American Sign Museum

American Sign Museum
2515 Essex Place
Cincinnati, Ohio 45206
(800) 925-1110
(513) 258-4020, ext. 336
Fax: (513) 421-5144
E-mail: tod@signmuseum.org

Chicagoland sign design, circa 1950
SignCraft Magazine; November/December, 1999, pp 120-124
By Tom McIltrot

Into retro design? Here's the real thing:
A sampling of the work of Bob Seelander from nearly 50 years ago.

Twenty years ago the late Chester Cunningham told me that an outstanding sign painter by the name of Bob Seelander was considering moving to my area. We had a shop here in Fort Meyers, Florida, and Bob had been living in Miami for years. He was semi-retired. Chester put me in touch with Bob, and I told him we'd be glad to have him work out of our shop whenever he wanted.

On his nest trip to Fort Meyers, Bob stopped by the shop. It was the beginning of an all-too-brief friendship. Seeing Bob's photos and watching him work was a revelation. He was a true giant - fast, innovative, creative and practical. A lifetime in the industry had left him with a wealth of information on all aspects of the trade.

We had been toying with the idea of starting a magazine for commercial sign shops, and Bob gave us the push we needed. We began putting the first issue together, including a feature on this legendary sign artist.

Sadly, Bob died before he ever saw the first issue, the victim of an undetected cancer. Over the years we've had a few more features on Bob's work, and also profiled his late brother George - another excellent sign artist.) Bob and George had an older brother, Marshall, who was also a very creative sign painter, but who died quite young.)

Most of this selection of Bob's work in Chicago is from the late forties and early fifties. The photos were black and white, and unfortunately cannot show Bob's effective use of color. He liked to use vibrant colors when appropriate, and also liked unusual color combinations. He used color to help guide the reader through the copy in the order he wanted them to read it.

Bob had sent these photos to his friend Chuck Hudepohl of Redondo Beach, California, years ago. Chuck and Bob had worked together in Chicago at Beverly Sign Company. In that post-World War Two era, Beverly Sign helped spawn a renaissance of sign design, moving signs from a means of identification to a form of advertising art. Bob was one of several sign designers who were on the cutting edge of this movement.