6 Signs Go to School

WHILE SCHOOL SIGN budgets can be small, the large amounts of creativity they allow for typically make up for it. “Sometimes it can be difficult trying to get the school what they want with the budget they have,” says Ted DeWitt, owner, Signarama Covina (Covina, CA). “But we look at it as a challenge [that] can be enjoyable — brainstorming with our crew and buyers to come up with solutions that answer their needs within budget.”

Discover how these six shops moved to the head of the class.

Three-Part Harmony

“We love building custom signs where we can be creative with both the fabrication and design,” says Michael Van der Melen, owner of The Media Works (Norwood, ON, Canada). The shop designed, then performed all fabrication for the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board’s (Peterborough, ON, Canada) sign by welding 1.5-in. aluminum tube with internal 8-in. x 8-in. steel poles for the main structure, then cladding it in ⅛-in.-thick aluminum cut on an AXYZ CNC router. The graphics were crafted in ½-in. push-through acrylic letters coated with Matthews Paint, then backlit with HanleyLEDs from Principal Sloan.

Defying Gravity

Mounting a 7-ft.-round, 3-in.-deep custom capsule on the ceiling is no small task; thankfully, Signarama Troy | Metro Detroit (Troy, MI) had excellent help. After enhancing the client’s design to ensure the cougar logo for Redford Union High School (Redford, MI) would stay secured on the ceiling, Signarama welder/fabricator Krystal Hoover says they then worked with Elrod Engineering (Smyrna, TN) for help with fabrication and installation. The main capsule features a second capsule in the center that is front- and backlit with faux neon around the perimeter, as well as on the back as a second halo. In addition, Steel Art Co. (Norwood, MA) created the cougar head within which Signarama installed their vinyl graphics, Hoover says.

Monumental Signage

The University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) was searching for a company to craft stately outdoor monuments to recognize their scholar graduates, and the custom fabricators at Archetype (Bloomington, MN) were happy to oblige, CEO Steven Carpenter says. The series of limestone pillars was made using two panes of glass with carved-and-printed, edge-illuminated copy in which the front panel denotes the award and the inside panel displays the individual names. “This particular project is an ongoing learning experience,” Carpenter says. “Every year we do updates to the monuments for new award winners and it is interesting to see the [new] honorees.”

Small Town Signage

Keene Signworx (Swanzey, NH) is a small-town shop that takes pride in their creativity and ingenuity, owner Peter Poanessa says. Using their proprietary “Keene System” for building strong, light, stiff structures that are weather-durable and fast to fabricate, the shop created the double-faced Washington Elementary School (Washington, NH) sign using thin-walled, aluminum tubing and Omegabond ACM panels bonded with LORD 406-19 Acrylic Adhesive. The ACM panels were cut on a ShopSabre CNC router, while the pencil graphic was printed on a Roland DGA VersaCAMM SP-300V Eco-Solvent inkjet printer.

Juicy Rebrand

When the Covina-Valley Unified School District (Covina, CA) needs signage, they call their trusted local partner Signarama Covina, owner Ted DeWitt says. When it came time to update the board’s meeting room, Signarama was tasked with filling a large wall with the district’s logo. Using ½-in. PVC letters with face and returns cut on a Colex and spray-painted in the school’s colors using a satin finish, the team then drilled the PVC and tapped it with 2-in. studs for installation on the wall’s fabric-panel covering.

Hand-Painted Heritage

Although the plaque for The Randolph Holder School for Social Justice (Queens, NY) is one of more than 100,000 carved signs and plaques that Art Sign Works Inc. (Murrieta, CA) has created in 20 years of business, it was still made with all the skill and attention to detail the shop is known for, says owner Paul Williamson. The 3D bas-relief plaque was fashioned out of high density urethane (HDU) from Coastal Enterprises, carved with a ShopBot CNC router, hand-sanded and painted using Matthews Acrylic Polyurethane and 1 SHOT sign enamels, then finished with a two-step clear coat.

PHOTO GALLERY (23 IMAGES)