DESIGNEATH In The News

Faces of Design

Story by Barry Kaufman, Photography by Lisa Staff, Local Life Magazine, March 2020

This product designer wrote the book on Hilton Head Island signs

You may not know who Alex Sineath is. You might have even met him before, or heard the delightful stories that flow so effortlessly from him in his soothing Southern-toned accent. Even then, you might not know who he is.

But we can all but guarantee you’ve seen his work.

“I feel like throughout my career I’ve been competing in a hide-and-seek contest,” he said with a laugh. “I must have won, because they can’t find me.”

If he’s hiding, it’s in plain sight. Beginning his career with legendary firm Design/Joe Sonderman in Charlotte, Sineath’s introduction to the Lowcountry came in the late ’70s when the firm was hired to design signage and structures in Sea Pines, Shipyard and Port Royal. “I dealt with people who were instrumental in designing the Hilton Head Island character as we know it,” he said.

He was hooked on that character, and saw his future in helping tell its story as the island grew. Moving to the island, he helped develop the visual languages for Northridge and Main Street, among others. “I was a perfect fit for the island, and I knew I would be because I’d designed signs for Sawgrass and a bunch of projects in Florida.”

His flair for design and his painstaking precision would soon see him designing far beyond signage. Designing and building his Hilton Head Plantation home was just the start of a phase in his career that saw him designing clubs, buildings and resorts. In 1991 he landed with the Melrose Company, where his work as a project manager saw him designing not just local sites like the company’s Daufuskie Island sales office, but far-off projects from ski clubs in Colorado to the Esparanza Resort in Cabo San Lucas. Then one day, a chance meeting with a client changed everything.

“We were standing in a power line easement because he wanted to buy the land to expand his project, and he said to me, ‘Alex, I just took my daughter off to college this weekend, and I don’t know her. I’ve been going all over the place working.’ I told myself, ‘That is not gonna be me.’”

At the age of 45, he went out on his own. This desire to be near his family saw him reinvesting himself in the visual language of Hilton Head, designing all over the island and serving on the town’s Design Review Board. If we say he wrote the book on Hilton Head Island’s design, it’s because he actually did. In his upstairs office, tucked among dozens of scale models of familiar signs from all points of the island, you’ll find a dusty paperback design guide, an official town document he helped create in 2002.

But he still takes pride in every job. He just finished up the new signs at Shelter Cove, and to hear him speak you’d find him almost choking up when he thinks back on it. “That’s really the place I have pride,” he said. “I get to leave something behind that looks nicer than it did before.”

Read the full article at LocalLifeSC.com:
https://www.locallifesc.com/faces-of-design/

Corporate brands build differently on Hilton Head

By Dan Burley, The Island Packet, January 17, 2015

The [Town of Hilton Head Island’s] guidelines were inspired by Hilton Head's early developers, said local sign designer Alex Sineath. Their philosophy was to disguise development.

"We call it the 'squint-and-you-don't-see-it' philosophy," he said. "Everything should blend. If you squint, you shouldn't be able to see that building."

That means using subdued earth tones such as beige, brown and green. It also means using materials such as wood, stucco and tabby.

Signs should have matte colors and be made of sandblasted wood. Buildings should sit back from the road and be hidden by foliage.

Sineath has designed many of the island's signs, such as those in Indigo Run and on Main Street.

To him, the key to designing signs is context.

"You have to look at it as a piece of furniture that's going to be set into the environment," he said.

Read the full article at IslandPacket.com:
http://www.islandpacket.com/news/business/article33627555.html