Havana's General Store Concept/Design/Painting

Havana Florida, traditionally a rural tobacco town. Like other small Southern communities, has faced her paradigm shift head on. Re-inventing herself to attract a broader spectrum of commerce. Now the hometown-like streets are lined with boutiques, cafe`s, art and antique galleries. None of these are more charming than the recently renamed HAVANA'S GENERAL STORE. It is filled with nostalgic treats, toys and other delights
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 When HGS's owner, LeAnn Sbordone called about signs for the rename I was naturally excited by the prospects.

The Concept:

LeAnn proffers some tasty treats, her labels sport a graphic with an old farm truck. She wanted to carry that same theme on to her signs. It is wise to put the horse before the cart; recognizing the value of creating a brand on all of her advertising for the sake of consistency, right from the start.

Serving a client who is this intuitive is a delight. Before the end of our initial meeting, I was able to confirm her vision with an on-site quick sketch at her desk.

Designing The Graphic:

 After successfully locating a perfect working source image of an early 1955 Chevy pick up. I owned one of these trucks but that is another story. I began the work of creating the HGS graphic. The image was posterized in Photoshop. Filtering away thousands of the colors in the photograph. Reducing them down to about 5-6 and all of them in masses for a less photographic approach.  

 I had a faded-out approach in mind. LeAnn saw things more vibrantly as shown in the approved, final comps.

Next the altered image was placed into Adobe Illustrator to transform the raster image into manageable vector form. Vector art consists of closed shapes with defined paths or outlines.

I would be relying heavily upon the outlines for the completed sign.

Prepping For Hand-Painting:

 An ol' timey general store sign with an antique truck graphic simply screamed to be painted in the traditional hand-painted way. This is my niche! Below I'll show you those outlines in order to demonstrate how they make suitable guides to paint to. Do you remember those old "paint by number" sets from childhood?

Many sign-makers have transitioned to latex house paints for graphics because the colors stay fast in harsh environs. These waterbased paints are slower to paint with and the richer hues must be double coated.

It was a pleasure to give you a glimps of what goes into the design and fabrication of a unique project like HAVANA'S GENERAL STORE.

Next time you See LeAnn be sure to ask her about her pickled okra. It's the finest in North Florida.