Eric Sloane was born, Everard Jean Hinrichs, on February 27, 1905 in New York City, New York, to a well-to-do family. Early on, he took up an interest in art, spending many boyhood hours with neighbor and noted font inventor, Frederic Goudy (Goudy Type). From Gaudy, at an early age, he learned to hand paint letters and signs.

Some of Sloane's first clients included aviation pioneers flying out of Roosevelt Field, Long Island. Many of those flyers insisted he paint the identifying marki (showing 500 of 8661 characters).