Best Electronic Message Centers of 2013

FIRST PLACE

Fabricator
Danthonia Designs
Inverell, NSW, Australia
(1800) 552-700
www.danthonia.com.au
Designer
Nancy Kaiser
Danthonia Designs
Client
Grace Lutheran College
Hundreds of Australian schools are transitioning to electronic-messageboard signs. This sign for Grace Lutheran College (in Australia, college is the equivalent of middle school) embodies a synthesis of traditional signmaking and modern technology. The full-color-LED, 10mm-pixel message center, installed at a Queensland college provides a 192 x 128-pixel matrix with up to 16 lines of text. According to Danthonia’s Joe McKernan, the company’s R & D team has designed a modular LED system, which is assembled in-house from components built expressly for the shop by a Chinese vendor. The IP67 modules are dust- and waterproof, and they’re mounted on a frame to provide ample air movement.

 

SECOND PLACE

Fabricators
(sign)
Integrated Sign & Graphic Inc.
Lexington, KY
(800) 755-7596
www.isginc.net
(cartoon sculpture)
Art Attack
Edmonton, AB, Canada
(780) 433-2589
www.artattackfx.com
(light globes)
Torkworks
Columbus, OH
(614) 492-1810
www.torkworks.com  
Designer
Brother Zank
Custom Craftsman Signs
Sevierville, TN
(865) 429-1934
www.customcraftsmansigns.com
Client
Pigeon Forge LP

Integrated Sign and Custom Craftsman collaborated on this message center for The Track, a Pigeon Forge, TN-based, family-entertainment center. The client wanted a new, main-ID sign on the property’s road frontage that would appeal to today’s tech-savvy families – and with modest energy consumption. The display entails a 100-sq.-ft., double-sided Watchfire XVS 16mm-pixel-pitch message center.
The sign’s upper section comprises a 0.125-in.-thick cabinet with face-lit channel letters covered with ¼-in.-thick acrylic and illuminated with SloanLED’s ChannelLED5, which is designed for such large applications. Around the sign’s perimeter, Integrated installed Torkworks’ 38, supersized acrylic globes (made from frosted, clear polymer) as running lights. Art Attack, which has produced themed-environment signage and sculptures for 14 years, fabricated Go-Cart, the mascot and the base’s cartoonish sculpture, from EPS foam that’s cut both by hand and on a hot-wire machine, and sealed with a polyurea hardcoat.

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THIRD PLACE

Fabricator
Green Sign Co.
Greensburg, IN
(812) 663-2550
www.greensignco.com
Designers
Shawn Green
Mike Harvey
Client
Erich K’s Collision Center
Reading signs doesn’t cause accidents; research has proven that. However, when other circumstances do, Erich K stands ready to wow customers with this distinctive display. The 18-ft.-tall sign incorporates two, 25mm EMCs that are ensconced within a 0.080-in.-thick aluminum cabinet painted with Matthews acrylic-polyurethane paint. To complement the electronic message, pan faces with second-surface graphics identify the shop. 3M reflective vinyl applied to the cabinet replicates highway stripes, and metal-HID lamps showcase the cabinet after dark.
 

HONORABLE MENTION

Fabricator
National Signs
Houston
(713) 863-0600
www.nationalsigns.com
Designer
OUN
National Signs
Client
Gullo Ford