The personal touch
Happy with the niche he has found for Loudmouth, El Kassem does not worry about competition from other sign or print shops.
“The stuff we do is so customized,” he says. “A lot of our efforts are invisible to the customer, in that we’ll take whatever files we’re given and then fix them. There is a lot of back-end correction work. The customer is oblivious to this process, even if the original file is garbage.”
This personal touch extends from software-based design to hardware-based production.
“We don’t have a computer numerical control (CNC) router, but we’ll jigsaw an interesting shape for a sandwich board,” says El Kassem, “and we’ll apply polyester vinyls to aluminum sign blanks as a substrate for outdoor graphics. We don’t do any rush-type work.”
With the shop’s current pace, workload and market awareness, he says he’s very happy with what the business has become since its roots in his basement.
“Online was impersonal and I never saw the work,” he says. “Now I can drive through town and say, ‘I put that up!’”
