counter
2016
studio founded in Portland, OR
5,000+
signs designed and documented
140lb
of Bernese Mountain Dog on staff
Western Hills Country ClubRestroom SignageAudi R8 Race CarThe Landing
Autovol MonumentThe LakesideADA Restroom SignMorehead City
Neuse Pylon SignNorthside HeightsDonate Blood BusThe Cove
Inside the Tradecraft studio

Two humans.
One dog.
A half-century of signage.

We’ve designed signs, built signs, installed signs, and fixed signs that someone else (cough cough we) got wrong.

We design so none of this happens.

Every problem here traces back to the same thing: signs drawn by people who’ve never built one. We’ve built them for thirty years.

Design

Design that doesn’t account for reality.

A sign is engineering, code, structural load, and installation at once, and when a design ignores that, someone downstream pays for it.

Permit

Permitting that nobody planned for.

Every municipality writes its own code, and one missed requirement on lighting or setbacks stalls the project for months.

Budget

Budgets that blow up after approval.

The concept gets approved, then priced, and the materials and engineering it actually needs have already blown past the budget.

Build

A finished sign that doesn’t actually work.

It looks just like the rendering and still can’t be read from the street, which makes it an expensive decoration.

What you can expect.

Straight talk.

No jargon, no runaround. If something won’t work, we’ll tell you why and what will work instead.

Budget respect.

We design for your budget, not against it. Fabrication-aware design means fewer surprises and better value.

One point of contact.

You work directly with us, the actual people designing your project. No account managers, no handoffs.

If it can’t be built, it isn’t a design.

A beautiful file with the wrong assumptions is a hostage situation in waiting. We design inside the constraints, not around them.

Read what we believe

Good signage
starts with a conversation.

Every project is different. Let’s talk about yours.