USSC 2012 Sign Contest

This is a sampling of some of the winners from the United States Sign Council’s (USSC) 2012 Sign Design Contest, which will be featured in the organization’s 2013 calendar and on the floor at the Sign World Intl. tradeshow (see below). Judges for the competition were Marty Jacobson from Philadelphia’s Forman Sign Co. and Bill Weigand, owner of Phoenixville, PA’s H.A. Weigand Inc. For more information, visit www.ussc.org or call (215) 785-1922.

Best of Show
Great American Sign Co. (Basking Ridge, NJ)
Designer: Gary Johnson
Client: Bedminster Township Community Garden
If only every sign that conveys the legalese that absolves property owners from liability could be so whimsical and fun. Managers of the Bedminster (NJ) Township Community Garden at Natirar Park hired Johnson to fabricate the sign for the garden. After having designed the sign using SAi’s EnRoute® 4 3-D software, he routed the sign on his Gerber Dimension 200 CNC router using 30-lb. PrecisionBoard® HDU. The body copy entails a white, acrylic panel that’s painted black and V-carved to fit the sign. Johnson shaped the layer from scrap Sign*Foam pieces before creating dimensional flora with Abracadabra’s 3-D sculpting compound.

First Place, Monument Sign, Non-Illuminated
Gable Signs & Graphics Inc. (Baltimore)
Designer: Steve Roupe
Client: Koch/NV Homes
This stately monument sign will certainly attract would-be buyers to Deep Creek Village, an NV Homes property in Arnold, MD, that features single-family homes set on 24 bucolic acres. The 2-in.-deep sign panel measures 6 ft. 11 in. x 7 ft. 7 in. and is made from 0.125-in.-thick aluminum that’s hung over an aluminum-angle frame. The CNC-routed copy is painted metallic-silver with Akzo Nobel acrylic-polyurethane paint and pin-mounted 1 in. above the face. The shop made the sailboat from 0.090-in.-thick aluminum with ½-, ¾- and 1-in.-diameter, aluminum rod that mimics the ropes. All were painted white with the Matthews coating.

First Place, Illuminated Freestanding Sign
Horst Signs & Truck Lettering (Myerstown and Reinholds, PA)
Designer: Howard Horst and Randy Bergey
Every sign company should be wise in setting out its shingle. Horst Signs was founded as a traditional signpainting shop 30 years ago, and its striking pole sign reflects its evolution into a full-service shop. Horst and Bergey fabricated the curved support structure (the rivets created a nice, industrial effect). LED border tubing illuminates the sign border, and the can spills out “paint” splashes (RGB LEDs are used to light the color swoop, Horst said), which were fabricated from custom-molded plastic that’s shaped with a MultiCam 3000 CNC router and back-sprayed with Akzo Nobel acrylic-polyurethane paint. The lower panel that touts the shop’s truck-lettering services was similarly fabricated. The sign’s main copy entails second-surface channel letters that are prismatic-cut for a rustic effect.
 

First Place, Vehicles
Countryside Signs (Seekonk, MA)
Designers: Mike and Jay Szczoczarz
Client: Scorpio Towing
Countryside’s process includes Dupont urethane coatings, with 1Shot enamel applied for details. They apply the coatings with a combination of airbrushes, an HVLP production gun and striping and outlining brushes.

 

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More Information About Sign World Intl.

USSC will host its Sign World Intl. tradeshow November 29-December 1 at the Atlantic City (NJ) Convention Center. The exhibit hall will be open on the 29th from 3-7 p.m., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on the 30th and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on the 1st. Last year, approximately 6,000 sign-industry professionals attended the show, according to USSC’s website.
In addition to approximately 80 vendors demonstrating their wares, the exhibit hall features The Bullpen, where dozens of talented artisans will be handlettering, airbrushing and pinstriping rigid panels. One of its annual highlights is the Panel Jam, where several Bullpen participants will collaborate on pinstriping small panels. The panels are sold, with proceeds benefitting local organizations that assist children with autism and their families. The preteen authors of Adventures to Autism Planet, twins Kyle and Isabelle Mosca (Kyle is autistic), will also be on hand to auction a signed copy of their book, which will also benefit the charities.
Sign World will offer several classes, which will be divided among six educational tracks: Management, Sales and Marketing, Technical/Legislative, Shop Talk, Digital Printing and Design. Topics will include such diverse offerings as “How to Have Fun in the Sign Business,” which Dan Sawatzky, the owner of Imagination Corp. (Chilliwack, BC, Canada), will lead; “How to Calculate Your Overhead,” led by InterSign Group’s Mark Roberts; and, “Installation Techniques for Fascia & Post-Mounted Signs,” with Signs of Gold (Williamsville, NY) owner Francis Lestingi serving as instructor.
Sign World will also feature four free discussion groups on the show floor. Two groups will focus on digital printing – they will take place on the 29th from 4-5:30, and on the 1st from 1-3 – and two will address sign pricing, which will occur on the 30th from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., and on the 1st from 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. For the digital-printing discussion group, representatives from Tyrrell Tech, Beacon Graphics and Alpha Imaging will be on hand to answer questions; for the sign-pricing forum, USSC board members Roberts, Neal Wilcox, Rick Crawford, Kevin Crutchfield and Paul Tripp will be on hand to assist attendees.
For more information, visit http://www.ussc.org/main_signworld.html