Archive for April, 2010

Every so often I confess to Bojan that I dream of selling widgets.  Imagine if we only had three products: an A, a B, and a C.  We could focus on being the world’s best A, B, and C provider, in the world.  Further more, imagine that we only sold those widgets to Zoos.  Then we could further focus on being the world’s best provider of A, B, and C’s to zoos, in the world.  Doesn’t that sound easy?

Easy but incredibly boring.  Instead we get to sell all sorts of things to clients in just about any industry.  Makes the job exciting but is it ever hard to focus.  As an example lets look at dimensional signage, specifically logos.

One of the things we do best is dimensional logo work.  We produce logos in lots of different materials, finish the materials in different ways and then install them on all kinds of surfaces.  We make logos out of things like router cut Sintra (a pvc material), laser cut acrylic and waterjet cut aluminum.  We then finish those logos with paint, or laminate or polish.  Finally we mount the logos directly to the wall, pin-mount them to the wall, or mount them to some sort of panel which can be metal or acrylic or wood.  As you can imagine the possible combinations are infinite (approximate not actual).

That sounds a bit complicated so let’s just say we can take your logo and put it on the wall and make it look just about however you want it to look.

Recently we finished a project for Surgical Specialists of Charlotte which consisted of producing and installing lobby logos and custom ADA signage in three of their recently rennovated locations.  The project was brought to us by a talented local interior designer named Chris DeSantis with Studio1616.  We’ve worked with Chris on numerous projects in the past and he came through again with a really cool project.  If you are in need of an architect or interior designer we recommend you contact Chris.

For this project Chris specified one of the finer dimensional signage materials: waterjet cut aluminum (WCA).  WCA letters are the Caddy of dimensional letters in terms of fit, finish and price. One of the primary advantages of WCA letters is the finish, especially the edges.  When you cut letters out of aluminum and then polish them, the surface as well as the sides look the same.  It’s expensive, but the final product is sharper looking than just using a metal laminate on sintra and painting the edges.   The finish pictured here is the anodized clear finish which is one of our favorites.

Install was really trick because of the rough stone finish, lots of holes to drill in all sorts of cracks and crevices.  Getting everything level and plumb takes some skills.  Remember that the next time you are shopping for a logo.  Pretty concept pictures are one thing, the finished product on the wall is another.  We rock at installs.

To compliment the lobby logo we also did some additional dimensional letter work above the check in and check out areas as well as some custom ada signage for the offices and exam rooms.  Once nice touch on the ada signage was going with two stand offs instead of four.  That really lightened up the visual weight of the signs and as an added bonus, reduced the cost.  We might try that again.