Virginia-based Art and Sign FX displays singular creativity.
By Steve Aust
The Virginia commonwealth offers a distinctive, vibrant sign market. Its legacy as the epicenter of colonial and antebellum culture lives on with many historic districts, attractions and landmarks. Complementing its historical fabric, populations have swelled in many northern areas that serve as Washington, DC bedroom communities. This duality offers ample opportunity to create unique, traditional signage that promotes businesses related to the region’s tourist trade, as well as stately monument signs and detailed wayfinding and identification programs for housing developments that mushroomed throughout the area.
Troy Dawson, proprietor of Fredericksburg, VA-based Art and Sign F/X, has grown his shop from his basement into an approximately 9,000-sq.-ft., 24-employee entity. Because the company plies much of its trade in monument and architectural signage, Dawson also established an inhouse landscaping division to supplement the shop’s signage and bolster its bottom line. And, although he’s learned that it’s an intensely competitive market, he’s aggressively trying to penetrate his region’s vehicle-wrap market.
Getting started
During his childhood, Dawson developed artistic talents, but he followed an educational path that ultimately led to his earning a bachelor’s degree in urban planning from Virginia Commonwealth University and embarked on a civil-engineering career.
After 12 years in this profession, he decided to rejuvenate his creative juices. He collaborated with a childhood friend to found Art and Sign F/X in 1994. One year later, philosophical differences spurred Dawson to dissolve the partnership and undertake sole company ownership. During the shop’s early years, cut-vinyl and vehicle graphics helped sustain its growth – he greatly relied on a Summa 610 cutter. However, as Dawson’s customer base expanded, his past professional experience aided the shop’s growth.
“With my background as an urban planner, I have considerable experience with project and site management,” he said. “And, I cultivated a dimensional-sign business, in part, through my contacts in the building trades.”
In the late ’90s, Dawson purchased a Gerber Scientific Products Sabre CNC router, which helped catalyze the company’s expansion into the entry-monument and architectural-sign markets. Fredericksburg’s broad spectrum of sign-fabrication opportunities keeps the shop hopping.
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