Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bill Kaigle. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Bill, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

There have been so many meaningful projects, that it is hard to pin down just one as most meaningful! I will say that I’m most happy when I’m able to blend history along with creativity, and learn something along the way. Designing printed materials such as history calendars, newsletters, and museum exhibit materials for my local historical society here in Milton, Vermont over the past 25 years has been very gratifying.

Blending my creative work with history has become quite possibly my greatest love, and it has grown and extended over to other parts of our work as well – such as creating handpainted antique reproduction signs for families that connect them with their own history, handpainted historic home plaques for Historic Salem, Inc. (MA), the Ridgefield (CT) Historical Society and others. I design and build, and my wife Jen is the talent behind the brush. I couldn’t do what I do without her, and we are a great team.

I’ve become a bona fide history guy and I feel like projects that really “feel like home” and create a sense of place are the most gratifying for me. Knowing that our work now contributes to the aesthetic in a growing list of places is very special to me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

At my core, I am a graphic designer with a deep interest in the art of typographic style. I’ve been interested in this line of work since I was a young boy who loved stock car racing, frequenting my hometown track Catamount Stadium, which operated in Milton, VT from 1965-1987. The art and graphics of race cars was – and still is – very exciting to me, and I did a lot of drawing them as a kid. Bill Ladabouche, my grade school science teacher, race car and sign painter and artist, was an early inspiration.

My first related enterprise was painting mailboxes for some families in town at the age of 12. While I was artistic in high school, I went the path that I thought I was “supposed to” after graduating, starting in an engineering program at the University of Vermont. It didn’t take long to figure out that that was not the right path for me. After a year and some pretty poor grades, I switched to a marketing program at Champlain College and did much better, graduating with a Marketing degree and a 3.78 GPA. Champlain felt like the right place for me, both academically and socially, and it pointed me more in the creative direction where I belonged.

After graduating from Champlain, I took continuing education courses in graphic design and typography, where I met my wife Jen, who had graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art. We were both in our early 20’s, looking to improve our craft and dial in on how we could bring creativity into our career paths. I ended up getting my first graphics job working for The Burlington Free Press doing page layout, and from there I went to work for a small commercial printer, Paw Print & Mail, for 15 years.

At Paw Print, I really cut my teeth in the graphics world. I was afforded the ability to be the staff designer and really learn on the job, self-teach, and improve my craft as I went. I had the passion for the work, and I was rewarded with the opportunities. Looking back, it was a unique situation, one where I grew right along with the business, my employer, and we both benefited. It’s a point of entry that may not be as easy to come by in today’s working world, and I’m grateful that it happened. Soon after my start at Paw Print is when I also began dabbling in creative sign work, starting with painting on driftwood and other reclaimed materials. That’s where the whole “lived-in” historical aesthetic kind of came in for me. I’ve always just been drawn to it. This style is not necessarily for everybody, but it’s something that we’ve always enjoyed. It’s something that makes us feel good, and it remains a key element of what we offer at Ye Olde Sign Shoppe – handpainted vintage-style wood signs.

We stay as close to the heart as we can in the type of work that we do – but that’s not to say that we don’t design and produce a wide range of modern styles as well. Working in a print shop – where you’re exposed to a wide range of designers’ works across different companies and missions – has really fueled my interest. I’ve been kind of a sponge for all the design styles that I’ve been exposed to, and I’ve extracted what I like best and applied that to my own work.

Running alongside Ye Olde Sign Shoppe, I’ve worked for the last 13 years as the Director of Design & Production for Spencer Group, a data-driven direct marketing company with a focus on fundraising for independent schools and other non-profit organizations. I design mostly for print there, and it’s also very gratifying work. We strategize and help organizations use their brand to raise funds for their annual giving programs and to support their missions. At Spencer Group I design everything from full marketing packages to include brochures and inserts, to eye-catching and compelling direct mail appeal packages. Then our team produces them in-house.

At Ye Olde Sign Shoppe, we offer a wide range of home decor handpainted signs that we sell in local galleries and shops, and on our web site and social media. We also design, produce and install commercial signage of all kinds, from banners and lawn signs to dimensional and carved signs. History-minded pieces will always be my favorites.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect to me is making something with my own mind and my own hands. And sometimes, where I start on a design layout and where it ends up are such different places…give it the time and space to ruminate and it evolves. Stir it up and “the good stuff” eventually comes out, sometimes when you’re not sure it will!

I think a lot of why I enjoy signmaking – and printing – so much is because it’s tactile – touch and texture. You are crafting a product that you can hold in your hands. There is just simply no substitute for that tactile experience. Digging deep into who you are, to make something that’s uniquely yours, in a style that someone else would likely not have come up with, is exciting. I’m also inspired collaborating with Jen. Having the opportunity to work together, combining my designs and her talent behind the brush, is a gift. And let me tell you, she is very patient with some of my crazy ideas!

I’m just happy when I use my hands to make things. I certainly do a lot more sign work using hand tools than other folks do, I’m sure. It’s probably harder work, and that’s OK by me. I see the same things with both of my college-age children, especially my son, who basically seems to need to be creating (“making things”, in his own words) on some level, some of the time in order to feel fulfilled.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I feel like we’ve built our audience on social media by telling stories. Most of our social media posts are related to the signs we create, and the stories based around why we were called on by a client to create them, or what inspired us to make certain signs on our own. We also enjoy featuring “signs we’ve seen” in our travels….there’s so much interesting sign art of all kinds in the landscape that is fun to interpret in our own way, and share out.

We love sharing the personal stories of our clients’ lives, and they oftentimes want their story to be shared. I think our passion for our work is on our sleeve, very obvious. I’ve been told more than once by a client, “I think you’re even more excited about this project than I am!”. I can sometimes quickly see the potential to make something very special once I start talking with a client. It’s rewarding when they share that vision and enthusiasm.

We have the benefit of delivering a very visual product, that triggers an emotional response. That is kind of how a lot of work comes our way in the first place. The visual storytelling oftentimes connects the product we created with a family’s history or a special place. Positive messages, very human stories (most people have great stories to share!), celebrations, connecting people to each other. And teaching – people have a thirst for knowledge, and so do Jen and I – that’s the main theme of what our posts are about. It’s a lot of fun for us too, and we learn a lot along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yeoldesignshoppe.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yeoldesignshoppe/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YeOldeSignShoppeVT/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-kaigle-8b88426/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ye-olde-sign-shoppe-milton

Image Credits

Bill Kaigle