Tone-Mark Creative

About Randy Wizek: Randy holds degrees in Drawing, Fine Arts, Graphic Design and Computer Graphics.

From the Beginning...The best jobs in life are the ones you love. That is just a plain fact of life. There was never a doubt in my mind in college wondering what my major would be. Though college played a huge part; it was not where I derived my passion for art. (and more specifically commercial art, hand-lettering and signs.) Lettering that was hand-made particularly fascinated me, and I can remember many joyous hours spent trying to replicate the tasteful swash and snap of grocery store signage I had seen at the local produce stands and butcher shops growing up in the 1960's and 70's. My father also encouraged me to draw and I can remember one rainy day coming home from school in the 3rd grade and being showered with drawing books, pencils and an easel. It was his way of saying, "go for it." While my dad encouraged me to draw my mom was the artistic one and her little hand-drawn doodles on the telephone note pad I shall never forget along with a beautiful cursive signature that I still get to see on birthdays and at Christmas time.

A Role Model on the Horizon: There seems to be yet another fact of life that once the dream has taken shape, a teacher will arrive to take the student to the next level. In the summer of my sophomore year at La Puente High School in Southern California, one of my classmates introduced me to her father. Art Thorpe; a commercial artist! I had already seen some of the work of Art Thorpe on the drama posters of many of the plays in which I was performing. His work was stellar, but what floored me most about Art was his level of attention to detail without looking labored over. One "wanted" to look at his work. He became an idol of what kind of sign man I wanted to be; artist and sign-painter rolled into one; To be clear-He had an equal regard and skill set for painting of lettering and painting of pictures or graphics. I had always noticed that sign guys were usually stronger at one or the other. Art was a true Zen Master at both! He showed me how to perforate and transfer a pattern, a technique used on Italian frescoes in the Renaissance. In the 1970's computers were not even being used by the largest sign shops yet, so this was all old-school. As the sign trade itself was very protective of trade secrets, I was very fortunate to get my foot in the door this way. One funny irony was that the classified want ads could be used as guidelines to practice lettering on when turned sideways and that is how I began practicing right there in his studio. Art had a big heart for allowing me into his world. I could never thank him enough!!

Off to Work: Upon leaving high school in 1974 and after a few dead-end jobs (would you like that super-sized?) I landed my first art-related gig at age 19, laying-out and pasting-up copy for ads at a small paper in Hacienda Heights, CA. There I stayed for two years learning the mechanics of the print side of the business, as well as paying attention as I moved fonts around on ads I would design, which helped me establish a designer's eye. I knew this was just a stepping stone to my future as a sign maker, and in 1977, just 3 years out of high school I took a position at a national graphics firm, TrendMark, where my job was to hand-letter the weekly supermarket ads on to lithograph plates for mass production. This was the silk-screen/ mass-production side of the trade, another very important piece to the overall sign-making puzzle. I can't express to the lay person what a milestone this was for me. To be paid to hand-letter meant that I was gaining skill in my chosen trade while earning a living at it. Pretty thrilling for just a kid.


Fast Forward to the San Francisco Bay area, 1980: At this moment the very foundation of the sign business was in a state of radical change. The computer age was upon us and most bigger shops were now utilizing computer-cut vinyl graphics to both speed up and make uniform the sign making process which had heretofore been stylized to a large degree. Previously any uniformity was only consistent from the standpoint of the respective sign man's personal style. Now computers were used to incorporate fonts of the highest design caliber into signage. This was a huge time saver, and (when used properly) a tremendous quality control boost for the trade. With such changes in the craft I decided to return to school and finish my degree. In so doing many conflicts arose in me as to the way that the "art of the craft" was being removed from sign making and had become little more than a point-and-click printing business. Twenty-somethings had taken the spots behind computer terminals in speedy sign shops nationwide and many talented sign-painters had been essentially put out to pasture by technology. As I was completing my studies it became apparent that I was not alone in seeing this atrocity happen to the legacy of a once-proud craft. Many "hand-paint only" shops began popping up from New York to San Francisco, painting huge ads on the sides of buildings.This was great to see happen! I knew that I wanted to integrate this type of work with current technology; what one would call a hybrid today.. This just made sense. Keeping the craft alive meant being able to offer my clientele a broader range of the business than my tech-only competition ever could. Thus was born the name Sign-artz. The ad above represents a not unhistorical transition between the hand-crafted sign shop of old to incorporating the best of both worlds. Simply a great Sign Shop and still independently owned and operated, Sign-artz "draws" upon a heritage of classic sign-painting and the best of today's sign-making technology.