FIRST PLACE
Fabricator
Danthonia Designs
Inverell, NSW, Australia
(1800) 552-700
www.danthonia.com.au
Designer
Nancy Kaiser
Danthonia Designs
Client
Oxford Falls Grammar School
Selling Price
$25,000
School officials are increasingly investing in new signage and environmental branding to create a sense of place for their institutions. Danthonia fabricated the crest and 3-D lettering from 18-lb. Sign•Foam 3 HDU, which it shaped with a Festool 1400 EQ handheld router. Fabricators laminated the letters to the base monument, which was shaped from expanded polystyrene that’s covered with a urethane hardcoat that Danthonia spokesman Joe McKernan called “hammer-proof.” They used a Roland plotter to create the paint and sandblasting masks, and coated the face with Dulux Weathershield and Graffiti Buster 200 clearcoats. Danthonia also created a mask to sandblast the crest background. Danthonia produced the cultured-stone cladding, and outsourced the monument’s foam shaping.
SECOND PLACE
Fabricator
LonoWood Art Co.
Albion, NY
(585) 589-1394
www.lonowood.com
Designer
Terri Wood
LonoWood Art Co.
Client
Sean Kelley/Red Stone Studios
Kelley had just renovated an historic red-stone building in Rochester, NY and wanted to tout its architectural character in its sign. Contending with a small space for the sign and a steep slope toward the road, Wood designed the double-faced sign to extend from a single stone pier, which faces the slope. She devised the sign and pier to reference the building’s architecture and incorporate red stone left over from the building’s renovation. Mark Lono, Wood’s partner, created the project’s CAD drawings, and employee Peter Loran handcarved the 15-lb. Sign•Foam HDU sign.
Numerous contractors assisted on the project: Victor Development Group (Victor, NY) built the stone-pier masonry and installed the exterior, gooseneck lighting. Bob Ralph, a Rochester-based welder, fashioned the internal bracket. The Sign Bracket Store (Carlsbad, CA) created the sign’s custom, scrolling bracket. And, PRWP (Elma, NY) handled the sign’s CNC-routing work.
THIRD PLACE
Fabricator
GableSigns & Graphics Inc.
Baltimore
(410) 255-6400
www.gablesigns.com
Designer
Steve Roupe
GableSigns & Graphics Inc.
Clients
Koch Homes & NV Homes
As the real-estate-development market has begun to shrug off economic doldrums in recent months and regained firm footing, demand for appropriate entry signs has increased. This 7 x 18-ft. monument sign features a logo panel built from rolled-aluminum sheets that were welded and decorated with Akzo Nobel automotive-grade paint finishes. The shop also CNC-routed the silver-finish, ½-in.-thick, aluminum letters, and fabricated an aluminum, pan-faced backer panel, and sculpted the sailboat from 0.090-in.-thick aluminum, with various-diameter, rolled-aluminum rods, which mimic sailboat ropes.