character and company about us

It all began in the 80's, when karin, fledgling paste-up
artist, met frank, self-taught carpenter. She made his
business cards, he showed her how to work the scroll
saw, and before they knew it, they were designing
and selling country craps. (ooops, did I say craps? I
meant, country crafts)

One thing led to another and they soon opened their
very own craft and hand-painted furniture shop. But
being young, and dumb, they opened this shop on a
desolate dead-end street opposite a freight railroad.
I mean, how dumb could you be and still breathe?

Not surprisingly, business was bad. No one knew about
them. No one came. And so their lightning-fast minds
(?!) decided they'd better do something.

But what?

Frank hatched upon a scheme to make a 7ft tall Santa
character standup holding a star 'sign' pointing toward
their shop and place it at the beginning of the dead
end.

The results were miraculous! Droves of people came
to check out the source of that unique Santa. And so,
they were off!

Some time later.....They tired of the whole country
cows, ducks and lace scene and decided that since
the Santa had been such a success for them, it
would probably help other businesses to get noticed
and attract customers as well.

Again, as one thing led to another, frank & karin found
themselves making hand-painted character standups
exclusively. This led them inside other small
businesses and they realized that their style could be
brought indoors as well. Thus Character & Company
menu boards and interior wall graphics were born.

For all these years, karin has been THE art department,
frank has been THE marketing department and artie,
THE production department. Together they have
worked diligently to build a reputation as the most
original and effective specialty sign business in the
area.

But, they were always limited to how much they
could do because there is obviously just so much
hand-painting one person can do!

Now all that has changed!

We, I mean they, recently joined with a nationally
acclaimed graphics reproduction firm to reproduce
our artwork.

The finished results are amazing! They maintain their
hand-painted look, have gorgeous color, a lush, high
gloss finish are can be mounted on a variety of
substrates according to the need.

Thus we are no longer limited to the tri-state area.
We can now offer Character & Company items nation-
wide; to small or large businesses much faster and
more affordably than we were ever able to do when
each piece was individually hand-painted.

We are so proud and thrilled to be able to offer our
work so that your business can experience the
cheerful, friendly, warm and witty style that it
Character & Company.