Judge — June 18, 1921 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

sillier He Never Had but One Idea, but It Made Him a Mituoxs. vor THESE NS HAVE p Naive Sic Company. BEEN SOLD BY Fortune A Success Story for Aspiring Young Business Men bas HE NAIVE SIGN COMPANY,"of which Tam founder and pres- ident, was built on an hat is to say, a behind it. I had that idea. Please pardon me if I use the pronoun “1” four or five thou- sand times in this article, and do not get the impression that I am writing this simple story of my successful career be- cause I enjoy writing it; Iam putting down there is an ix Tue rinst Home or Tue Naive Sicn Company Mx. Herotp 1s SeEN AT WORK IN HIS FACTORY these facts simply because they may be helpful to many young men starting out in life. If I did not believe that any young man can do what I have done, I would not be writing this article. (If he can’t, he’s a simp.) Broadly, my advice to the young man starting out in life is: get an idea. Get an idea and, as they stick to it. With this introduction, I will tell you how I got the idea on which my great naive sign factories were built and de- veloped from a modest workshop in a dog- house to the largest naive sign industry in the world. As I used to walk about Indianapolis, Ind., I used to see numerous signs: “fresh ft [inte HES Sy Birps’-eve or INDUSTRY WHICH WAS BORN IN A DOG. By Don Heroip President of The Naive Sign Company Whenever you sce a sign “fresh pAint” today, it is probable that you are looking at one of our signs. Ane Nave Sign Comeany You may think it has just been a shee | yen OS painted by one of the house painters on the job, but that is only a compli House pAint.” I used to see painters stopping their work to letter these signs, slowly and laboriously. At first these signs made no impression on me. Opportunity. is constantly at hand if we would but heed her, or him. In the midst of life we are in death. Eventually, a group of house painters started work on a residence in our neighborhood. The work dragged along all summer. 1 wondered why. Then gradually it dawned on me that the painters were spending most of their painting “fresh pAint” signs to stick all over the house. en was when I had my big idea the idea which has since made me a thought I, “shouldn't those signs be made by the hundreds. of thousands and sold to painters? It would save painters a great deal of time. There is no reason why such ns should not be produced in large and still be made just as illegible are when painted by So I started “The Naive Sign Com- in our dog-hou: ing I will admit. irst, I sold the signs locally, but grad- ually we began to get orders from as far north as Kokomo and as far west as Haute. Needless to say, we soon outgrew the dog-house. We moved into a pig-pen, and then into a still larger pig-pen, and then into a buggy-shed, and then into a wood-house, and then into a couple of adjacent chicken-houses, and finally into our own great daylight factory and factories. A YEW OF THE FACTORIES OF THIS G| ment to our skill and ingenuity. Our signs are every where—wherever there is fresh paint. We get mail orders from all over the world, and produce “fresh pAint” signs in all languages in cluding the Scandinavian Of course I know you why we do not paint our signs more neatly, such as “FRESH PAINT” in clean, even, perfect, correct lettering. The answer to that is the answer to our success. It was my original idea to paint the signs naively, and I have stuck to that idea and it has, as I have said, made me my fortune. “FRESH PAINT” sign would REAT are wondering A perfect Yes, I was wise. I waited for clothing prices drop, “before T boughi it this new suit of clothes COld ILLUSTRATING THE ATTENTION PERSONS PAY TO A FRESH PAINT SIGN CORRECTLY PAINTED. Wg comicbooks.com