about us
Our brief history
Don and Kim Edwards have been operating Newmarket's oldest sign shop since 1983. Don started lettering for an Ontario sign shop back in 1979. Self taught, you really had to be a jack of all trades back then. Some of the skills necessary were hand lettering for signs and vehicles, spray painting for back lit store signs, wood working to construct frames etc.
Wanting to learn more, Don taught himself some higher end skills along the way like airbrush painting for pictorials and to enhance lettering, gold leaf for store windows and signs, screen printing of signs and later textiles, pinstriping for cars and trucks and sandblasting for cedar signs.
Soon, Knightworks was called upon for expert advice and features in trade magazines throughout Canada and the U.S. For a number of years, he taught airbrush throughout the U.S. for a trade magazine. He was also called upon to teach classes on sign design and vehicle graphics at conferences and events again in the U.S.
Knightworks joined the computer cut revolution in 1989 when an expensive plotter was introduced to the world of signs. Stick on letters was a hard sell at first to the customers that thought it was a cheap alternative to hand lettering. It was neither. Shortly after that a PC link was created and we were designing on a computer screen.
Digital printing was introduced a few years later but it was so expensive we would all have to wait quite a while until a printer for the local shops was affordable. Our first vehicle wrap was years before it was popular and only considered by your corporate accounts due to the cost.
Today, our sign shop is a very different place. We have on line ordering, faster printers and plotters, review sites, delivery networks, more efficient materials plus a host of sub trades to speed up production.
Although a lot has changed in the industry, much remains the same. We still design with the same passion we had when we started. We still think people want to be treated with respect when it comes to their needs, and we still get excited when we finish a project and hope the customer does also.
So whatever you need, we're here for you.
