Sign Builder Illustrated January 2015

dimensional signs Projects and Products Special

business plans

Millennial Wraps and Vinyl

www.signshop.com

Number 235 | january 2015

How-To

Uplifting

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January 2015

S14

33 Supplement: SBi Dimensionals

S1 S2

SBi Dimensionals in Depth Sign shops get creative with 3-D sign work.

Riding the Dimensional Wave

BY MARK K. ROBERTS

Creating an attraction sign for a water park.

S8

A Sign That Really “Pops”

BY ASHLEY BRAY

Teamwork helps bring a sign idea from snacksized to jumbo-sized.

S12

Not-So-Heavy Metal

BY MARY SHAW

An alternative foundry creates lower cost metal signs with more design freedom.

S14

A 3D Treat

BY JEFF WOOTEN

A 3D scanner helps recreate a storefront sign.

S16

News & Notes Product and project announcements related to dimensional sign-making.

Sign Builder Illustrated (Print ISSN 895-0555, Digital ISSN 2161-4709) (USPS#0015-805) (Canada Post Cust. #7204564) (Bluechip Int’l, Po Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2, Agreement # 41094515) is published monthly

by Simmons-Boardman Publ. Corp, 55 Broad Street, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10004. Printed in the U.S.A. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and Additional mailing offices.

Pricing, Qualified individual working in the sign industry may request a free subscription. 12 issues per year. Non-qualified subscriptions Print version, Digital version, Both Print & Digital version: 1 year US/ Mexico/Canada $50.00; foreign $99.00. Agency subscriptions: 1 year US/Mexico/Canada $45.00; foreign $89.10. Single copies are $15.00 ea. Subscriptions must be paid in full in U.S. funds only. Prices are subject to change.

Copyright © Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation 2015. All rights reserved. Contents may not be

2

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

S8

26 33

Engineering High-rise Solutions

BY JEFF WOOTEN

A sign company earns top marks for a university install.

Timeless Action

BY MIKE ANTONIAK

Digital technology, on and offline, proves a winning combo for vintage signs.

37

The Twenty-first Century Visitor Experience

BY LORI SHRIDHARE

Thinking “outside the square” on museum exhibits.

reproduced without permission. For reprint information contact: Arthur Sutley, Publisher (212) 620-7247 or asutley@sbpub.com.

For Subscriptions & Address Changes, please call (800) 895-4389, (847) 763-9686, Fax (847) 763-9544, e-mail signbuilder@halldata.com, or write to: Sign Builder Illustrated, Simmons-Boardman Publ. Corp, PO Box 1172, Skokie, IL 60076-8172.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sign Builder Illustrated, PO Box 1172, Skokie, IL 60076-8172.

Instructional information provided in this magazine should only be performed by skilled crafts people with the proper equipment. The pub­lisher and authors of information provided herein advise all readers to exercise care when engaging in any of the how-to activities pub­lished in the magazine. Further, the publisher and authors assume no liability for damages or injuries resulting from projects contained herein.

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Agenda

How-To Columns

FEBRUARY 2015 February 12-13: The Midwest Sign Association (MSA) Sign Show will take place at the MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit, Michigan. (www.msassn.org)

23

16 The Millennial Quartet

BY LORI SHRIDHARE

The sky’s the limit with vehicle graphics and screen printing.

23

16

Less Restricting Pursuits

Less Restricting Pursuits

BY DAVID HICKEY

Working together to promote the importance of signage.

The Millennial Quartet

Departments 6

UpFront

8

Dispatches

Editor Jeff Wooten bah-humbugs New Year resolutions and suggests shops just act and not promise.

The latest news from around the industry.

14

Sign Show

42

SBI Marketplace

The newest products and services from sign manufacturers.

Advertisements and announcements from the sign trade.

DIMENSIONAL SIGNS Projects and Products Special

44 Shop Talk

BUSINESS PLANS

Millennial Wraps and Vinyl

www.signshop.com

NUMBER 235 | JANUARY 2015

Inset Photo: Paolo Bona / Shutterstock.com

HOW-TO

Jeff Wooten shows the appeal of stateof-the-art technology for a cuttingedge sign company.

UPLIFTING

SIGN INSTALLS

On the Cover A frameless border sign for the Milwaukee School of Engineering is lifted into place. Photo: Sign Effectz.

4

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

February 26-28: The Graphics of the Americas (GOA) Expo & Conference will be conducted at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida. (goaexpo.com)

MARCH 2015 March 10-12: Digital Signage Expo, the world’s largest conference and tradeshow dedicated to digital signage and co-located with the Digital Content Show, is scheduled to be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. (www.DSE2015.com) March 13-14: The Mid South Sign Association’s “New Ideas, New Possibilities” Conference happens at the Hilton Garden in Monroe, Louisiana. (www.midsouthsign.org)

APRIL 2015 April 8-11: The 2015 ISA International Sign Expo tradeshow, with educational and networking events, will be held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. (www.signexpo.org) signshop.com

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Up FRONT

by jeff wooten

January 2015, Vol. 29, No. 235 Sign Builder Illustrated (ISSN 0895-0555) print, (ISSN 2161-0709) digital is published by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation

Resolute This!

executive offices

President and Chairman Arthur J. McGinnis, Jr.

Don’t be afraid of the new any time of the year.

Publisher arthur j. sutley 55 Broad Street, 26th floor New York, NY 10004 212/620-7247; fax: 212/633-1863 editorial editor

Jeff Wooten

323 Clifton Street, Suite #7 Greenville, NC 27858 212/620-7244; fax: 212/633-1863 jwooten@sbpub.com

O

pening up the calendar to a brandnew year reminds me how tiresome it’s become to either make New Year’s resolutions or listen to others make them. Go ahead and make that checklist: Trendy diet. Check. Gym membership. Check. Better organize daily planner. Check.

Sure resolutions always sound and feel good for the first few days of the year (maybe even the month, if you’re feelin’ lucky). But let’s be honest, many times, one always ends up reverting back to the same old-same old pretty quickly. Why plan change in the first place when you probably already know things are destined to go back to the way things were?

And folks, running a sign shop should never, ever be equated to a schmaltzy Barbra Streisand song! One more reason why I hate resolutions.

This resolution talk does lead me to focus on how sign makers are planning to adopt new technologies and explore new markets.

For starters, in this month’s issue, we look at how one company has embraced 3D printing and scanning to try reaching new markets.

This is a technology that’s hard to ignore, but it’s also one that people have a hard time understanding how it can work for them.

Its market is expected to grow to $3.7 billion by the end of this year (up from $1.7 billion last year). And experts in this field are starting to appear more and more in digital printers’ booths on tradeshow floors.

Although the jury is out if manufacturers will start producing this technology any time soon, desktop models are available at retail that can help you get started. Will it end up being the hype or the hardware?

Then there’s electronic signage. Is it just me or does there still seem to be a slight dis6

managing editor

connect between sign shops and the dynamic digital signage market? I think sign makers are hungry for information and collaboration, but it appears that many are hesitant because they’re not certain how they can get involved.

And I’m not certain if the DDS players have expanded their vision beyond integrators.

But this isn’t a “trend” that’s going away any time soon. According to the recent ISA and Roland DGA collaborative white paper, “Dynamic Digital Signage Opportunities for Sign Companies,” the global dynamic digital signage market is growing anywhere from the single digits to more than 40 percent per year.

And in December 2013, InfoTrends research projected that the market for dynamic digital signage will reach $17.1 billion in worldwide sales by 2017, with the U.S. market accounting for over one-third of this figure.

Yet I still feel many shops have no idea how to get involved (or even why they should).

Which is a shame.You can’t view it as competition but rather complementary.

The white paper makes the compelling argument that reasons sign shops should offer dynamic digital solutions is that you already come equipped with the tools to be successful—including an “understanding of graphic design, color management, and the elements of an effective sign.”

And while content provision appears to be “king,” there are many other opportunities a shop can explore to get their foot in the door in this field—sales, installation, display wraps, etc.

So yes, sir, I’m done with resolutions. And you should be too. If you’re going to embrace or reject new markets and technologies, just go ahead and do so on your own accord and don’t tie this decision into the start of a brand-new calendar year.

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

Ashley Bray

55 Broad Street, 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 212/620-7220; fax: 212/633-1863 abray@sbpub.com contributing writers

Butch “Superfrog” Anton, Mike Antoniak, David Hickey, Jim Hingst, Mark Roberts, Mary Shaw, Lori Shridhare, Randy Wright art

Corporate Art Director Wendy Williams Designer Emily Cocheo production

Corporate Production Director Mary Conyers circulation

Circulation Director Maureen Cooney advertising sales national sales director

Jeff Sutley 212/620-7233; fax: 212/633-1863 jeffsutley@sbpub.com west & midwest regional sales manager

Kim Noa

212/620-7221; fax: 212/633-1863 knoa@sbpub.com Sign Builder Illustrated is published monthly. All rights reserved. Nothing herein may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher. To purchase PDF files of cover and layouts or hard copy reprints, please call Art Sutley at 212/620-7247 or e-mail asutley@sbpub.com.

Circulation Dept. 800/895-4389

signshop.com

Dispatches

Keeping It Green:

Zoo & Aquarium Installs DS Displays

Thirty-nine new Xtreme Displays help the zoo and aquarium dynamically enhance its property.

8

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

Aurora, Illinois—In mid-2014, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Powell, Ohio embarked on a project with Peerless-AV® (www.peerless-av.com) to revamp the facility’s signage. A well-known, non-profit organization welcoming approximately 2.2 million guests annually, the zoo was relying on static wayfinding signage and a handful of flatscreen TVs showcasing videos via the zoo’s internal digital content network.

In hopes of enhancing the visitor experience, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium sought out a rugged, reliable, and weatherproof solution to keep guests informed of zoo and aquarium updates, events, and severe weather warnings. With 10,000 animals representing 600 species spread across the facility’s six regions—Australia and the Islands, Congo Expedition, Shores, Asia Quest, North America, and Heart of Africa—preservation of the natural habitat that each region emulates was key. (Note: This conservation-minded organization also hoped to reduce the use of printed materials to assist in signshop.com

keeping the environment green.)

With Peerless-AV’s track record in the industry, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium turned to the company for its Xtreme™ displays. The display’s patented design completely seals all components (including cable entry) against outdoor conditions such as rain, snow, sleet, dust, insects, and even pressure washing.

With outstanding picture clarity and accessibility, the Xtreme displays provide ease of serviceability; and with no fans or filters, the cost of maintenance is greatly reduced as well.

Strategically located where they will be most visible to visitors, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium decided to install displays at the front gate entrance of the zoo, in the special events area, in guest services, as well as at the entrance of each region.

Installation of the thirty-nine Xtreme displays began in May 2014 and continued through the end of 2014. With the new displays, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium has been able to further enhance its dynamic environment. The displays are also used for the property's numerous after-hours events and interactive programs throughout its business hours.

With the Xtreme displays, visitors are consistently provided with updated and informative content. Utilizing its internal digital content network, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s staff has found it easier to connect with visitors and share relevant and interesting information via the Xtreme displays.

signshop.com

In Memoriam:

Brian McNamara

Alexandria, Virginia—Brian McNamara, former senior vice president of Tradeshows for the International Sign Association (ISA), died November 4 in Mason City, Iowa, after an illness. He leaves a legacy of dedication to the sign industry through his lengthy career at ISA and on the board of directors for the Signage Foundation, Inc. A 1982 graduate of College of Charleston (South Carolina), McNamara began his professional career as a marketing representative for the Xerox Corporation. McNamara joined ISA (then known as the National Electrical Sign Association) from the American Society of Association Executives where he worked in the membership department.

When he attended his first Sign Expo in 1985, the event drew about 3,000 attendees and 138 booths.

During his tenure, ISA Sign Expo expanded tremendously in both attendance and exhibitors.

“Brian not only built ISA Sign Expo into what it is today, but he also was key in building the sign industry along with it,” said ISA President and CEO Lori Anderson.

“Brian was beloved by all who knew him. His legacy will live long for ISA and the industry, and he will be greatly missed.”

After retiring from ISA in 2011, McNamara joined the Board of Directors for the Signage Foundation, Inc., in 2013.

Memorials may be directed to the Brian McNamara Memorial Fund in care of the family.

Online condolences for the family may be expressed at www.majorericksonfuneralhome.com

January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

9

Dispatches + New Year, New OSHA Employer Reporting Requirements Washington, D.C.—On January 1, 2015, a change to what covered employers are required to report concerning occupational accidents and injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) took effect.

Employers* will now be required to report all work-related fatalities within eight hours and all in-patient hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye within twenty-four hours of finding out about the incident.

Previously employers were required to report all workplace fatalities and when three or more workers were hospitalized in the same incident.

The updated reporting requirements, which were announced on September 11, 2014, have a life-saving purpose: They will enable employers and workers to prevent future injuries by identifying and eliminating the most serious workplace hazards.

OSHA’s record-keeping regulation is online. To assist employees in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA has developed a Web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to the phone reporting options.

Employers have three options for reporting these severe incidents to OSHA. They can call their nearest area office during normal business hours or the twenty-four-hour OSHA hotline at 800/321-OSHA (800/3216742), or they can report online at www.osha.gov/report_online.

Fo r m o re i n fo r m at i o n a n d resources, including a new YouTube video, visit OSHA’s Web page on the updated reporting requirements. *Employers under Federal OSHA’s jurisdiction must begin reporting by January 1, 2015. Establishments in a state with a state-run OSHA program should contact their state plan for the implementation date.

10

3M Wrap2Wrap Battle Winner St. Paul, Minnesota—Steve Hargittai of Florida Car Wrap in Davie, Florida emerged the winner in 3M’s inaugural Wrap2Wrap Battle at the 2014 SEMA Show. Dueling head-to-head with William Chaney of Tidal Wave Graphics in Chesapeake, Virginia to showcase his skills with 3M™ Wrap Film Series 1080, Hargittai created a head-turning look in just one day by designing a wrap for a 2015 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 and installing it with the help of 3M Preferred Graphics Installers.

The panel of expert judges based their decision on criteria including the vision statement, uniqueness of the design, color choice(s), use of body lines, and overall look and appeal.

Hargittai won a set of twenty-inch Vossen flow forming technology wheels, a set of Pirelli tires, and $1,000 cash, in addition to his all-expense paid trip to the SEMA Show.

“What Steve Hargittai and William Chaney were able to achieve in a single day with 3M™ Wrap Film Series 1080 was truly impressive,” remarks 3M Marketing Development Manager Doug

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

Blackwell. “We hope this competition has inspired everyone who participated to continue pushing the limits with their wrap installations.”

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SignSHOW B A N N E R S /M AT E R I A L S / E Q U I PM E N T Howard Industries Announces US Patent #8,863,419 for Pole-banner Sign System Distinct from fabric banners, the revolutionary Perma-Banner Sign System from Howard Industries will not fray, tear, shred, crack, or wrinkle, due to the combination of the durable PolyMetal panel and uniquely engineered “No Fly Away” vertical mounting bracket. The weather-resistant banner of PolyMetal material can be routed into custom shapes then adorned with solvent inkjet-printed graphics having a UV protectant, making design possibilities endless for these long-lasting banners. The “No Fly Away” vertical mounting bracket eliminates lost banners, electrical hazards, and utility damages while simultaneously allowing the banners to easily be changed for seasonal events. This polebanner sign system is a great medium for marketing and branding campaigns throughout facilities and can additionally provide navigational assistance to facility visitors. 800/458-0591; www.howardindustries.com

New Tools Offer Improved Functionality and Throughput to Sign and Large Format Print Providers SA International (SAi) has introduced a new range of performance-enhancing finishing tools, an Integrated QR Code Creator, and new drivers and upgrades for its flagship SAi Flexi sign-making software. With these new tools, users can reduce the time taken to finish pop-up and hanging banners, thereby adding value and boosting productivity and profitability. Through SAi Flexi RIP software, print service providers can add grommet, fold, and stitch marks as well as bleeds to their banner jobs. By handling this operation in the RIP, the design step in the workflow is eliminated, making it much faster and more cost-effective to produce pop-up signs that require bleeds or pole-hanging banners that need fold areas. Even complicated mirror and duplicate bleeds can be handled with ease. By eliminating manual design and measuring, you can save between five to fifteen minutes on each banner, while accuracy is also greatly improved. The new QR Code Creator automatically and quickly converts text into a QR code, and it integrates with Flexi’s Auto Serialization Tool for printing a sequence of interactive banners. www.ThinkSAi.com

Top Value Fabrics Introduces Dye Sub Performance Textiles for Brilliant Printing Dye Sub Performance Textiles from Top Value Fabrics provide a brilliant printing platform for banners, exhibit graphics, advertising displays, and more. This line includes the following fabrics: Tri Poly, Triple White, Display Fabric, Heavy Knit, and Ultra White Blockout. The fabrics are available in widths from 60 to 126 inches and meet NFPA 701 FR specifications. After imaging, the media provides outstanding color consistency, excellent image sharpness, and a wide color range. The media in the Dye Sub Performance Textiles line is uncoated and is constructed specifically for printers who require a high-end look and feel with a dye sub transfer-only ink compatibility and price point. www.tvfmedia.com/ dye-sub-performance-textiles

paints / c o atin g S / f inis h e S Versatile Genesis LV Single-stage System Provides Sign Manufacturers Premium Appearance The new Genesis® LV Single-Stage System from Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes is an ideal coating system for sign manufacturers. This two-component urethane coating system leverages two mixing clears to reach multiple gloss levels (flat, satin, semi-gloss, and gloss). With simple mix ratios regardless of the preferred gloss level, this system is easy to apply and meets stringent VOC regulations. The high performance qualities of this system protect against humidity, temperature extremes, harsh chemicals, cleaning solvents, graffiti, and UV ray degradation. The Genesis LV System also utilizes the Sherwin-Williams Color Works® The Match Box Color System to deliver excellent color selection.

Once a color is matched and applied, it can be taped in one hour. This feature makes the Genesis LV System ideal for complex sign designs that require multiple colors or striping.. 800/798-5872; genesis.sherwin-automotive.com

S I G N B L A N K S / PA N E L S / S U B ST R AT E S New Wood Veneer Laminate Designs from Treefrog Treefrog introduces eleven new prefinished wood veneer laminates, including Treefrog Press, a collection with deep textures and carved surfaces emulating the look and feel of aged wood. The seven Treefrog Press veneers also feature popular lighter wood species like Ash, Walnut, and White Oak. They are available in four-by-eight-foot sheets with a light melamine coating and are ideal for vertical and light-duty horizontal installations. Treefrog also adds four new wood veneers, including three prefinished “Groove” designs, to the Groove Collection. The three new designs add lighter wood species with blasted, aged, and washed effects. The Groove Collection designs come in 4-by-10-foot sheets with a pre-finished polyurethane with a laminate back for installation ease. The last addition is a matte Styled Oak, joining Treefrog’s collection of light wood veneers (available in four-by-eight-foot sheets). All wood is of certified origin. 800/807-7341; www.treefrogveneer.com

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Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

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ChalkMate is available in roll widths up to sixty-one inches. www.drytac.com/chalkmatetm.html

MACtac Distributor Products Launches a New Line of Perforated Window Films The new IMAGin® WindowVIEW™ line of perforated window media from MACtac® Distributor Products is available in high-performance, intermediate, and promotional grades for all window applications. IMAGin WindowVIEW offers one-way vision through a window or acrylic available with 50/50, 70/30, and 60/40 hole patterns for a desired look.

WindowVIEW WV159 is an 8-mil high-performance, soft-white, vinyl film with a black reverse side and 50 percent perforated with a 1.5 mm hole diameter and is UV inkjet, solvent, and eco-solvent printable.. WindowVIEW WV139 is a 6-mil intermediate, soft-white, vinyl film with a black reverse side and 30 percent perforated with 1.4 mm hole diameter and is latex, solvent, and eco-solvent printable. WindowVIEW WP129 is a promotional 6-mil soft-white, vinyl film coated with a black semi-permanent adhesive and 40 percent perforated with a 1.6 mm hole diameter and is solvent and eco-solvent printable. 866/622-8223; www.mactac.com/graphics

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January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

15

HOW-TO

By Lori Shridhare

Electric Business Management

The Millennial Quartet The sky’s the limit with vehicle graphics and screen

our graphics simple,” says Schmidt. “As far as design, it’s very important to get a feel for what the customer is trying to achieve.

“We do this by establishing a budget and using the body lines of a vehicle, so that our graphics don’t look like they were just slapped on.”

Schmidt describes his business as a sign, vehicle graphics, and screen printing company. But one of the “unique” aspects of Schmidt’s company is that its four owners are all part of the Millennials demographic, ranging in age from twenty-seven to thirty-one.

Schmidt, 27, and his brother J.T. Schmidt, 29, obtained degrees that paved the way for a future in a design-oriented business.

all Photos: unique signs & designs.

printing.

B

revity. This one word summarizes one of the most effective marketing techniques and the recommended approach to designing content for any medium that conveys messaging—static and digital signage, vehicle graphics, screen printing, etc.

“If you look at a vehicle and can’t read what it says within a few seconds, there’s probably too much information in the design,” says Lyndon Schmidt, co-owner of Unique Signs & Designs (www.uniquesd.biz) in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Unique Signs tries to ensure that its vehicle graphics design work follows best practices. “We try to keep the text and information included in

16

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

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Schmidt attended Jamestown College in North Dakota, majoring in business management, while J.T. graduated from the Art Institute of Colorado in Denver, studying motion graphics and special effects. Eventually J.T. became a graphic designer for a local sign company, and his brother soon joined him afterwards.

Lyndon and his brother left in early 2011 to plan the groundwork for Unique Signs & Designs. It was around that time that coowner and friend Jeremy Newman, now 31, moved to Rock Springs from Denver with ten years of restaurant management experience under his belt and a desire to also start his own business.

Like most burgeoning businesses, the biggest challenge was financing for the initial three owners. “We went to nearly every bank in town. Sometimes we would wait for an hour to speak with a banker, only to be turned down within a couple minutes,” says Schmidt.

Later efforts turning to the Small Business Administration and the local Chamber of Commerce didn’t yield any help either. So after getting a crash course in the economics of financing,

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the brothers decided to look closer to home. They approached their grandparents (who had been entrepreneurs), a childhood friend, and a coworker and received enough money to get started.

Three-and-a-half years and three expanding locations later, Unique Signs & Designs has merged with a local company, Ryno Designs. Ryno, owned by Ryan Richardson (now the fourth owner of Unique Signs), was a two-year-old company that specialized in screen printing and was also deeply rooted in the local motocross and snowmobile scene (Note: See sidebar).

Today the company boasts clientele ranking from such notable industry firms as Halliburton, OCI, Basic Energy, and Baker Hughes, in addition to their biggest client, First Choice Ford. “Lifted trucks with big wheels and tires are very popular in this area, and our graphics packages work very well in that niche,” says Schmidt.

Unique Signs has found that, when it comes to vehicle graphics, one of the key selling points in persuading clients to consider vinyl over custom paint here is durability and affordability—exactly the mes-

sage the business has been giving its clients.

“We’ve been helping First Choice spice up new and used vehicles with graphics for two years now,” says Schmidt, “and they’re convinced it’s a viable alternative to custom paint, even though it’s less expensive.”

Schmidt faces the cultural challenge that persists in the area—a belief that, if a client chooses “cheap,” they will gain a negative image. “There is a macho culture in Wyoming, and because of this, we still encounter hesitation when it comes to durability,” he says. “But the only way to counter that is to maintain our products to last as long as we say they would.

“This is a harsh climate—not exactly conducive to long life when it comes to vinyl.”

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using 3M™ Wrap Film Series 1080 precolored/textured vinyls heavily since our relationship with Ford allows us to skip the production and go straight to install,” says Schmidt.

As most seasoned business owners have learned, time spent buying from suppliers allows for better negotiating on price.

“We’re paying less for the same materials across the board,” says Schmidt. “This can only be achieved by constantly searching for and staying open to the idea that someone, somewhere is selling the same materials for less.”

Having four owners at the helm has its advantages, which for Unique Signs, means that each can specialize in daily management tasks and operations. This has improved the quality of their work and their efficiency as a business.

Schmidt’s experience has taught him to spend time clarifying the identity of the business, asking questions such as: What do you want to do? What do you like doing? What is there demand for?

What are you good at doing?

They’ve also had to make sure that their focus remains narrow. “Because of the versatility of a large format printer, in our early days, we were asked to— and probably did—work on too many different things,” says Schmidt. “This is a kind of business that can easily get you to over-expand into making far too many goods and performing too many services.”

While Unique Signs is still running their Mutoh ValueJet 1614 after three years, they’re starting the process of searching for an additional printer, which may include metallic since they’ve received positive feedback when they print on 3M™ Wrap Film 1080-G120 Gloss White Aluminum vinyl.

And as they continue to look toward expanding their business, the main obstacle is competing with a high median wage. The local industry typically offers high-paying positions and churns out employees who have different skill sets than those needed for the sign industry, leaving Unique Signs with the job of training most new employees.

“Wrapping vehicles, screen printing, and graphic design are not skills that are needed in most other businesses, especially in this area,” say Schmidt,” but that’s the price you pay for introducing new products and services to an area. signshop.com

Screen Printing: Increasing the Demand When you venture into a new industry that doesn’t yet have a strong market in the area but demonstrates promise, chances are business will boom. This is exactly what happened when Ryan Richardson, one of four owners of Unique Signs & Designs, brought his screen printing knowledge to the company.

Several years after managing Ryno Designs, Richardson is finding that, on any given day, he’s busy with a screen printing project. Though they have spent little effort on advertising, word has spread about their talent. Now they’re servicing the apparel needs of most of the local schools and colleges.

Even with this uptick in business, the team is still learning the ins and outs of the screen printing process and uses a six-color, six-station manual press.

“We started screen printing just to be able to print our own apparel, and this quickly evolved into serving a big chunk of Wyoming,” says Richardson. “Silkscreening is a huge learning curve and there are various ways to reach your end goal of a high-quality shirt.”

Working the press every day has provided the team with many take-home lessons, one of which relates to ink.

“You have to have the right ink for the right job, as there are different inks for different applications,” he says.

“For example, the ink we would use on a polyester shirt is different from that used on cotton. There’s also the need to use a correct mesh count on the screens depending on the ink, and there’s also the complexity of the design to consider.”

Richardson adds that each garment has to be cured to set the ink into the fabric and this ranges from shirt to shirt.

“One of the major problems we’ve seen with competitors is not curing the garment correctly, which leads to cracking and the ink washing off the shirt,” he says. “There’s been a lot of trial and error throughout the past five years of screen printing, and we continually strive to get better and better with every shirt we produce.”

Richardson admits the print world is always changing so it’s very hard to predict what will happen, but he

signshop.com

believes screen printing will continue to evolve with the development of new methods, products, and apparel.

He’s also confident that dye sublimation will be a viable contender for this process.

“Dye sublimation is a bit more efficient than screen printing, as it allows for printing full-color images on garments,” he says.

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A supplement to sign builder illustrated

:Dimensional

1935

Ed Matthews opens first Matthews Paint store on Belmont Avenue in Chicago

1955

Ed Matthews Jr. joins Matthews Paint

1968

Moves corporate office to Wheeling, IL

1993 1995

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dimensionals: BY JEFF WOOTEN

SBi Dimensionals In Depth Sign shops get creative with 3D sign work.

W

elcome to the latest edition of our annual dimensional sign-making supplement.

Over the following pages, we’ll be focusing on the dimensional signage work shops are completing using traditional and state-of-the-art methods (as well as a special section recapping some of the latest dimensional sign-making products and events).

Let’s look at this line-up and preview what you can expect:

Page S2: Mark Roberts recounts how his company designed, carved, painted, and installed an “awesome” attraction sign featuring colorful surfboards and HDU letters for a nearby water park.

Mark really loves dimensional sign work.

“If I could design my ideal sign shop, it would definitely have a dimensional theme,” he says. “Give me the high-density urethane, the brushes, the paints, and the mounting hardware any day of the week!”

Mark’s work on display here should have you ready to ride the dimensional wave yourself!

Page S8: Next up, Ashley Bray writes about how collaboration between two sign companies helped bring to life a giant popcorn bag sign for a gift shop to use in attracting the attention of locals and tourists (as shown on our supplement cover). “We travel to a lot of different areas, and we always remember where the big, iconic signs are,” the owner of the gift shop tells Ashley.

“You remember that versus just a digital print or a sign on your front door.”

Learn how these diverse sign makers opted for the popcorn combo on this upsized sign project.

Page S12: Then we find out how an alternative foundry is using CAD/CAM software to make affordable metal-esque signs devoid of cast bronze, copper, and aluminum (but achieving the same signshop.com

look). This piece will peel back the layers of the design process and reveal how the foundry makes this material appear to be more than it really is.

Page S14: Remember earlier when I mentioned “state of the art?” Well this story checks out how a sign shop put its new hand-held 3D scanner to good use to help them recreate a duplicate of an ice cream store’s hanging dimensional sign that had been damaged beyond repair during a recent storm (pictured, above).

“As I was putting the parts of it together that had been sent to us to get measurements, our production manager

walked by and said, ‘Just 3D scan it,’” says Stephen Hoey, president of KDF sign company. “That sounded like a fun way to reproduce the sign. So I ran our hand-held 3D scanner over the face of the old sign, and it appeared on our [computer screen] in 3D model form.

“Using the art files supplied by our client, we recreated the logo panel in EnRoute Pro. An hour later, we were able to finish touch-ups, scaling, and tooling paths and start cutting.”

Hopefully the techniques and technologies used throughout this piece will help inspire you in your dimensional sign work.

January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

S1

dimensionals: Identity | By Mark K. Roberts

1

wave

Riding the dimensional Creating an attraction sign for a water park.

I

am blessed to encounter periods where there are several different dimensional sign projects going on at any given time in my shop.

You see, if I could design my ideal sign shop, it would definitely have a dimensional theme. Give me the high-density urethanes, the brushes, the paints, and the mounting hardware any day of the week!

For this article, I’m going to walk you S2

through the steps of how my shop recently created an awesome three-dimensional HDU sign complete with all the trimmings for the Kiddie Coast attraction at the Schlitterbahn Water Park and Resort in nearby New Braunfels, Texas.

To begin the project, we selected Precision Board HDU material for the routed letters.

We then created the files for the CNC router and nested the letters within the

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

two sheets to maximize our material.

After routing the letters, we gently sanded the edges to minimize any chipping in the process. (Note: Don’t forget to thoroughly wash and dry each Precision Board letter before applying the primer.)

After applying the FSC-88 primer to all the HDU surfaces, we allowed them to dry overnight.

The next morning, we gently blocksanded the primed letters once again. signshop.com

Photo 1. The finished attraction sign installed and in action..

Photo 2. Gently rounding the edges of the HDU letters.

Photo 3. Creating piping in the HDU. Photo 4. Beveling the edges of the inner HDU piping.

Photo 5. Fine sanding the HDU piping.

Photo 6. Rasping the inner surface of the letter “O.�

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3

4

5

Painting the HDU material was performed after the letters had been primed.

6 signshop.com

January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

S3

dimensionals: Identity | By Mark K. Roberts

Then we applied two top coats of orange paint to the carved letters and airdried them.

Once they were completely dry, we carefully applied white enamel paint to the raised piping of all the letters. This would offer more contrast when viewed at a distance.

Next we cut the 0.375-inch Plexiglas速 letters and fine-sanded the edges.

Once cleaned, we applied the digitally printed faded prints to the top surface of the Plexiglas letters. Once every letter had been covered with this digitally printed fade, we performed any fine trimming that was necessary.

Now back to the HDU letterforms.

Photo 7. Priming the HDU Letters.

Photo 8. Applying a second coat of FSC-88 primer.

Photo 9. Close-up view of the second priming application.

Photo 10. Priming progression.

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We fine-sanded the four routed HDU panel faces once again and thoroughly rinsed them with plenty of water.

Once they were dry, we adhered Plexiglas faces to each of the HDU letterforms with 3M™ VHB™ tape and silicone. (Note: This is an important step for theme park signage—especially if the patrons can walk up and touch the sign.

Always make sure your sign components are rock-solid to the substrate.)

We covered the sign backgrounds (one for each side) with 2-mil vinyl. Since this is a double-sided sign, we covered both sides of each substrate panel.

Creating the surfboards was relatively Photo 11. The primed HDU letters ready for their color coat.

Photo 12. Painting the orange color portion of the sign.

Photo 13. Block sanding the faces.

Photo 14. Fine-sanding the edges of the letters.

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January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

S5

dimensionals: Identity | By Mark K. Roberts

Photo 15. Painting the piping inside the letters.

Photo 16. Flood coating the piping inside the HDU letters.

Photo 17. Wrapping up the painting on the HDU letters.

Photo 18. Printing the vinyl surfboard prints on the Roland SOLJet. Photo 19. Full-size digital prints of the two surfboards.

15

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easy. We gently rounded the edges of all four surfboards and covered them with the digitally printed vinyl. (Note: Extra reinforcing along the rounded edges is a must, so overlap your seams and conceal them as best you can.)

We firmly attached the dimensional orange and blue letters to Alumalite™ panels using 3M VHB tape and screws from the back side.

Next we secured the sign to the ground using galvanized fence posts with fully concealed caps.

For the wave shapes, we cut them from 3/16-inch Alumalite panels, with exposed edges rounded to approximately 3/16-inch. We then covered S6

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

The author has built and installed many signs for water parks around the country, and so far, this one has been one of his favorites.

each of these panels with 2-mil highperformance ORAFOL vinyl.

The staff at Schlitterbahn graciously installed the sign for us, and we returned to the site later on to see the final product. Not only were we happy, but the fine folks at Schlitterbahn were happy as well.

We’ve made and installed numerous water park signs around the country, and so far, this one has been our favorite.

Mark K. Roberts has been creating signs and graphics for thirty-eight years. Mark is the owner of The Intersign Group (www.theintersigngroup.com) in Houston, Texas. signshop.com

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dimensionals: Monuments | By Ashley Bray

A Sign That Really

“Pops”

Teamwork helps bring a sign idea from snack-sized to jumbo-sized.

S8

remarks Mounts. “I first created it nine feet tall, and he said, ‘Well is that the biggest you can make it?’”

The final design in CorelDRAW ended up calling for a fourteen-foot-tall popcorn box.

But the shop couldn’t start popping this popcorn sign just yet, as the Eckerts ran into some zoning issues regarding the size of the sign.

The possibility of this towering snack stirred up the community and brought out plenty of opinions both for and against the sign. The Eckerts were persistent however, and they were eventually granted a variance by the local zoning board.

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

With the project green-lighted, Custom Sign began to look for a way to make the popcorn topper that would sit on the box.

After consulting with a few companies and being told it couldn’t be done, Custom Sign turned to Peachtree City Foamcraft (www.foamcraft.info), which it had worked with in the past. “Most times, when people have really cool ideas, they don’t have an ability to make that idea come true,” says Michael Fetter, sales manager at Peachtree. “So what they do is they look for somebody like us.”

Peachtree is no stranger to sculpting popcorn, and as soon as they saw the design, they were in. They even sent Custom

The design called for a fourteen-foot sign with a realistic-looking popcorn topper. signshop.com

all Photos: custom sign & Engineering, inc.

E

ckert’s is a dual storefront in Jasper, Indiana owned by Tom and Juanita Eckert, which boasts a pool supply store as well as Jasper Gift Basket and Popcorn Company. While the pool supply store (which has been open since 1996) is well known to locals, the gift basket store is not as recognizable.

So the Eckerts decided to add a special kind of sign that would attract the attention of not only the locals but also any tourists driving through. They turned to Custom Sign & Engineering, Inc. (www.customsign.bz) to translate their vision into reality.

“Tom walked through the door and said, ‘I want to build a roadside attraction,’” says Debra Mounts, sales consultant and designer for Custom Sign.

The idea was to promote Jasper Gift Basket and Popcorn Company by placing a giant box of popcorn out front.

“We travel a lot to different areas, and we always remembered where the big, iconic signs were,” states Juanita. “You remember that versus just a digital sign or a sign on your front door.”

Tom gave Mounts a twelve-inch popcorn box nightlight that is sold in his gift shop as an example of what he wanted it to look like. The box would slide down onto an existing light pole on site and would sit at an angle.

But the Eckerts wanted the popcorn sign to be anything but snack-sized.

“I took the idea from the little miniature they gave me and created a layout,”

signshop.com

January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

S9

dimensionals: Monuments | By ashley bray

At a towering fourteen feet tall, this popcorn box is more than a sign— it’s a roadside attraction.

Sign some pictures of past popcorn projects to give them an idea of what they could do.

The first task was getting the popcorn to look like actual popcorn. “It was a challenge for us to make realistic-looking popcorn in a three-dimensional application like they requested,” comments Fetter.

Much like when they carve their foam to resemble stone or brick, Peachtree needed a sample to copy. So they got a bowl of popcorn and used that as a guide for sculpting this snack out of EPS foam.

In addition to the appearance, Peachtree also had to take the weather into consideration. “When most people, especially in the North, come up with really cool ideas, they don’t think about water or snow run off,” says Fetter. “So when we were

hand sculpting the kernels, everything had to be laid out in a way that, if snow sat in there as it melted, it would drip and run off the unit.”

Peachtree also hollowed out a pass-through for the light pole at the appropriate angle.

When the sculpting was complete, Peachtree coated the popcorn with its Poly-Armor™ hard coat to further protect against the elements. It used a combination of spray and hand painting to emulate the snack’s buttery color. “We use 100 percent acrylics; that way, the foam, the plastic, and the finish all expand at the same rate, so we don’t have degradation due to weather,” explains Fetter.

Finally Peachtree incorporated a six-inch wood structure for attaching the popcorn topper to the box. “We always incorporate substructure, and it can be anything from wood,

The popcorn box and topper were put on a trailer in two pieces and sent to the job site for the one-day installation.

Service equipment was used to lift and slide the box onto the light pole and to attach the popcorn topper. The box was secured with a bolt cage structure that it sat on. “We put bolts and match plates on the asphalt to secure it to the asphalt and support the weight of it,” says Mounts.

S10

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

signshop.com

aluminum, to steel that will allow our customers to mechanically fasten our architectural elements to their entities,” says Fetter. “That’s all laid out in computer design, and we build it exactly to their specs, so that way, it fits to their steel or aluminum structures.”

The fabrication of the popcorn topper took about ten days, and Peachtree shipped it to Custom Sign when it was completed.

(Note: To fit the topper in the truck, the popcorn had to be placed on one of the flat sides of its head.)

Meanwhile Custom Sign was working on the four-sided popcorn box, which is made from aluminum panels that were cut on an AXYZ CNC router.

The panels were attached to an aluminum frame and then finished. “We body finish the panels like you would a car,” says Mounts. “[Our fabricators] prep it, put Bondo® on it, and caulk the inside.”

The box was then brought into the Matthews Paint booth where red and white stripes were painted on it.

Additional decorations included decals for the words “Jasper Gift Basket and Popcorn Company,” “fresh and delicious,” and “Jasper, Indiana.” Using a Mutoh ecosolvent digital printer, these decals were printed onto 3M™ Controltac™ Graphic Film Series 180 vinyl with a matching overlaminate and applied to the box.

The popcorn box and topper were put on a trailer in two pieces and sent to the job site for the one-day installation.

Service equipment was used to lift and slide the box onto the light pole and to attach the popcorn topper. The box was secured with a bolt cage structure that it sat on. “We put bolts and match plates on the asphalt to secure it to the asphalt and support the weight of it,” says Mounts.

The very next day, Tom and a team of workers were out creating a three-foottall block wall and landscaping around the sign to make it the perfect place for photo ops.

The popcorn box is serving its purpose and is helping to draw people in for a taste of the popular snack.

“We love it,” says Juanita. “The finished project was just exactly what we wanted—and more.” signshop.com

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January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

S11

dimensionals: Materials | By Mary Shaw

Not-so-Heavy

Alternative foundry creates lower cost metal signs with more design freedom.

s global metal prices continue to rise, traditional foundry-produced cast bronze, copper, and aluminum signs become less and less affordable.

FusionCast, an alternative foundry in Oakville, Ontario, addresses this problem with a unique low-temperature process that results in signs that look just like traditional, handcrafted metal signs while offering many other advantages.

They place high concentrations of metal where they can be seen on the face of the sign while putting very low concentrations of metal in the rest of the mold.

The process usually begins with the creation of vector artwork within ArtCAM software. “Often we start with a photograph, such as a person’s face,” says Adam Raby, design manager for FusionCast.

Raby imports the photograph or other artwork into ArtCAM and uses it as a template for creating 2D vector geometry. Sometimes Raby uses ArtCAM’s bitmap to vector feature to automatically convert the photograph to a 2D vector image that he then extrudes to create the S12

3D image. He toggles to a split screen 2D/3D view to make edits.

Raby creates the 3D geometry one feature at a time by extruding a section of the 2D drawing. Raby also uses the two-rail extrude feature by creating two lines that intersect the cross-section and then extruding the cross-section along the path of the two lines.

After extruding each feature, he typically tweaks its appearance by adding to or subtracting from the geometry.

Each feature is typically placed on its own layer to simplify the editing process.

That way, the designer can easily perform a global modification to the entire

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

feature or even delete the feature and start over again if necessary. (Note: A typical 3D relief of a face could have up to thirty different layers.)

“Once I have created the basic 3D geometry, I look at it as if I were modeling clay and use the many tools in ArtCAM to tweak and polish the geometry to achieve exactly the look that our client [wants],” says Raby. “For example, I use the Smoothing tool to round off rough edges. Separating the various features into individual layers makes it easy to apply a different level of smoothing to different features.

“The Smudge tool provides a different type of smoothing that helps to take the computer-

all Photos: delcam.

A

METAL

signshop.com

generated look away from the geometry.”

Raby uses the Texture tool to apply texture based off a JPEG file. “For example, I use skin texture for a person’s face,” he says, “or the Angled Plane tool to blend the top part of a person’s nose into their eyebrows.”

When the 3D model is completed, Raby produces rendered views and either sends them to the client for review or meets with them face-to-face to pan, zoom, and rotate the image for a clearer picture.

After the client approves the design, Raby turns it over to Mattin Tateyama, production manager at FusionCast.

“I begin by selecting the cutting tools to produce the mold,” says Tateyama. “I might start with a 1/4-inch square end mill to rough out the basic shape, move to 1/8-inch square end mill for finer roughing, then go to a 1/4-inch and later a 1/8-inch ball nose end mill for finishing the contours of the casting.

“For each tool, ArtCAM automatically configures the toolpath to remove all of the material that is possible with that particular tool without gouging the part. This approach ensures that most of the metal is removed by larger tools in the most efficient way possible in order to minimize the cycle time of the machining operation. ArtCAM generates a G-code program that is downloaded to the computer numerical control (CNC) router used to produce the mold.”

The molds used in FusionCast’s lowtemperature molding process are made from wax. A mixture of powdered metal and high-density urethane (HDU) that is liquid at room temperature is injected into the mold.

Just prior to injection, a hardener is added to the mixture that causes it to solidify soon after injection. Before this hardening process can proceed, the mold is inserted into a pressure chamber with the face of the mold downward. The pressure chamber forces out air that might have infiltrated the mold and accelerates the movement of the heavier powdered metal material to the face of the mold.

The mold is later removed to free the finished casting. The wax material removed from the mold is melted into signshop.com

a new block of material ready to create another mold.

The resulting casting looks almost identical to a conventional solid metal casting. The durability of FusionCast’s castings is also comparable to solid metal.

The process pioneered by FusionCast makes it fast and relatively inexpen-

sive to create a custom 3D sign design from scratch with any geometry, texture, color, and size. And the replacement of metal in the interior of the casting with plastic results in a casting that is much less expensive and lighter than traditional metal, resulting in much lower shipping and installation costs.

January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

S13

dimensionals: 3D Scanning | By Jeff Wooten

The new Ben & Jerry’s storefront sign had to appear as close as possible to the unrepairable damaged one (pictured below).

A

3D

Treat

3D scanner helps recreate a storefront sign.

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cal district with strict ordinances, KDF had to make sure that the new sign matched the original one as cleanly as possible. “It was

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

important that any [passers-by] wouldn’t notice that it was new,” says Hoey.

The client packaged and shipped the signshop.com

all Photos: kdf.

W

hen a storm damaged a wood-backed, doublesided, storefront-hanging sign at a Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream shop in Washington, D.C., its owner found herself in a bind. Elements of the handcarved HDU ice cream and logo on it were either badly broken and/or missing, and local ordinances didn’t allow her to put up a brand-new sign design.

So she contacted KDF (www.kdf-comp. com), a highly artistic, creative sign company in Rockleigh, New Jersey, and emailed them photos of her sign for a possible repair. Company President Stephen Hoey determined that the sign was too fully damaged to repair; their solution was to instead recreate it on their CNC router.

Fortunately Hoey’s shop had just invested in a 3D scanner, and it would be put to good use right out of the box. The lesson here: When it comes to dimensional signage, technology can be awesome!

Because this store is located in a histori-

pieces of the broken sign to KDF. Hoey and his employees laid all the pieces out on the floor for measurements and put whatever they could together, pushing all the parts together. (Note: Some of the pieces were missing.)

Hoey ran his hand-held Cubify Sense 3D scanner over the face of the old sign, creating a 3D model form of the sign in EnRoute Pro software. An hour later, they were able to finish touch-ups, scaling, and tooling paths, in order to start cutting.

Exporting the 3D-scanned file into EnRoute was very simple. Hoey utilized a freeware application called MeshLab that allows users to clean up 3D images and import and convert one file type to another.

KDF scanned the image into the scanner program and saved it as an OBJ file.

“Then we opened it up in MeshLab, clicked File>Save As an STL file, and sent it to EnRoute,” explains Hoey.

For the missing pieces that couldn’t be scanned, KDF created reliefs for each section of the sign via the Relief Edit function in EnRoute before cutting it.

The shop used its MultiCam 3000 CNC router to cut all the pieces from fifteen-pound Precision Board HDU. The ice cream scoop was carved from a three-inch block, the cone from a twoinch block, and the round sign panel from a one-inch block.

“We then mirrored everything to make it a double-sided sign,” says Hoey.

The logo panels are 1/2-inch black PVC with 1/2-inch white PVC letters. The border is 1/8-inch white PVC painted yellow. “We created pockets for the letters for easy registration when we glued them in place,” says Hoey.

KDF performed some of their own imaginative, little tweaks to the sign design here and there. For instance, to give the sign a little more flavor, they added dimensional chocolate chips to the ice cream scoop using Magic Sculpt.

After priming the finished HDU pieces with Coastal FSC-88, KDF colormatched the color base coats of the paint from the original sign via software.

“We used an exterior water-based paint from Lowes for the three colors of the sign,” says Hoey, “and then we did a couple of signshop.com

washes on there to add a little texture to it.”

Once KDF applied the base paint, they created the cone texture with two layers of a darker glaze than the paint used for the chocolate chips.

Hoey shipped the finished sign (hardware and all) back to the client for instal-

lation. “The brackets they had been using were damaged as well, so we sold them new ones,” says Hoey. “All they had to do was put these new brackets up.

“And since the mounting hardware was already on the back of the sign, they were able to simply hang it.”

January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

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Dimensional: News & Notes Rowmark Announces New MetalGraph Plus Products Rowmark introduces a variety of new additions to its popular MetalGraph Plus® product line to expand metallic design and finish options and provide increased versatility for demanding indoor and outdoor signage, lettering, and cut-out applications. This new line of textured MetalGraph Plus products combine the look of brilliant metal with a classic textured finish in a UV-stable, outdoor-weatherable, and moistureresistant sheet. They are available in a variety of lustrous metallic color options—including Gold, Nickel, and Copper— over a black core. Aside from traditional engraving projects, MetalGraph Plus has also popularly become the cost-effective, lightweight alternative for fabricating indoor/outdoor vector cut-outs and letters in place of real brass, metal, or stainless steel. To meet market demand, Rowmark has added a collection of new MetalGraph Plus products with the same cap and core color, including Brushed Antique Gold/Gold, Brushed Stainless Steel/Silver, Textured Gold/Gold, and Textured

Stainless Steel/Silver. Offering MetalGraph Plus eliminates the need for customers to paint the sheet edges for color consistency. www.rowmark.com

Laminators Inc. Announces the Launch of Their New Web Site Laminators Incorporated, manufacturer of a complete line of composite panels, has redesigned its Web site with a fresh, new look and user-friendly navigation, updated with the latest information about their products and services. New and enhanced features include: the ability to easily send your photos of completed sign projects to a sign photo gallery; signup for up-to-date free newsletters on products, services, projects, etc.; a blog featuring more stories, news, and updates; the use of the easy Sign Selector tool as a guide for deciding on which sign panel or application system is right for your needs; and downloadable product specifications, application, and installation guidelines, technical information, etc. www.LaminatorsInc.com

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3D Systems Expands ProJet 1200 Suite With New Materials and Applications 3D Systems has announced the expansion of its ProJet® 1200 suite with the arrival of five new materials engineered specifically for the desktop printing capabilities of its micro-SLA 3D printer. These five new materials join the previously introduced VisiJet® FTX Green material, revolutionizing desktop 3D printing and expanding the capabilities of jewelers, dental labs, manufacturers, engineers, and 3D artists in the creation of casting patterns, small end-use parts, figurines, and presentation models. Along with the casting capabilities of FTX Cast (which casts much like traditional

SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

wax), engineering and manufacturing customers can take advantage of the arrival of FTX Gray, a high-contrast gray material that is perfect for prototypes and accentuating fine features, and FTX Clear, a transparent, clear material that can be applied in end-use parts and components. As part of the reimagined engineer’s desktop, the ProJet 1200 and FTX Gray and Clear allow engineers a fast way to locally create precise design prototypes of small assembly or components. Micro-SLA parts in FTX Gray and Clear also combine the strength and precision necessary for end-use applications and final one-off custom components, such as electronic connectors, robotics components, and more. www.3dsystems.com signshop.com

Product and project announcements related to dimensional sign-making.

Cutting-edge SunDance Marketing Services Acquires New Laser Cutter SunDance Marketing Solutions of Orlando, Florida has added a powerful, dual-head 100-watt laser cutter to their cutting-edge printing and finishing arsenal—and employees are incredibly excited by the new possibilities this machine brings to their already extensive list of in-house services. “It’s a designer’s dream toy,” says Susanna Toppa, creative director for SunDance. “It does everything traditional dies can’t do.” Laser cutting is one of the only ways to create intricate lace or pattern cuts for invitations and other printed pieces. With high resolution, accuracy, and speed, the new cutter opens up doors for SunDance’s clients to complete more complex, delicate, and elegant pieces all with one trusted printing partner. Companies looking to cut unique materials (foamboard, cotton fabric, cardboard, leather, cork, rubber, wood, plywood, mixed fiber cloths, synthetic materials, etc.) will find great opportunities with SunDance’s

new capabilities. The cutter’s unprecedented precision also engraves delicate items like electronics, glass, crystal, ceramics, marble, tiles, metal, and more.

With a work area of fifty-one inches wide, thirty-five inches deep, and eight inches high, the cutter can accommodate large, intricate projects. A rotary accessory also allows the cutter to create cylindrical and rounded shapes, and the cutter can also create smooth edges for acrylic dimensional characters. www.SunDanceUSA.com signshop.com

Roland DGA Launches Industrial-strength Flatbed UV Printer Roland DGA has introduced the VersaUV LEJ-640FT UV-LED flatbed printer, capable of printing on substrates up to six inches thick and weighing as much as 220 pounds.

Featuring a 64-by-98-inch bed, the LEJ-640FT flatbed UV printer easily handles popular four-by-eight-foot sheets. A rigid, all-steel frame reduces vibration. Adjustable pinpoint guides ensure precise registration, and a zoned vacuum bed optimizes suction to keep substrates of different sizes flat. Dual stepper motors incorporated with a rack and pinion drive system ensure accurate printing. In addition to CMYK, the LEJ-640FT offers White and Clear Coat inks for P-O-P displays, art, architectural signs, and two-sided signs with high visual impact and unique dimensional effects. Roland’s ECO-UV inks adhere to a wide range of treated and

untreated materials with an exceptional color gamut. A patented Roland Automated Ink Circulation System™ prevents unnecessary discharges and minimizes the settling of pigments in the ink lines. The LEJ-640FT flatbed UV printer is operated through a handheld EZ Controller with a user-friendly interface. The EZ Controller is programmed to deliver 1/1000-inch accuracy for precise print registration and printhead height adjustment.

800/542-2307; www.rolanddga.com

Innovative Technology Demonstrated at Biesse’s One2One Event Machine manufacturer Biesse America hosted over 100 manufacturers from across the United States at the Fall One2One event held November 13-14 at the company’s Charlotte, North Carolina facility. Attendees had the unique opportunity to see a wide range of machinery in one convenient location. The product line up included the award-winning AirForce Hot Air Edgebanding System, the Winstore automated handling system, the new Rover BG CNC machining center running the innovative bSolid 3D CAD/CAM software, and the Viet S2 311 wide belt sander, just to name a few. “It was good to see such a strong turnout.

We are very proud of the continuous

innovation that has made Biesse a leading manufacturer of woodworking machinery, and we are excited to have the opportunity to present our customers with the best solution available to help them reach their goals,” said Federico Broccoli, president and CEO of Biesse America and Biesse Canada.

Biesse was joined by industry partners (including financing, software, tooling, dust collection, hardware, plus much more). If you were not able to attend this event, you can still contact Biesse to schedule a visit to one of their showrooms located throughout the United States and Canada! 877/8-BIESSE; marketing@biesseamerica.com

January 2015 // SBI Dimensionals

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News & Notes Lightweight, Cost-effective Alternative to Wood for Display, Exhibit, and Sign Applications Falconwood™, the latest addition to the Falconboard® family of industry-leading sustainable graphic board products from Hexacomb, has been engineered to provide significant advantages over wood—including printability, weight, and total cost. Now brand owners and retailers can still achieve the visual and tactile experience of wood but have it delivered at up to 75 percent less weight and at a lower overall cost. Falconwood features a similar paper-based construction (Hexacomb® honeycomb core and kraft facings) as the other products in the Falconboard graphic board line, plus a thin layer of real wood adhered to a single facing. Cherry and birch are stock finishes, with maple and black walnut offered as options. Additionally Falconwood offers excellent deflection strength and significantly-improved printability versus wood and other materials. It is also a suitable alternative to metal and foam for semi-permanent display and signage applications. Its light weight makes it much easier to handle and significantly less expensive to ship than traditional wood structures.

Falconwood’s rigid construction enables it to “lay flat” in demanding applications.

It also offers superior fabrication capabilities including table and die-cutting processes. Similar to the other products in the Falconboard line, its paper-based construction means that it can typically be recycled in local corrugated waste streams. Falconwood is available in thicknesses four inches and above. Stock width is forty-eight inches, with custom sizes available. www.hexacomb.com

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SBI Dimensionals // January 2015

signshop.com

HOW-TO

By david hickey

Regulations

Less Restricting Pursuits Working together to promote the importance of

businesses and how restrictive—and potentially damaging—that 30 percent limit would be.

The Raleigh task force raised the limit to 50 percent. It also conceded that its limit of three colors (plus black and white) was too restrictive and raised that to seven colors plus black and white. Businesses in the community continue to push for more.

The key to success in most of these circumstances involves business owners and sign companies working together to share the story of the importance of signage. As they build a bridge to the community leaders, they often have two important resources to assist: the ISA and research developed

by ISA and the Signage Foundation, Inc. While the specifics may be different in communities around the country, as ISA keeps its finger on the pulse of sign code issues, some clear trends emerge: Temporary signage. It is all too common that communities want to regulate the number of

Photo: Shutterstock.com

signage.

F

or a small business, the numbers can add up quickly, as Richard Gardner, owner of ComedyWorx in Raleigh, North Carolina, points out. “If [our club] loses one sale per show, that’s an $8,000 annual loss,” Gardner told a local newspaper.

And for many small restaurants and retail outlets, it can mean the difference between an open sign and another that tells customers the business is no longer operating.

The losses that Gardner predicted came from an issue over window signs—specifically just how much space a company could use of its window to denote what is inside. The city had proposed limiting that to 30 percent of the window’s area.

As businesses banded together with sign companies, James Carpentier, International Sign Association (ISA) manager of State and Local Government Affairs, was brought in to help showcase how important signs are to small

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January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

23

temporary signs or how often they can be displayed. Until now, this has largely been guesswork—a delicate balancing act between community aesthetics and business success.

That changed in the fall when prominent planner Wendy Moeller released new guidelines at the National Signage Research and Education Conference hosted by the Signage Foundation, Inc., to help communities regulate temporary signage.

The guidelines (available at www.signs.

org/temporarysigns) include best practices for overall codes as well as those that might apply to individual sign types.

Moeller’s guidelines acknowledge the complexity of temporary signs, especially given that they are constantly changing.

How many are reasonable? How long can they stay up to be considered temporary?

That is an issue communities continually grapple with.

In places like Rio Rancho, New Mexico, restrictions were recently loosened, while

Flagstaff, Arizona is re-evaluating these types of signs with an eye toward removing limitations on the number of signs and the length that they may be up.

Comments like this one—from Roscoe, Wisconsin’s zoning and planning administrator quoted in the local newspaper—are no longer rare: “What we need to do is look at our sign ordinance and make more changes to the sign ordinance so that it is more business friendly.”

Imagine if more communities took this approach. Unfortunately this is not always the case.

Chesapeake, Virginia recently began stepping up enforcement of temporary signs. Truro Town, Massachusetts is exploring limits on the number of temporary signs. Still others want to charge permit fees or limit the type of materials that can be used in these signs.

Despite the name, there is likely nothing “temporary” about these types of sign code battles. However Moeller’s guidelines provide an important tool to help businesses and communities walk that fine line between too little and too much regulation.

Increased complexity of sign codes.

Kenny Peskin, ISA manager of state and local government affairs, noted that New Bedford, Massachusetts recently replaced an outdated eight-page sign code with regulations that exceed fifty-five pages.

The New Bedford situation shows how important it is to monitor local sign codes since the community adopted its codes based largely on those in place in Flagstaff, Arizona. (Ironically it is the same sign code that Flagstaff has considered easing.)

It also points to how important it is for local sign companies to work with their regional Affiliated Association and ISA on these issues. Since the same issues occur around the country, ISA has likely already encountered the situation and has resources and strategies at the ready.

Need help? If your community is facing a sign code issue, ISA’s Sign Code Success team can help by pointing you to resources, rallying local sign businesses, and—if warranted—visiting to testify. Contact Kenny Peskin at Kenneth.

Peskin@signs.org or James Carpentier at James.Carpentier@signs.org.

David Hickey is vice president, Government Affairs, at ISA. He can be reached via email at signcodehelp@ signs.org.

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Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

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Engineering High-rise Solutions

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Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

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//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A sign company earns top marks for a university install.

all Photos: sign effectz, inc.

T

he Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) in Wisconsin is a well-respected university that’s located in the downtown area. When school officials wanted highly visible identity signage featuring their square logo (white M-S-OE letters over a red background) built and installed onto two sides of a high-rise apartment building on campus, it required “engineering” a relationship with the right sign company.

The school had already used a few sign manufacturers for prior projects, but for this one, officials wanted to find a sign contractor that better understood their specific design intent: a durable, illuminated cabinet complementing the campus and its surrounding area (theater district, Lake Michigan, etc.) with a “crisp” and “clean” appearance around the perimeter of the cabinet.

Upon learning about this project, custom sign manufacturer Sign Effectz, Inc. (www.signeffectz.com), recognized that their skill sets would be perfect and placed a bid.

The full-service company prides itself on “blending creativity with technology” for its range of visually effective and highly durable interior and exterior signage (identity, channel letters, monuments, etc.) “In the process of research for this thenpotential project, [we] specifically offered a frameless design

signshop.com

approach to their proposed illuminated logo cabinets,” says Adam Brown, president of Sign Effectz.

Brown explains the frameless approach they devised as there being no opaque retainer on the face of the sign itself. “It’s actually bordered by the building,” he says.

With the frameless cabinet solution matching well with their design intent—as well as understanding that Sign Effectz was familiar with projects of this size and scale—the MSOE made the offer to proceed with shop designs, and the project continued to grow from there.

Two complete sign packages were constructed in a period of roughly sixty days. The signs are two separate pieces: (1.)

White M-S-O-E letters on a red background, and (2.) white “University” letters on a black background.

Every piece of this sign was built in-shop by Sign Effectz at the same time—the letters, the panels, the cabinet, etc. This required the company to allocate resources to run parallel workflow processes simultaneously (such as painting channel letters while wiring LEDs).

The cabinet and channel letters are both internally illuminated. “We used Sylvania LEDs in both applications,” says Brown, “as well as thirty-two remote location Advance pow-

January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

27

Suppliers of posts, brackets, and pre-cut sign panels can offer guidance and advice on wayfinding projects.

Two 100-ton mobile crane units were used to help install the signage on the building.

A previous daytime install allowed Sign Effectz to make prepare for the nighttime one a few days later. er supplies for both the channel letters and cabinet LEDs.” Brown (Note: The population of the LEDs within the letters and the cabinet was done in-house via an AutoCAD program.)

A fair amount of the assembly had to be done on-site, due to the logistics of the shipping and the sizes of the sign.

The faces for the signs were built first, then the two-piece flex face frames were assembled. Sylvania LEDs were mounted to a grid on the face frame, and the flex face was installed onto a 16-by-16-foot cabinet with Sign Comp extrusions.

Sign Effectz applied Matthews Acrylic Polyurethane Paint to the inside and outside of the channel letters.

The welded fourteen-foot-tall channel letters were then mounted over Cooley-Brite® flex face pre-colored eradicable material using support brackets that Sign Effectz custommade. These brackets supported the channel letters where they mate with the flex face material and create mounting plates. “The flex face material has no structural support,” says Brown, “and the brackets served as a mount structure for the letters.”

The mounting plates were attached to the reinforced flex 28

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

frame. They were then placed on the backside of the fabric and the letters mounted to the first surface (front side of the fabric), sandwiching the fabric between the mounting plate and the letter backs.

Next LEDs were placed inside the channel letters via a peeland-stick method, along with a mechanical screw fastener (where needed).

All LEDs were pre-wired and compiled into a fifty-foot umbilical-style power feed. “Ten-gauge wires feed the LEDs from the power supplies, to deter voltage loss,” says Brown, noting this was recommended by the LED manufacturer.

The polycarbonate faces were then installed onto channel letters using two-inch trimcap glued with LORD adhesives designed for polycarbonate material. “They were also screwed to the aluminum return every six inches for a mechanical attachment,” says Brown.

The complete face hinge was mounted onto the cabinet, and then the power umbilical was fed through the cabinet.

The cabinets were hoisted into position, and the umbili-

Sidebox A The two signs are made from the following: • Accu-Bend-formed aluminum channel letters over Cooley flex face (for the main sign) • Aluminum cabinet with acrylic push-through letters (for the “University” sign) • Sylvania BackLED Plus and BoxLED Plus modules; • Sign Comp extrusions • Polycarbonate faces • Thousands of feet of 10ga wire for remote power supplies

signshop.com

cal was fed further through a pre-drilled hole in the building. “The building’s electrician handled the pre-drilling,” says Brown. “He basically gave us the enclosures and the ports to get the cabling to the remote location for the power supplies.”

Each 16-by-16-foot cabinet and flex face was fabricated in two parts for delivery to the site and modular assembly in the field. The modular sections were delivered via three 8-1/2-by20-foot flatbed trailers to the site.

Meanwhile channel letters were fabricated in four parts (also for modular assembly reasons).

The sign lift was scheduled to take place between 3am and 9am. To accomplish this, Sign Effectz had to draw up a detailed installation plan, which included: • Developing a lift plan and calculations for load and setup location; • Hiring and coordinating two 100-ton mobile crane units; • Devising a street closure plan for downtown Milwaukee, which would allow for traffic to still be active during install (“We included a flag man for traffic direction,” says Brown); • Figuring out plans for a night shift install to accommodate safety requirements and code, especially if the lift was being done over an operating business; • Making sure no person was allowed in the building/ business location while the lift was in process; and • Pre-drilling the building for the umbilical power wire to be fed into a remote location.

Brown says that, when planning the install to make sure everything would be finished on time, they gave themselves a two-hour cushion. “We had it all scheduled internally to be installed by seven o’clock in the morning,” he says, “and added built-in time to handle any delays for any one of the steps— crane set-up, sign assembly, rigging, etc.—if the target timeframe wasn’t matched.

“The steps also served as milestones for checkpoints, where one could explain to the crew what the next steps were and when they would need to have the sign assembled, rigged, and hanging.”

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Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

Of course, Sign Effectz worked on a similar sign install during daylight hours for a different wall about two days earlier.

Being able to do this allowed them to put together a better installation for the nighttime hours portion.

“Each project has somewhat of a learning curve. We wanted our [first go-round] to take place during daylight and without any tight time constraints,” says Brown. “Doing so, we found out how long certain steps took and planned accordingly. That was a big advantage. Those types of freedoms don’t happen on every project.”

Even with the prior experience, there was still a slight difficulty working on the high-rise installation during nighttime hours. “We had high-intensity discharge lights attached to each crane for lighting the install area that were very bright,” says Brown, “yet they made for an effective work zone and a safer area.”

Getting the install crew moving at around two o’clock in the morning was equally challenging, as well. “But once the coffee was in their systems, they were all pumped to get the job done,” says Brown.

According to Brown, coordination was probably the biggest challenge working on this project. It was important that each step of the process—from mechanical design to modular fabrication to shipping logistics—was cohesive.

The population of the Sylvania LEDs within the letters and the cabinet was done in-house via an AutoCAD program. signshop.com

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He credits Mark Lemke, project manager at Sign Effectz, for doing an “awesome” job here. “He really loves this type of work,” says Brown. “He was onsite two hours before anyone else, going over final details and double-checking materials, equipment, etc.”

Sign Effectz took somewhat unique and additional safety measures to comply with requirements to keep their installers and neighbors safe.

“We used radio communications with crane operators and ground personnel for clarity,” says Brown. “We also did a dry run, test flight of the basket with preloaded weights, simulating

Sidebox B Sign Effectz set up time-lapse cameras to capture this install.

They placed a tripod in the bed of their truck and recorded from the fourth floor of a parking structure several blocks away.

To watch the video of this install, visit bit.ly/1xTZvKH.

installer body weights and tools, to ensure that reach, visibility, and load capacity all matched our calculations.

Tag lines were attached to the man basket and operated by ground crew to

stabilize the basket from erratic movement from winds, etc.

“Each installer was equipped with a body harness, hardhat, safety vest, and safety glasses.”

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Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

V-Series

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F a b r i c a t i o n / By M i k e A nto n i a k / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Timeless action Digital technology, on and offline, proves a winning combo for vintage signs.

all Photos: The vintage sign company.

T

he Vintage Sign Company, as the name implies, has built its success by focusing on a highly specialized niche: retro (and retro-looking) signs on metal.

“We sell about 300,000 signs a year,” reports George Cunningham, COO and son of company founder Ian Cunningham (who heads up R&D and business development). “We’re really mimicking the look and quality of ceramic signs.”

The public face of their company can be seen at PastTimeSigns.com, one of the e-commerce sites the company

signshop.com

operates. Their clients can order signs from a library of graphics, which evoke the look of yesteryear in everything from advertising to travel in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Consumer orders represent just a fraction of Vintage Sign’s sales. Cunningham reports more than 90 percent of business comes as a wholesale supplier to companies worldwide.

What catches their eye and keeps them coming back is the abundance of choices in sign designs the company offers—something for every taste, style, and setting.

January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

33

Abundant Choices Based in Santee, California, Cunningham started Vintage Sign Company in 1988 as a supplier of backlit displays. In 2001, he was approached by the owners of tin signs specialist Desperate Signs to frame some of their most popular products in neon. Later Desperate Signs commissioned the company to silkscreen graphics for its line of vintage thermometers.

When the thermometer business dried up in 2005, Desperate Signs gave the Cunninghams an opportunity to come up with a new product line. Their idea was to build on Desperate’s success in tin signs and offer a line of premium metal signs on thicker steel with higher quality graphics.

“We love the vintage look. That’s our bread and butter, but we’ve got a nice cross section of graphics across all genres and in a variety of styles,” notes Cunningham. “We feature about 12,000 graphics online and have a total of about 20,000 in our library.”

The selection includes images from the extensive public domain catalog maintained by the Library of Congress, licensed works by professional artists, old ads and logos, and original designs by the company’s team of four graphic artists.

While a few regular sellers are printed and kept in stock, in most cases, there’s no sign printed until an order has been placed—key advantages when it comes to digital dye sublimation printing.

“Part of our strength is being able to print only one of a custom-ordered sign,” notes Cunningham. “Our business is 99 percent digital.”

(Note: For sign production, the company relies on a variety of Roland digital print systems. The line-up includes a pair of Roland’s HiFi JetPro II inkjets, three Roland SOLJET PRO4 XR-640s, and a SOLJET PRO4 XR-540.)

Suppliers of posts, brackets, and pre-cut sign panels can offer guidance and advice on wayfinding projects.

Employees first cut the sign blanks to shape and then treat them to receive the imagery via dye sublimation transfer papers.

From Silkscreen to Digital According to Cunningham, initially everything produced in their facility was silkscreened; when the graphics for some thermometers became too sophisticated for this technology, they were forced to move into [dye] sublimation. “The quality of graphics we wanted simply wasn’t attainable, and we didn’t have too many choices in the colors we could use,” he explains.

They outsourced that work until they were able to add a dye sub printer to their workflow. “With dye sublimation, we can 34

now run many more colors than we ever could with silkscreening,” says Cunningham. “The graphics are much higher quality, the prints won’t scratch or wash off, and they are UV-resistant.”

Demand grew with their digital capabilities, and the Cunninghams expanded the scope of operations with new printers and upgraded production facilities.

Today Vintage Sign Company operates from its 20,000-square-foot headquarters and employs a staff of forty-two. Half the operation focuses on metal sign fabrica-

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

tion and half on printing and production.

All signs are cut from and printed on 20- or 24-gauge carbon steel, which the company purchases by the roll. The company originally offered signs in three sizes: 5-by-20 inches; 12-by-8 inches; and 16-by-24 inches. In 2012, they invested in the first of two 4-by-10-foot CNC plasma cutting tables. “[This] allowed us to create new graphics that were not limited to rectangular shapes while not having to inventory these shapes in metal,” says signshop.com

Cunningham. “We now have the ability to stock raw sheet steel and cut out the signs as they’re ordered.”

The metal for the signs is cut to shape, then treated to receive the image. A base coating of white powder is first applied to each blank and then a clear coat of polyester is added. This serves as the carrier that absorbs the ink.

The graphics for all signs are printed on one of their Roland printers, using Roland dye sublimation inks (typically on TITAN or Artisan dye sublimation transfer papers).

The graphics and blank finally meet at the company’s heat press, and the print transfers from the paper to the substrate to create the finished product. “Our size limitations are dictated by the size of our heat presses,” he notes. “Currently our biggest presses are 42-by-58 inches.

“However for special jobs, we’ve been able to modify our presses to accommodate 54-by-70 inches.”

Top Sellers The most popular signs have featured pinup girls, military service, or automotive themes. Some are reprints of old images and advertisements; others renditions by artists whose work evokes the style and look of bygone eras.

Interestingly their biggest customers are catalog companies. “Typically their buyers will choose some graphics they want to list and inventory what they are sure will sell,” says Cunningham, “then back order some other graphics and have us print them as they’re ordered.”

For years, Vintage Sign’s single-most popular offering was a simple 5-by-20inch sign announcing “Man Cave.” Another perennial best-seller: an 18-by-15inch sign with Clip Art and text advising “Do Your Laundry Here.”

These favorites been surpassed by another sign, which wasn’t possible without the capabilities of the CNC plasma cutting tables. “In 2013, one of our graphic artists had the idea of taking a sign shaped like the United States and filling it with the license plates for each state,” says Cunningham. “This has really taken off.”

As extensive as the catalog is, the company continues to add new graphics. “We’re currently licensing the work of fifty-five artists, some for an up-front fee, some on a royalty basis per sign,” signshop.com

Evolving Showcase Display Houses Futuristic Conceptual Designs by Industry Stars

W

hile constructing the exhibition case at last year’s WantedDesign show in New York City—a polygonal, diamond-shaped fixture featuring seven zones in the human body crafted by prominent design stars and expressing its philosophy of optimistic techno-futurism—Matthew Waldman, founder and chief creative of futuristic watch brand NOOKA, reached out to Visual Magnetics (www.visualmagnetics.com) to provide a changeable fixture wrap that could transform the look and feel of his company’s exhibit each day.

Three unique fixture wraps were designed and printed on Visual Magnetics MagnaMedia®. The designs were layered onto the fixture so that, each day of the show, one of the wraps could be removed to reveal a new, branded layer underneath.

The result was a stunning, transformative exhibit with a

he says. “We can give our customers so many choices, because the cost of listing a product on our Web site is minimal.

“With digital, we don’t have much invested until an order is placed and the sign is printed.”

As a business partner, the company can market a client’s art or produce their signs. “A company with a military catalog might decide there’s enough interest in some military division from World War II to offer a sign,” he says as an ex-

different but equally intriguing look for all three days of the show.

The fixture graphics were printed and wrapped so that there were no visible seams. Small layers printed with exhibit details and sponsor logos were made for the exhibit but could easily be removed or moved around to achieve a desired look.

“The design of the fixture case transformed easily, without having to install new media at the beginning of each show day,” says Waldman.

ample. “We’ll work with them to get the right insignia, finalize the design, and then put out the graphics, which can be ordered as a metal sign.”

For a company focused on the past, the future of Vintage Sign Company looks bright.

“We’ve got a strong foothold in that we can do everything in-house and offer our customers a range of graphics in sizes and shapes they aren’t going to find anywhere else,” says Cunningham.

January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

35

Your Direct Source for Sign Information 3 Easy Steps

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1. Choose up to 10 categories of interest and check off on card.

2. Select up to 28 suppliers and record InfoDirect # on card.

3. Mail card to start getting info!

InfoDirect #

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 36

Company

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3M Commercial Graphics . . . . . 20, C2 Ability Plastics, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . 15 AdamsTech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Allwood SignBlanks Ltd.. . . . . . . . S11 Alpina Manufacturing. . . . . . . . . . . 42 Alpina Manufacturing. . . . . . . . . . . 42 AXYZ International . . . . . . . . . . . . . S7 Brooklyn Hardware. . . . . . . . . . . SC4 CAO Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Central States Signs. . . . . . . . . . . . 42 CLN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Coastal Enterprises/Precision Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S13 Duxbury Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Epilog Laser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S7 Epson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13 Fisher Textiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S15 Gemini, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 GH Imaging.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S15 International Sign Association. . . . 43 J Freeman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Kern Laser Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . S4 Light Source Solutions . . . . . . . . . . 32 Lind SignSpring Group. . . . . . . . . . . 35 Magnum Magnetics. . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Marabu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Master Magnetics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Matthews Paint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . SC2 Mimaki USA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Orbus Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Orbus Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Ornamental Post, Panel & Traffic. . 42 Outwater Plastics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Peachtree City Foamcraft. . . . . . . . . 3 Rapid Tac. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 ShopBot Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S11 Sign America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Sign-Mart Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Sign-Mart Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Page

InfoDirect #

39 Signs365.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 40 SloanLED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

49

InfoDirect #

Company

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43 Stouse Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 44 TRC Electronics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

52

47 VKF Renzel USA Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . 42 48 Wilkie Mfg., LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

Page

Companies in Sign Show

41 Southern Stud Weld . . . . . . . . . . SC4 42 Stamm Mfg.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

45 Trotec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S5 46 US LED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Company

51 53 54 55

Drytac, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Howard Industries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 MACtac Distributor Products . . . . . 15 SA International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Top Value Fabrics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Treefrog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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E nv i r o n m e n t / By Lo r i S h r i d h a r e / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The Twenty-first Century Visitor Experience

all Photos: thinking outside the sQuare.

Thinking “outside the square” on museum exhibits.

Visitors are attracted to museums, and almost equally to museum stores, by not only the exhibits but also the interactive experiences and environmental design of the space.

Sign professionals too can take some pointers from a stroll through a modern exhibit, especially when mobile devices, digital displays, signage, and wayfinding come together to showcase the content.

The question may arise, “If the wayfinding device is now in the palm of our hands, what good is signage?”

The answer lies in thinking outside the box, or as one business puts it, “thinking outside the square.”

Founded in 1995 by Vice President of Production John Herman, Vice President of Client Services Brian McAlonie, and Vice President of Creative Jack Snyder, Thinking Outside the signshop.com

Square (TOTS) is a “visitor experience design and planning firm” that works to create engaging, entertaining, and educational experiences. “[Our] name emphasizes both critical thinking and design and elicits the alternative approach [we] take to projects and clients,” says Steve Bukowski, director of interpretation and social media at the firm.

The first step in determining how a sign system would fit into a modern visitor experience at a museum or a tradeshow is to ensure that the brand is well represented.

“Much like shopping malls and entertainment venues, museums are being tasked with providing twenty-first century experiences, and this applies to signage too,” says Bukowski.

According to McAlonie, the name of the game now is January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

37

To add some interactivity to the room, TOTS fabricated a fifteen-foot-long Victorianinspired desk that displayed a timeline along with “discovery drawers” holding iPads.

branding, branding, branding!

“The desire to include branding in environmental graphics and signage has increased demand. Even for museums, your brand represents your institution outside of your walls,” he says. “Today it’s not only about what it looks like, but how it makes you feel and what it says about you as a person or company or institution.”

One of the key elements in branding is wayfinding. Once the brand is in place, wayfinding allows for both a functional navigation through the environment, while reinforcing the brand through graphics and messaging and, these days, interactive displays and kiosks.

“In all these instances, wayfinding plays an integral role, albeit in different ways and not just on the typical wayfinding signage level. The bottom line for us is that signage and wayfinding have everything to do with improving the visitor experience, period,” says McAlonie.

The second step is creating a visitor experience plan.

Take the example of a museum store layout. Category signage not only helps direct visitors throughout the store but also can be used to passively guide customers to product areas including sections that showcase books, apparel, children’s products, jewelry, etc.

“Every visitor experience plan we’ve created for a cultural institution always includes destination, information, and wayfinding signage,” says McAlonie. “This gives them the lay-ofthe-land before they begin their journey.

“In addition, exhibit projects always incorporate varying levels of interpretive information using headings and subheadings to help visitors easily locate information they want to engage with. Basically we help organize this information for the visitor.”

When it comes to materials for museum exhibits, TOTS utilizes graphic and signage materials that are time-tested, reliable, and durable, since it’s critical they withstand the wear 38

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

and tear that comes from the multitude of diverse visitors that attend museums everyday: kids, tour groups, weekend ticket holders, etc.

“For exhibit and interpretive panels, we utilize digital graphics that have a UV-protective coating and matte finish mounted to either Sintra®, Dibond®, or HPL [high-pressure laminate],” says McAlonie.

Additionally TOTS works with companies such as Fossil Graphics or iZone that provide custom, high-pressure laminates using extreme heat and pressure to fuse the image and HPL together. These products are mainly used for exterior wayside interpretive graphics and environmental signage solutions where weather and potential vandalism are issues.

A recent project created by TOTS demonstrates how the material can meet mobile devices, resulting in a twenty-first century display.

The Fenton History Center in Jamestown, New York, located in a historic mansion, designed an orientation room geared towards both welcoming visitors to the town and sharing some light information on its history. To add some vibrancy and interactivity to the room, TOTS fabricated a fifteen-foot-long Victorian-inspired desk that displayed a timeline with historic

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The company has been working with space advertiser Clear Channel Airports and their print partner in Atlanta to create graphics that would meet the demands of both advertisers and the TSA (Transport Security Agency), in providing images to line the corridor of the main central hub between terminals and allowing for the degree of see-through visibility that meets security requirements.

Using Contra Vision® Performance 20% offered the benefit of creating strong images that are highly visible from up to nearly thirty-three feet distance, with clarity that enables small logos to be seen and still meet the police’s required see-through vision.

The material is being used to transform the utilitarian space of a TSA checkpoint with its constant lines of passengers into a high-visibility advertising opportunity, while meeting the rigorous demands of Homeland Security. It is also employed on the train

cars moving passengers between terminals and throughout the airport.

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The advertising campaigns at Atlanta Airport may change regularly, but Contra Vision Performance will add some color and interest to the passenger terminal for the foreseeable future.

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January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

39

milestones, along with “discovery drawers” holding iPads that displayed interactive graphics.

“We wanted to create a solution that added a modern museum experience to a historic environment,” says Bukowski.

“In working with custom-made Victorian furniture, we were able to incorporate some modernity without compromising the historic look and feel of the mansion.”

The desk was made of wood and was traditionally assembled, and the museum panels for the room were designed with digital graphics (with protective coating), and mounted to Dibond.

“With a small budget, this project was certainly a challenge, but changing the entire look of a room is certainly possible without a huge budget,” says Bukowski. “The installation of the desk, one large museum panel, and another small exhibit took only one day, including the rundown of how to operate the iPads.”

In working on projects that involve multimedia—both traditional and modern—detailed-oriented communication with the client is critical.

“We sit down face-to-face to discuss what the client wants this new project to achieve, who it’s for, and what it’s supposed to do,” says Bukowski. “We’re in constant contact, creating and designing while we move through multiple revisions.”

Once the revisions are complete and approval attained, the firm begins to build. If it’s feasible, TOTS invites the client to their facility to see their exhibit/project being constructed and assembled.

“Our ability to control the process from beginning to end

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allows us to create the best possible product for our client,” says Bukowski.

As simple as it may sound to design an exhibit with easy-touse iPads, there’s a great deal of strategy that goes into planning a project like this.

“Anytime you want to set up interactive kiosks or wayfinding at a museum, there are a series of steps in communicating logistical or interpretive content,” says McAlonie. “Interactive kiosks, touch tables, and iPads are not ends unto themselves but are a means to an end.”

First the content must come together—a job that usually falls to the museologists and exhibit designers who are tasked with the job of delivering interpretive information in unique and engaging ways. McAlonie points out that a device may even get in the way of delivering information, making it actually more difficult for the visitor. In these cases, it’s best not to include any devices in the design plan.

However, when they integrate well, technology such as touch tables can engage visitors on a large scale. Acting as “giant iPads,” the tables engage multi-generational audiences who may not use smaller devices on a regular basis.

Typically these are used in museums to deliver various interpretive content including archival imagery, stories, historical video, access to artifacts, and links to Web content. Additionally parks and botanical gardens incorporate them to guide and help visitors find their way to particular locations.

“It’s an exciting time to work as a museum consultant since the opportunities are endless for this type of technology,” says McAlonie. “It just has to be utilized in the right manner.”

January 2015 // Sign Builder Illustrated

41

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n page S14 (“A 3D Treat”) of this month’s SBi Dimensionals supplement, we showed how the sign company KDF used a handheld 3D scanner to import the design for a storm-damaged Ben & Jerry’s store sign into their CNC software to help them recreate a brand-new one for their client. KDF President Stephen Hoey loves all things cutting-edge and, because of this, recently invested in both a 3D scanner and a 3D printer to help explore new frontiers at his shop.

Hoey’s shop is using the Cubify Sense 3D Scanner made by 3D Systems. He likens this state-of-the-art technology to a camera, as employees at his shop use it to circle around any object or person as the device scans in the full dimensions of the subject. “It’s a very simple product. It takes pictures as it’s going around and uses that data to create a map on your screen,” explains Hoey.

KDF has been using the 3D scanner for about five months now, and they currently have it hooked up to their MultiCam CNC router as well as their new MakerBot 3D printer. (Note: These pieces of hardware can create the necessary .STL files for replication.) “I can scan a coffee cup right now,” says Hoey, “and send this file to my 3D printer to make it. Then I can put this finished product right next to the original coffee cup, and

you can’t tell a difference.”

Hoey is always following technological advances to see what’s out there and says that one of the reasons his shop decided to invest in 3D printing and scanning can be attributed to the requests they sometimes get from their clients.

“Because we do CNC work, we get calls from people wanting to build prototypes or manufacture parts and need a quick one-off so they could go have a prototype made from that,” says Hoey. “Since we were already doing that with our CNC, it was logical to get involved with 3D scanning and printing to satisfy that little niche.”

Local artists also make another interesting “niche” of clientele, especially when it comes to “out there” requests. “Someone once asked if we could 3D scan people’s faces and cut them like full busts on our CNC router,” says Hoey.

“But we can’t do full 3-D cutting on the CNC because it’s only a three-axis model. However we can scan and make these with a 3D printer.”

Hoey believes that the 3D scanner will be a crucial tool for quite some time to come.

Being equipped with all this 3D technology is allowing KDF to venture into offering even more creative solutions than normal. “Scanners allow us to capture all sorts of data,” says Hoey, “and in turn, we can use this information to do a lot more add-ons to a sign.”

44

Sign Builder Illustrated // January 2015

all Photos: kdf.

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