Sign shop grows out of owner’s house

Troutdale’s April McIntyre moves business into Gresham space

By Calvin Hall

The Gresham Outlook, Sep 16, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

Jim Clark / The Gresham Outlook

April McIntyre, right, owner of The Sign Shop, watches as employee Heather Smith makes a sign. The Sign Shop creates signs for a variety of uses from banners to sandwich boards to automobiles.

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When she’s driving around East County, April McIntyre says she likes to note how various businesses have their signs and banners displayed and designed, and how well they get their messages out.

It’s a natural instinct for McIntyre, whose own business, The Sign Shop, has contributed a great deal to the businesses and organizations in the area.

For her, a sign’s success depends on two elements: content and layout. Does the sign have the right amount of words on the right size board? Is it simple enough that someone driving or walking by will see it and understand it? Is it catchy and pleasing to the eye?

The Sign Shop offers everything from custom signs, banners, outside A-frame boards and window and vehicle lettering to political signs, vehicle graphics and wall decorations. And although McIntyre co-founded the business just four years ago, examples of her own work abound throughout East County.

The Sign Shop’s work includes the lamppost banners around Fairview Village and Fairview Town Center; city banners for events like Chili on the Green, Fairview Flicks in the Park and Big Truck Day; and some of the political yard signs for city council races.

Then there are the many East County businesses that bear McIntyre’s work on their signs and windows: Boeing, Blue Bear Lending Company, Quimby Welding Supplies and Chinook Way Apartments to Gymstars, Cascade Athletic Clubs, Melange Salon & Spa and the Lingerie Closet, the latter two logos McIntyre designed herself. Even the Oregon Health & Science University vans and Cherry Park Plaza buses bear The Sign Shop’s unique designs.

The Gresham location, which opened Aug. 1, is the next step for the family-owned business, which McIntyre started in May 2004 with her husband, Mark McIntyre, to earn extra money and keep busy while she cared for their two young children.

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