Creative Sign Designs (Tampa) debuted in 1986 as Creative Mailbox Designs LLC to, as the name suggests, fabricate decorative mailboxes. Eventually, the company began producing signage. In 2005, the original owner sold the business to Jamie Harden, the company’s current president and CEO, and the shop has evolved into a full-service operation that undertakes design, project management, fabrication and installation.
According to Moira Allen, the shop’s marketing coordinator, Creative Sign Designs devotes approximately 30% of its work to residential-monument signage. Like many shops, it diversified and increased its production of interior and electronic-display signage after Florida’s economy and housing market tumbled in 2007 and 2008.
To bid on monument-sign projects, she said the company first earns pre-qualification with general building contractors, who verify the company’s experience and financial stability. Once they’re prequalified, they’re invited to bid as the signage subcontractor for commercial-development construction. For residential projects, they work directly with the builder or, for some existing properties, homeowners’ associations or property managers.
The company’s process begins with identifying sign locations and reviewing construction details with structural engineers, before recording technical details for their installation, and noting any potential onsite impediments. After rectifying any potential issues, they’ll develop shop drawings with Auto-
CAD that are submitted for client approval. For many of its monument-sign projects that require masonry foundations, Creative Sign Designs enlists Seminole Masonry (Oviedo, FL).
Randal Park is a master-planned, residential development in Orlando, with homes built by Dix Lathrop and Assoc., M/I Homes and David Weekley Homes. For it, Seminole constructed the three sign bases – one entrance marker visible from a highway measures 30 ft. wide, and the others span 20 ft. They feature a backdrop made from Florida fieldstone veneer that’s backed with mortar-filled concrete blocks. Stainless-steel, all-thread screws with expansion anchors, steel C-clips and aluminum spacers secure the signs to the masonry base.
Creative Sign Designs CNC-routed ¼-in.-thick Cor-Ten® patina-finish steel alloy, and created a second surface with powdercoated, ¼-in.-thick, flat-cutout aluminum. The shop installed both layers to the support structure with non-rusting hardware. Fabricators CNC-routed the vertical, logo-bearing panel from ¼-in.-thick, powdercoated aluminum.
Inside the panels, white-LED lightbars illuminate the sign. Allen said the company still uses some fluorescent tubing to light monument signs, but prefers LEDs because of their long-term cost savings.
Creative Sign Designs also built a 5 x 7-ft., aluminum monument for Costa D’Este, a Vero Beach, FL resort community, as part of an overall sign upgrade. Fabricators formed the cabinet with a CNC router and press brake, and created a second surface with ¾-in.-thick acrylic. To support the resort’s artistic motif, the shop painted the acrylic copy satin-finish black, and fashioned the wavy logo from aluminum with a brushed finish.