By Alexander Dworkowitz
Henry Clausner, 39, claims to remember every one of the thousands of signs he has designed over the years.
But none of those signs bring him more pride than his pizza man, the first he ever made.
Clausner was 17 and a student at the High School for Art and Design in Manhattan. One afternoon, he was sitting in a pizzeria near his home in Whitestone when on impulse he drew a cartoon of a man running with a pizza with the words above “We Deliver.”
The owner of the pizzeria noticed Clausner’s work and asked the teenager if he could reproduce it on a larger scale for his restaurant. Clausner happily obliged, charging $5, the cost of the markers necessary for the drawing, and the owner was delighted with the result.
“He said, ‘Wow, this is great. I want more of them,’” Clausner recalls.
He drew more signs for the pizzeria as well as nearby businesses. Soon his work appeared all over the neighborhood.
“I was into seeing my work all over,” he says. “That was the thrill at the time.”
Twenty-two years later, Clausner has transformed his penchant for cartooning into “Henry’s Signs and Printing of New York,” a business with locations in Whitestone and Bayside. Clausner plans to open a third store in Long Island soon and has set his sights on starting a chain of such stores in the region.
Clausner does not just see his work displayed in Queens but throughout the country, having recently spotted one of his signs while vacationing in Florida.
Clausner had an interest in drawing from a young age. While other children were out playing football, he was inside doodling, he says.
“I used to sit and draw constantly,” he says. “Whenever I sat on a couch, I had a paper and pen with me always.”
Clausner began producing the signs en masse after renting out a storefront in Whitestone when he was still 17. He passed by an empty store on 10th Avenue with a “For Rent” sign. He went inside, offered the rental agent $450, all he had in his bank account, and secured the space.
“I didn’t know what to call it,” he says. “I just knew I wanted to draw somewhere.”
His father was removing bathroom tiles from their home at the time, and he started his sign business by drawing on the tiles. He used milk crates for furniture, and traveled to work by bicycle, since he did not yet have a driver’s license. The power flipped off one day, since Clausner did not know a tenant had to make arrangements to pay for electricity.
The landlord was surprised to find out he was renting out the space to someone so young.
“He came in one day smoking a cigar, and he said, ‘What are you doing here?’” Clausner recalls.
Three years later, Clausner moved to a larger location, and he has since moved again.
Clausner’s life revolved around his work. He would get up 5 a.m. most days, and would do little besides work, eat and sleep. When he went on dates, he proudly pointed out his drawings visible around Queens.
“I remember when I first went out with my wife,” he says. “She’d say it was amazing that all the stuff she saw was mine.”
In recent years, Clausner’s business has shifted. He no longer simply draws signs but engraves them and reproduces them using digital printing. He also designs T-shirts and offers an array of printing services.
He has taken on larger clients, too, now producing signs for both the Internal Revenue Services and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Like nearly everything else, computers have altered the sign business, Clausner says.
Many businesses design signs like printed advertisements. But a sign often must appear more dramatic than a printed ad in order to catch a passing eye, a concept sometimes missed by digital designers, Clausner says.
“The problem is that there are printers out there who don’t know sign design,” he says. “The layout is different.”
While he does little drawing for himself nowadays, Clausner has developed a new interest. He has experimented with sculpture, designing comic figurines based on people he has seen around the neighborhood, and he is considering producing the caricatures in large quantities.
With the changes in his business, Clausner admits that he has lost some of his spark. His parents, his best friends and ardent supporters, died in 2001 and 2002.
But Clausner still retains a strong pride in his work, flashing a big smile whenever he talks about a past job.
“I may not remember the face of every customer,” he says. “But I remember the colors of their sign.”
Henry’s Signs and Printing of New York is located at 12-60 150th St. in Whitestone at 718-767-9817 and 206-01 48th Ave. in Bayside at 718-428-2888.
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz at 718-229-0300 Ext. 141 or by email at TimesLedger@aol.com.
