SignJive was built to be a full service sign company who specializes in working with multifamily developers, owner operators, contractors and management companies who need full or partial sign packages for their multifamily properties.
A Trusted Partner
When it comes to signage for multifamily developments, choosing the right partner can make all the difference. From branding and aesthetics to compliance and durability, signage plays a crucial role in creating a welcoming and professional atmosphere for residents and visitors alike. SignJive has been a trusted name in multifamily signage for over 20 years, delivering high-quality, end-to-end solutions that set communities apart.
Josh Buttitta
Founder, Designer & Art Director
LinkedIn
Everything Under One Roof
At SignJive, we do it all—design, permitting, manufacturing, and in-house installation, all under one roof. That means better communication, more control, faster timelines, and consistent quality from start to finish.
Our Customers
At SignJive, we take the stress out of multifamily signage by managing every detail—from concept to installation—so you don’t have to. Developers, owners, and managers count on us because we understand the complexities of multifamily projects and deliver consistent results they can trust. That’s why they come back, time and again.
With SignJive, you get consistent quality, clear communication, and a team that makes your job easier—every step of the way.
SignJive Founder Story — Q&A
Where does this all start for you — the business, the design, all of it?
Honestly, with art. I was drawing, sculpting, painting before I knew what any of it was for. My family owned businesses — restaurants, shops — so business was just the air I breathed growing up. But art was the thing I actually loved. I didn’t see those as two different paths. I always knew that whatever I built, it would be built on design.
You started your first company at twenty-one. What did that teach you?
I started a screen-printing business — T-shirts, printed apparel. It wasn’t a financial win, I sold it five years later, but it taught me something you can’t learn any other way: what it actually takes to run a business day to day. The discipline of it. That lesson has outlasted the company by decades.
From there you moved into sign design. What pulled you in that direction?
I took a job as a sign designer in Indianapolis, and that’s really where the craft started — the actual skills I still use today. I was also teaching graphic design and 3D animation at a college on the side, because I’d had this dream since I was a kid of animating for Disney. That passion for how things move, how light and form work together — that never left me. It just found a different outlet.
How did you end up building sign companies instead?
Life redirected me. I moved to Florida in 1999, took a marketing job that got relocated out from under me, and landed at Tech Data — a large technology distributor. I worked the web team, then PR as a videographer and animator, then ran their print advertising department. Every one of those roles handed me another piece of what I’d eventually need. I just didn’t know it yet.
And that’s when Oakhurst Signs started?
In 2003, still at Tech Data, I started Oakhurst as a side project. It grew fast enough that by 2005 I walked away from the job to run it full time. Over the next eighteen years, it became the largest multifamily-dedicated sign company in the country — eight million a year, thirty employees, work all over the map. I sold it to a private equity firm in 2018.
What did you learn from exiting a company?
The exit wasn’t the win — the diagnosis was. Oakhurst sold primarily through third-party management companies. That kept the pipeline full, but it kept me a step removed from the people who actually cared about design — the ones making the real decisions. And every time we handed a piece of a project to an outside vendor — permitting, manufacturing, whatever it was — that’s where things went wrong. Consistently. It wasn’t bad luck. It was the model.
So when you started SignJive, you built it to fix that.
Exactly. I waited out my non-compete and built the company I wished I’d had. SignJive works directly with developers, because that’s where design actually gets valued instead of just approved. And we keep everything in-house — design, permitting, manufacturing, installation. No handoffs. If something goes wrong, it’s on us, and that’s the point — it means we can actually fix it before the customer ever sees it.
Where does biophilic design fit into that?
It’s the whole philosophy behind the work. A property entrance isn’t just a sign — it’s the first impression someone forms of a place they might live for years. Natural textures, landscaping, color & architecture — when those come together intentionally, people feel it even if they can’t say why. Most companies treat the entrance as an afterthought. We treat it as the whole point.
Why boutique instead of scaling into a bigger operation?
Because bigger is how you lose the thing that makes the work good. We lead with design. We drive the process — takeoffs, art concepts — before the customer even has to ask. We communicate constantly, we hit our timelines, and the standard we hold ourselves to is simple: outperform everyone else in the category. That only works at a size where nothing gets lost.
What does customer loyalty look like to you?
It looks like growing at a pace that doesn’t break our ability to perform at a top level for the customers we already have. Everyone at the company knows I’d never trade an existing relationship for a new one just to grow the business. Doing a great job comes first. The growth follows — it doesn’t lead.
We don’t lock people into contracts. We want customers to stay because they know we do an amazing job and that we’re different, not because they’re obligated to. That’s where real loyalty comes from — not paperwork, performance.
How do you know it’s working?
The customers. What I’m proudest of isn’t any single project — it’s the relationships that outlast one. Three of my very first customers from the Oakhurst days are still with us. Plenty of others have stayed five years, ten years, longer. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because once someone sees how we deliver, and what that looks like next to everyone else, they keep coming back. Talk is easy. The proof is in the performance, start to finish — the attention to detail at the beginning, the middle, and the end of every job. You have to work with us once to understand what that actually means.
If you had to say it in one sentence — why does SignJive exist?
SignJive exists to make one thing easy: getting our customers what they need, exactly when they need it — project after project, state after state, year after year. Our job is to lead the way and get it done, so our customers never have to worry about it. In the wrong hands, a large sign project can turn into a disaster. What our customers are really looking for is a partner they can trust completely. That’s what we deliver.