If you’ve seen some of the most recent cinematic blockbusters (such as the latest Batman and Spider-Man movies), then chances are you’ve probably also seen the work of South Shore Signs & Graphics without even realizing it. After all, the vinyl lettering and wraps up on the big screen didn’t just appear via Hollywood special effects magic.
South Shore Signs and Graphics is a design firm and sign shop located in Long Island, New York. Cladio Juliano and his best friend Steve Tague co-started the shop back in 2008, and today, it still remains (most of the time) a two-man business. “I handle design and print, and Steve installs,” says Juliano, noting that they do bring in other staff when needed.
South Shore Signs and Graphics boasts two locations. The first is set up more as a graphic arts and print studio where they conduct one-on-one design meetings with clients, as well as fabrication. Their second location is a larger facility shared with Juliano’s family auto body shop for large installation work (and also installation work that needs to be performed during winter months. “My family has been in the auto body business for forty-plus years, and when I opened up the graphics shop, a lot of things clicked and made sense,” he says. “I had been around body shops and graphics my entire life, and vehicles/fleets are a big part of what we work with at South Shore.
“While South Shore is operated totally separately and independently, the two mesh together well.”
The model for South Shore Signs and Graphics is similar to that of Juliano’s friend, noted design expert Dan Antonelli, who was a major influence on him. “I explain to people that we’re design-first,” says Juliano. “Design is the most important aspect of a project, and it should match the purpose of the output graphics.”
Juliano impressively hand-draws a lot of his sign and wrap designs. “I grew up in the times of technology, which is led by computers,” he says. “But I try to preserve the ‘human’ art of hand sketching; I pay as much homage to the way it used to be done, back in the days of sign painters.”
After finishing a design sketch, Juliano either will scan it and import it into Adobe Illustrator, or sketch and illustrate directly into the computer with creation tools like Surface™ Pro 3 or Wacom drawing tablets, which he’ll use to make further tweaks when collaborating with clients. “Sometimes I’ll use FlexiSign™ too, because it has a lot of great features for sign making,” he says, “particularly its vectorization and cleanup tools.”
Juliano puts graphic arts at the forefront, marrying printing technology with design. Currently South Shore Signs and Graphics uses its Roland VersaCAMM VP-540 fifty-four-inch wide format digital printer/cutter to create logo design, signage, posters, and more for their clients. They call vehicle graphics work their “bread and butter,” doing full and partial wraps for commercial fleets as well as individual shop vehicles.
One of their specialties is small business branding for local clients. “We can handle the logo design, print, and fabrication services for them in one place,” says Juliano, “as well as offer Web site services to unify their branding across the board.
“We try to make every customer we serve become a repeat customer.”
In fact, it was servicing this particular segment of customers that led to their other big niche: their aforementioned work for movie and television productions.
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Networking was huge for them here. “We made sure a lot of the work we were putting out for other small business clients was great,” says Juliano, “and that it was getting noticed by the people it needed to get noticed by.
“And it did!”
The company supplied some car graphics for smaller-made independent movies, and their exceptional work allowed them to work their way up into increasingly bigger films. “Not only did they see the quality of our work, but they actually saw how quickly we were able to produce it,” says Juliano.
Today they have print and installed “set prop” graphics for use in the films The Dark Knight Rises, Wolf of Wall Street, Something Borrowed, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Most recently, the shop created set graphics for the Golden Globe™-winning Showtime series The Affair. “We worked hard to become the go-to guys for film sets in New York,” says Juliano.
(Note: For film and television work, South Shore Signs and Graphics is more of a three-man operation, as Juliano and Tague also call in John Barbella, a top designer and graphics installer in the area. “Anything we’ve achieved and done in film is done with John and wouldn’t be possible without him,” says Juliano. “We also work with him outside of film for local client projects as well. He’s one of the people we knew we had to prove ourselves to when we opened up shop. He gave us a shot and chance to prove it, and the rest has been history.”)
Design requests are always interesting when it comes to film and television. Sometimes the production company provides them with strict guidelines, and sometimes the team is able to come up with ideas of their own.
“It can be based on reality, like recreating all the NYPD cars for Amazing Spider-Man 2, or it can be for a made-up world, like Gotham City,” says Juliano. “For The Dark Knight Rises, we produced unique vehicle markings like the Gotham news vans, Gotham sanitation trucks, disaster relief trucks, taxi cab graphics, and various other physical printed objects,” says Juliano. “It can even be something as small as a newspaper or a bar cup coaster that appears in a scene.
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For films, the production company South Shore works under takes care of everything related to the vehicles that will be wrapped or lettered. “Vehicle sizes and measurements are all taken care of prior to them coming to us,” explains Juliano. “This helps establish a quicker workflow for everyone.”
South Shore relies exclusively on the Roland Color System for spot color matching on all their projects, but Juliano finds that color management requirements are a little more lenient and forgiving when it comes to film and television. “The camera is able to do a bunch of tricks,” he says. “But this really all depends on the director and what they need printed.”
Juliano admits that the major difference when working for movie/television clients is speed. “You’ve got to work snappy, because you’re often printing and then shooting the next day,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll get a last-minute call at three in the morning and need to have the graphics ready and installed for a shoot later that morning.
“But even with all that, working with this industry is still a lot of fun!”
For films, vehicle wrap installations are either done on set or at a secret warehouse facility where many of the other film props are also worked on and stored. “Luckily for us, many films are shot here in New York,” says Juliano, “but there are times where the film is out of state which requires more travel. And being that I run the daily operations, design, and customer relations for everything outside of film, it can get crazy. However we’ve figured out a good system that works.
“Being up to our necks in projects is our specialty!”
Working with major films, as you can probably imagine, requires secrecy. South Shore prints any graphics before installation privately in their studio in a lockdown mode. “We can’t show any of the work we’ve done while the film production is in progress, or we will have one angry director,” says Juliano. “We also believe in the art of surprise. It’s more exciting for us that way, because we get to show off our work on the opening day of the film, which creates more excitement for the finished project. Then friends and fans go to the film and see our work on the big screen!”
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Most of the time, the South Shore-decorated vehicles are blown up or destroyed while filming intense action sequences. “But some get recycled for sequels,” says Juliano.
Since Juliano grew up reading and watching Batman and Spider-Man, he cites his company’s work on the Dark Knight Rises and Amazing Spider-Man 2 as the films he enjoyed working on the most. “Those characters are what got me into drawing and illustrating,” he says, “which, in turn, led me into mixing illustration with the graphic arts.”
Juliano is already a very talented artist with a loyal fan base, creating his own personal line of computerized and hand-drawn illustration that are used for decals and posters.
And the confidence Juliano and Tague have gained with their inkjet hardware is allowing them to expand into more customized wall graphics/wraps, banners, t-shirts, and even skins for small personal electronics (like smart phones and tablets). “Pretty much anything someone suggests, we can come up with a way to do it,” said Juliano.
Juliano finds that inkjet technology allows them to do anything, especially when it comes to full color and vibrancy. “You can bring forth your designs in a way you couldn’t before it came along,” he says.
Custom wrap customers can select from a mixture of designs that include Juliano’s pre-existing artwork. “They can also bring in a custom photo or artwork, and we’ll template it and design it for them,” he explains.
Offering their decal service online as well had helped profit margins by being able to attract international business. “So we’re able to reach a broader audience in that area,” says Juliano.
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For t-shirts, Juliano’s artistic talents for illustrations are often requested. Then there are those instances where customers request a couple of t-shirts to go with the signs and/or vehicle graphics South Shore Signs and Graphics has done for them. For shorts runs, they’ll print-and-cut the design onto a nice, white opaque heat transfer material via the VersaCAMM. The machine will automatically cut out the design, and then they’ll take it and press it with one of their heat presses.
“But if they want t-shirts in larger quantities, we’ll go direct-to-garment or get them screen printed,” says Juliano. “In the future, we’re looking to mix direct-to-garment in with the heat press because we think they marry together pretty well.
They tend to mix up the vinyls and glossy papers used in projects. “But for the most part, we use a variety of ORACAL materials, as well as 3M materials sometimes,” says Juliano, noting they use VersaWorks to RIP their designs.
South Shore Signs and Graphics also uses social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach out to its audience. Juliano promotes the business mainly through Instagram. “That’s the platform I also connect with a lot of up-and-coming designers and give them tips on design and illustration, as well as the sign industry and inkjet printing,” he says. “It’s very powerful when it comes to the global aspect.”
But when it comes to attracting local businesses, Juliano finds Facebook to be the best social platform tool. “We use this for a lot of advertising,” he says.
South Shore Signs and Graphics is gearing up for more wraps and decals in another upcoming major movie blockbuster production that Juliano is exited about, but as is the case with the usual hush-hush security involved with shoots, they cannot divulge which property…yet. Get your popcorn and felt-tip squeegees ready!
For more information, visit www.southshoregraphics.org and www.cladiojuliano.com.
—Jeff Wooten
—Additional reporting by Ginny Mumm
