Web posted
Other signs may be used by people with hearing or
speaking impairments to "talk" with each other.
All signs communicate, but some do it with pizzazz.
On the Kenai Peninsula, chances are those signs
-- the ones with style and grace, the ones with flair
-- were created by G.F. Sherman Signs on Kalifornsky
Beach Road in Soldotna.
Owner Guff Sherman is especially proud of his company's
carved cedar signs that draw calls from passers-by
complimenting his work.
One is at the Back Door Lounge in Kenai, another
is in front of Soldotna's Liberty Professional Offices
and another appears just as motorists come into Homer,
featuring eagles and gold gilding and advertising
the Alaskan Suites.
But those are hardly the only Sherman signs around
the peninsula, nor are they the only type of signs
the sign company produces.
In fact, Sherman Signs has created signs for most
area municipal governments, the Kenai Peninsula Borough
and the state of Alaska, as well as nearly every
business on the peninsula. Sherman also has produced
signs in Anchorage and Alaska Bush communities around
Dillingham, Iliamna and Kodiak.
His work may appear in the form of wood-carved or
painted plywood signs, banners with computer-generated
vinyl lettering, silk-screening or hand-painted pinstriping.
In addition to signs on or in front of buildings,
Sherman signs also are applied to cars, trucks and
vans, as well as boats and planes. What makes their
work so noteworthy and sought after?
"We do design," said the 46-year-old Sherman, who
founded the business in 1980.
Rather than simply using a computer-graphics program
to print neatly lettered signs, Sherman is an artist,
who learned to paint with a brush long before computers
were in vogue.
He says that from his earliest childhood years in
Hershey, Pa., he remembers being recognized for his
art talent. As a matter of fact, one of his works
was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City when he was in seventh grade.
One of his first ventures into the world of commercial
art consisted of doing pinstriping work on race cars
for an uncle, who now teaches art at Bloomsburg University
in Pennsylvania.
Although Sherman credits much of his artistic talent
to his architectural-engineer father, when just a
teen-ager, the country-club kid disappointed him
by declaring he wasn't going to college after high
school, but was heading off to follow a dream in
the rugged outdoors of Alaska.
That was 1977, when Sherman took his first sign-shop
job in Anchorage. A year later, he returned to Pennsylvania
to marry Colleen, now his wife of 24 years, who joined
him living in a teepee -- their first Alaska home.
A short time later, the couple opted out of the
big city and built their own sign shop where it still
stands today across from the Red Diamond Center.
To avoid paying rent or having a mortgage on a house
and a business, the Shermans lived in the shop for
the first five years as the business grew.
The sign shop itself has a distinctive sign featuring
a likeness of Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman,
an ancestor of Guff Sherman's.
"Because of the family ties, I've done a lot of
research on Gen. Sherman and discovered that he was
also very interested in art.
"He enjoyed music and art and did all of his own
drawings in his memoirs.
Sherman said he gets most of his work
by being creative and offering good designs.
He compared the difference in sign shops
to the difference between having a house
built by a builder and having a house built
with the design of an architect.
"There are really a lot of very good builders
out there and they build really good, sound
houses," he said.
"But then there are those houses that
really stand out ... the truly special
houses. They were designed."
Though he did dabble in fine art before
settling on commercial art as a profession,
Sherman said, "We combine fine art with
most of our signage, but it's mostly commercial
art.
"I have said that someday, after I've
finished with my business, I would go back
to fine art.
"What I do believe is that there's something
everybody's supposed to do in life, and
I feel it's a treat to be able to do it
every day.
"The only one thing I know I can do for
sure ... it's do design work," he said.
One sign his company recently completed
for the city of Soldotna subtly discloses
another passion of Sherman's -- his love
for flying.
"Soldotna put out a bid for a sign on
the gate at the Soldotna airport," he said.
"The city had purchased an iron gate for
the airport and wanted a sign on it saying,
'Soldotna Municipal Airport.'
"The gate was a reproduction of a time-period
type gate with a lot of very ornate steel.
"I saw the gate and felt the signage had
to fit the appearance of the entry.
"An idea flashed to do the design to fit
the ornamentation and I also thought it
should be maintenance free and represent
a part of Alaska history," he said.
Because he is a self-described advocate
of the Super Cub airplane, which is said
to be the favored choice of Alaska pilots,
he incorporated a likeness of the Super
Cub cut out of steel amid steel scroll
work, atop an aluminum sign announcing
the entrance to the airport.
"Our bid was the highest, but it was accepted
by the city because they recognized that
the design was the best," he said.
Sherman also "threw in" the design for
all the smaller directional signs pointing
to entrances and exits around the airport
free of charge. Each of the smaller signs
also incorporates a Super Cub likeness.
Sherman, who runs the sign shop with himself
as the sole designer and two employees
-- Dave Hartman and Rob Knapp -- who produce
the signs, also is assisted by Colleen,
who has been helping since the business
began.
The couple resides along Longmere Lake
in Sterling, where they keep their specially
painted, Sherman-designed Super Cub.
Another form of sign work came into the
Shermans' lives when Trevor was born deaf.
"We had to take (American Sign Language)
signing classes when Trevor was 2 or 3
years old," said Sherman.
"He has hearing aids and can hear some
sounds and read lips so he is able to communicate," Sherman
said.
He said having a son born deaf was a lot
of extra work, especially for a young couple
starting out, and it presented a lot of
questions.
"We wondered how he was going to go to
school, how he was going to learn.
"Then, when we went to sign him up for
hockey, they told us he couldn't play because
he was handicapped," Sherman said.
League officials immediately reversed
that decision after looking into the issue.
"At first, you have no idea what he can
or can't do," Sherman said. "We sent him
to the Alaska State School for the Deaf
in Anchorage for first, second and third
grades.
"He would only be home on weekends. It
was really tough, because then he'd cry
all the way back to Anchorage after each
weekend.
"But we raised him like he didn't have
a handicap -- that's the biggest thing
we ever did for him," Sherman said.
"Consequently, he became successful.
"Here's what happened," Sherman quickly
added. "He got voted team captain of the
hockey team five years in a row."
Although he is not playing hockey this
season, Trevor is working out in the gym
every day and involved in kick boxing and
yoga.
"He's also got a lot of talent as an artist
... he may have more talent than me," Sherman
said.
"Will he use it?" he asks rhetorically.
The elder Sherman also believes daughter
Jessica will find success "in whatever
she does."
"Jessica has a lot of street sense. She
could run this business right now. She
has great business management skills," he
said.
"She's just out of high school and she
takes two hours each day and on weekends
to work with the cheerleaders at (Soldotna
High School).
"That's a lot of focus for an 18-year-old," he
said.
While in high school, Jessica was a cheerleader
and participated in lyrical and jazz dance.
She currently attends classes at Kenai
Peninsula College.
Guff Sherman also participated in sports
when he was younger, swimming, playing
golf and tennis with the country-club set
and playing baseball, hockey, football
and other sports in high school. But he
didn't pursue them after high school, choosing
instead to come to Alaska to hunt and fish.
Now, he and Colleen, who works as a sign-language
interpreter for the Kenai Peninsula Borough
School District, "just like being out."
"Sometimes, we just pack up the plane
and fly up to Twin Lakes or the Harding
Ice Field and have lunch," he said.
His future plans call for growing the
business as the area grows.
"We can only do so much here," he said.
But he has no plans to move to larger
markets to grow the business.
"Sometimes my wife and I just grab a few
(fishing) rods and go off in the plane," he
said.
"I wouldn't want to give that up."
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