Jerry’s Restaurant Plastic Sign

Jerry’s started as a sandwich stand in Lexington, Kentucky in 1946. By the 1960s, when this sign was made, there were more than 53 locations across six states.

When the Museum acquired this sign in 2018, it wasn’t functioning correctly and needed a little fixing up. Luckily, all it took were a few ballast and lamp replacements to get the sign glowing again. One side of the sign—the side facing away from the sun—was in excellent condition; the other had faded significantly due to exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays. The museum installed the side with the better face facing out towards the street.

All the sign’s graphics were screen printed. Screen printing on plastic was one of the more modern sign-making techniques of the later 20^th century that slowly replaced others like porcelain enameling. It is an image-transfer process that uses dyes and stencils, and can be completed front-facing or in reverse onto a material, in this case plastic. To learn more about the screen printing process, watch the video linked below.