Before there was Limelight Sign Works there was an old suburban barn filled with motorcycles in various states of assembly. The more time Travis McLelland spent rebuilding old bikes in the barn, the more he figured he’d like something to look at other than tools and scattered old parts.

“It’s all through that stuff—through motorcycles,” the 28-year-old says, motioning toward two lovingly rebuilt vintage Harley-Davidsons sitting in his Limelight Sign Works’ Delta workshop. “That’s kind of my hobby. Essentially, I just wanted cool stuff to hang on my walls, but I couldn’t afford anything. So I started making it. It’s all sort of the same idea as working on bikes. You take some wire, you weld some metal and add some paint. Except it’s a lot more fun—motorcycles are such fiddly-diddly work.”

“Fun” is indeed a good starting description for the work McLelland does under the Limelight banner. His clients to date have included booming microbreweries like the Red Truck Beer Company, for which he created an eight-foot-widefaux-weatherbeaten sign that marks the company’s flagship building in Vancouver. His creations are all around his workplace. Hanging on the wall of his studio is a prototype that he produced for Cariboo Brewing’s Buck Shot lager, the sign shaped like a beer can and including, fittingly, simulated buckshot holes. (FUBAR fans will also appreciate the hole punched in the bottom—a sure indicator that the beer has been shotgunned in more ways than one.)

McLelland suggests that he’s found himself in the right place at the right time, namely a period when being into locally made, original, and offbeat products is the height of cool. When you’ve gone the cottage-industry route, the last thing you want to embrace is something plastic, prefabbed, and mass-produced. All Limelight’s signs are made by McLelland, and then hand-painted and wired—some illuminated with neon, others with white bulbs that give them a 1940s-drugstore vibe.

“I started making these around five years ago,” he says. “By happenstance, the bulb-sign thing and market for marquee signs has now blown up big-time.”

A good part of the appeal of McLelland’s work is that it looks old. For example, a Dayton Mills Construction sign he built is streaked with enough simulated rust and dirt to convince you it spent a couple of decades languishing in a salvage yard before being reclaimed. A Mohawk Gasoline sign hanging in the entrance to the Limelight workshop, meanwhile, recalls a time when Marlon Brando was young, beautiful, and badass, ripping up The Wild One on a 1950 Triumph Thunderbird bike.

There’s a reason why Limelight’s vintage-themed work has been attracting attention, and not just in the Lower Mainland. While finding old signs from the middle part of last century isn’t mission impossible, coming up with the money to buy them is another matter. Cable-television shows like American Pickers, McLelland says with a laugh, have ruined things for those who’ve yet to win LOTTO MAX.

“I guess American Pickers has a lot to do with my love for this kind of stuff,” he suggests. “That was one of the places that I first started to see old signage, and really appreciate it. I’ve also always had a real affinity for old motorcycles and cars. You see photos of them at dealerships when they were brand-new, in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, and think ‘Where did all these old signs go?’

“I’m trying to replicate them as best as possible, because the prices are insane on old signs,” he continues. “There are old dealership signs on eBay for $50,000—and the neon’s broken. The market is crazy right now because of all the picker shows. Ten years ago, those signs probably would have been a thousand dollars.”

The prices on McLelland’s creations are considerably more budget-friendly, starting at around $400, with Limelight’s owner noting that he’s pretty much up for making whatever someone can dream up. You don’t have to spend every spare minute working on vintage hogs in a weatherbeaten old barn to appreciate his style, which he notes is as inspired by classic motorcycles as by old freight trains and art deco architecture. (See the Limelight Sign Works website.)

“A lot of what I do would really suit downtown lofts,” McLelland offers. “It’s industrial and gritty—so it really reflects the aesthetics of places with features like exposed beams.”

Harleys and their various disassembled parts in the living room are, of course, optional.