Michael Lynes called Blueprint asking for help. The rather old existing exterior shop facia sign at his Henley-on-Thames jewellery shop had come away from the wall on one side. Could we pop over, secure the sign and advise on a full replacement.
From initial site visit it was clear the shop sign was in need of replacement. The sign was a single huge wooden sheet of very thick MDF with a clear acrylic covering panel and a painted wooden frame holding it all together. The shop sign had come away from the wall at one end and was rotten away due to the MDF being saturated with water.Lots of measurements and a few pictures were taken, the sign was secured with some new fixings before returning back to base in Witney.
Michael was keen for the replacement sign to look as similar to the old one as possible and ideally made from the same materials in the same style. Wooden exterior shop signs require lots of maintenance, give limited options and are very very heavy. For this reason we advised Michael that the sign could be made to look very similar using modern hard-wearing materials that require little if any maintenance at all.
We decided the best option was to supply a satin black tray sign made from an aluminium composite material (ACM). The main letters on the sign would be 3D moulded plastic with a lovely gold finish, attached to the tray using hidden bolt fixings. The smaller text along the bottom of the sign is cut gold vinyl lettering.
Although the sign wasn’t at any great height, the install was going to be quite tricky for two reasons. Firstly, the shop is open six days a week on a busy high street in the centre of a very busy town. The second is the fixed un-retractable shop canopy that would need removing before any fitting work could commence. A quick call to the canopy supplier confirmed it would be quite costly for them to remove and refit the canopy allowing us to install the new shop sign. After a discussion with the supplier we decided we’d remove and refit the canopy ourselves while fitting the new signage.
We decided to install using our own portable scaffold tower very early on a Sunday morning before the towns shops were open and the pathways became busy with shoppers.
The tech spec of the signage is:
- 4.6 metre long by 50 millimetre deep ACM tray sign in two sections finished in satin black.
- 3D moulded plastic main lettering in gold fitted using hidden bolt fixings.
- Secondary text in gold cut vinyl lettering.
- Fix to the wall using hidden angle brackets and flush fixing screws.
- The panels were fitted using our own scaffold tower and two man installation team.
