City Honors Neon Sign Designers

[Erik Sine]

City honors neon sign designers

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS - Brian Leming started in the neon sign business to help pay the bills.

Four decades later, the 65-year-old is nearing retirement as one of the most prolific sign designers in Las Vegas. His works range from the old Hacienda horse and rider to the Mardi Gras-inspired sign outside the Orleans hotel-casino.

Leming yearned Thursday for the days when hotel signs were flashy neon, not flashing video, and designers used pencils instead of computers.

"The craft is gone," Leming said at an awards ceremony where he and nine other artists were recognized by the Las Vegas centennial committee for creating some of Las Vegas' most iconic symbols.

Honored were Betty Willis, creator of the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign; Charles Barnard, who dreamed up "Vegas Vickie"; Raul Rodriguez, who designed the Flamingo sign; and Jack Dubois, Marge Williams, Rudy Crisostomo, Dan Edwards, Jack Larsen Sr. and Bill Hannapple.

Las Vegas' love of neon began in the 1940s, when the Boulder Club put up a neon sign to try to attract motorists from Highway 91, now Las Vegas Boulevard, said Michael Green, a Community College of Southern Nevada professor and historian.

Other hotels followed, and a genre of glitter evolved as designers tried to outdo one another.

"Neon is a tie to the past we're working hard to preserve because it's an art form," Green said.

Dubois, 61, got his start in the sign business after finishing college with a degree in graphic design.

His most iconic work -- the Dunes Oasis sign that featured giant electric palm trees -- was dismantled when the hotel was imploded. It now stands outside a nightclub in Thailand, he said.

Like Leming, Dubois said few modern signs capture the flair and spirit of decades gone by.

He cited the old Treasure Island sign dominated by a pirate skull that was removed a couple of years ago and replaced with a video screen.

As Dubois rattled off some of his favorite works, he grinned when he mentioned the Foxy's Firehouse casino sign.

It featured a female fox wearing a firefighting helmet dousing a set of flaming slot machines with a fire hose.

"They don't do that kind of stuff anymore," he said.

[B.O.P.]

".... because it's an art form."

Amen brother!

[joemomma]

I've always wanted to go to Vegas to see the neon signs. I imagine a lot of the old ones have been replaced. At one time in my youth, I was determined to move to Vegas and find work in a sign shop. I'd heard about a particular sign that was so big and had so much neon and 11S14's in it that a sign shop was employed to work on nothing but that sign, and that the shop was within the sign. Anybody else ever heard that one? Anyway, I was told that Vegas was a closed shop and I'd never be able to get a job there, so I stayed in Kaintuck.

I'd love to be able to say I'm familiar with these designers' work, but in reality, I've never heard of any of them. My loss, I'm sure. I am familiar with a designer that lives in Vegas, though. Dave Stevens, 74, designs clubs and restaurants and I've had the good fortune to work on about 15 of his projects. He got his start traveling the country with his dad, as a wall dog (another lost art IMO), painting barns for Mail Pouch, Rock City, etc. He has a thorough knowledge of neon and lighting, and like the above mentioned designers works with pencil and paper, no computers. His portfolio is several feet thick and his work stretches from Alaska to Hawaii to the Bahamas. I'm sure he has work in his hometown, also. His last project here was his 1000th. I'm getting ready to do another one for him down in Lawvul (That's Louisville for y'all on the coasts.)

It's really an experience to watch these "old timers" at work. Dave once asked me to make a neon sign to read Champagne Bar in script and proceded to draw a 10mm pattern freehand in about a minute. It was flawless and I was dumbfounded. I'm not so sure there are any young timers in the trade able to do stuff like that anymore. But then, the times are always changing and out with the old, in with the new. Except for those damn leds. Fortunately, neon, by its very name, will always be new.

[Mad Scientist]

Would have loved to have been there. Especially the early days of Vegas signage.