About Leeward Productions

Custom Auto Tags with Your Artwork Created Free by Accomplished Graphic Designers

Leeward Productions (formerly Shi ney Communications and Cartags.net) has been designing and manufacturing custom auto tags since 1989.

Free design work for custom tags is provided in most cases (about 90% of customer orders) by experienced graphic designers, based on your logo, idea, or rough sketch. We strive to provide plates with the best durability specification for each type of production method, aimed at longer-term name-identification and promotional use within a given budget.

Our heaviest-duty custom auto tags are printed with highly fade-resistant, screen-printed or industrial resin inks on rustproof aluminum plates for longest life and maximum durability. The plastic auto tags we produce are also screen-printed, and we carry only polyethylene plastic, which does not yellow with exposure to sunlight as cheaper polystyrene plates do, or crack in colder weather as the latter can. Our short-run/ small-quantity full-color aluminum auto tags utilize eco-solvent inkjet inks developed for the commercial sign-printing industry, which will outlast common “photo” license plates printed by dye-sublimation.

Leeward Productions customers include businesses, churches, and schools across the United States who use our custom auto tags to identify and advertise their organizations. We also sell reflective tags for EMS, firefighters, and law enforcement units who require visibility on the scene of emergencies at night.

The Artists Behind Your Custom Auto Tags

Lee Shi ney runs our tag printing department and has been a fine artist and graphic designer since the late 1970s. Branching out from the world of freelance design work, he first began designing and producing custom auto tags under the name Lee Shi ney Design (later Shi ney Communications). For many years Lee printed our car tags by hand with the help of his son and daughter, who are now out on their own, his son following in his footsteps as a screen-printer and his daughter in print media and marketing.

Lee also owned and operated a popular small art gallery in Wich ita, Kan sas for several years, and as something of a Renaissance man, still finds time to pursue the periodic fine arts project of his own. You’ll find more about Lee and his work, plus an exhibition of his art and photos of his latest gallery showing at leeshiney.com.

Ward Nic holson runs our front office and is the friendly voice on the phone who takes your order and supervises the design and layout of your custom auto tags. Ward started out as an advertising typographer in the early 1980s during the era of phototypesetting machines, working for design firms and advertising agencies. After desktop publishing technology with personal computers superseded typesetting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he moved into graphic design and business copywriting.

More recently he worked as a production artist for Greteman Group, a prominent design agency, before coming on board with Leeward Productions and applying his layout skills to the business of custom auto tags. With his exacting typographic background, Ward is our “detail man” who makes sure everything is ship-shape with your custom auto tags order before it goes into production.