Some signs simply point the way. Others become part of the place.

In New Glarus, some of the signs people pass without thinking twice — at the brewery, near parks, around village spaces and outside local businesses — carry the hand and imagination of Bryan Dove, an Argyle sign maker whose career reaches back to a different era of American advertising.

Dove, who owns Dove Designs with his wife, Anndre, is part sign maker, part artist, part problem solver and part keeper of a trade that has largely disappeared from everyday life. Long before signs could be designed on a computer and cut by machine, people like Dove painted them by hand, letter by letter, shape by shape, until the finished piece looked effortless.

“It's like a lost art, but there still are some really good ones out there,” Dove said. “Just kind of hard to find.”