Artist Paul M. Miller built a career designing and illustrating campaigns and products for national brands including Disney, Hamms Beer, General Motors, M&M’s/Mars Inc., the NFL and more.
A graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, he worked for an advertising agency early in his career and later worked for a Green Bay design firm.
He moved into freelance work, relocated to rural Oconto, and in the process started working for Marquis and Carver Yachts. That work ended when the companies closed in 2021, spurring Miller to launch his sign and banner company, Barn Badges.
“A lot of people like to put imagery on hunting cabins, cottages and barns,” says Miller, who has helped restore some area barns.
He was confident the quality of his work would differentiate his signs. Miller has won 17 national and international awards for his work.
Miller works with his close friend Don West of Wild West Studios to print the signs on aluminum-faced and plastic core board that is laminated. They can be router cut for custom shapes and three-dimensional effects.
One of his specialties is hunting camp signs, but his work has included religious and patriotic themes and has ranged in size from the side of a barn to the side of a garden shed. Examples of his work include a sign for Abrams Fire Department and signage for Kubec’s Marine.
Miller will often go to the site where the sign will be installed and says he works with clients who have design ideas as well as those who don’t. He offers personalized and custom art that clients can’t get anywhere else.
“I do think that a lot of people are falling in love with their own place,” Miller says. “People want to decorate their own house, their own camp, so people want to have personalized signs at their camp, cottage and their home, whether it’s inside or outside.”
