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No Comments Custom Wood Signs – The Fruit Of Our Labour
Happy Pi Day
March 14th is known as Pi Day. Pi is a measurement tool, for our purposes, it’s the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, approximately 3.14. Pi Day celebrations often include the baking of actual pies. We thought it would be best to celebrate this year’s Pi Day with our E.D. Smith custom wood sign, being they are well known for their pie fillings!
Crafting Custom Wood Signs For Big Businesses
Many big businesses choose custom cedar sandblasted signs for a variety reasons. The ability to customize the sign to fit their company image is just one of those reasons. Customization in terms of size, shape, colour, graphics, text, font and finishing techniques are what makes a wood sign unique and allows businesses to stand out from others in their industry. Crafting a sign from western red cedar is what the sign experts here at The Sign Depot excel at. They have been carving wood signs for two decades. You know with that kind of longevity making custom woods signs is a labour of love and signs like this E.D. Smith sign shows off the fruit of their labour literally.
Thinking Of A Custom Wood Sign For Your Company?
Are you thinking your company needs a custom sandblasted cedar sign? Athough it may not be as scientific as calculating Pi, but here is the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY when it comes to wood signs.
WHO – Who will be seeing this sign? Think in terms of vehicle traffic and people walking by.
WHAT – What do you envision for this business sign? Do you have a logo ready or do you need a sign expert to design it for you?
WHEN – When is a good time for the project to begin? Do you have a completion date in mind?
WHERE – Where will the sign be situated? Does that align with local sign permit regulations?
WHY – Why do you want to choose a wood sign? We have LOTS of answers for that! Just contact one of our sign experts and they can help you choose the sign that works best for you.
Custom Wood Signs Created To Weather The Outdoors
When The Weather Outside Is Frightful, Your Custom Wood Sign Can Still Be Delightful
Depending on where you live you may see a lot of ice in your community. The wintery scenes we are seeing all over the internet made us pause for a moment to see just how wonderful a winter wonderland can look. Being purveryors of custom wood signs we took a look at how our wood signs stood up to the icy elements over the last few days.
Here’s a close up look at our address sign.
As you can see it the ice ads an extra layer of texture to our dimensional letters on the wood sign. Once the ice is melted the sign will still be in great condition, as it was given an outdoor finish meant to stand up to changing weather conditions. Knowing what your custom sign will look in all kinds of weather is another way for your sign to stand out from its surroundings.
Glisten And Shine
Another outdoor finish the sign making experts here at The Sign Depot like to use is gold leaf. As you can see in the image below, the gold leaf finish on the sandblasted cedar sign still shines through despite the frost buildup and lack of sunshine.
Infact the layer of ice makes the gold leaf glisten. This sign has been outdoors for several years but is still in great shape. Custom cedar signs are made to withstand the elements and are a great choice if you are looking for a sign with longevity. Finding what works best for the conditions your sign will face is our specialty. Feel free to visit our Contact Us page for more information and be sure to leave a comment on how your outdoor space looks during these icy days!
Keep Your Custom Cottage Signs In Tip Top Shape And Other Cottage Closing Tips
5 Websites To Help You Close Your Cottage For The Winter
Wondering how to close your cottage for the winter? We have compiled a list of 5 websites with great information on how to properly close your cottage, cabin, or lake house property for the year.
- Cottage Life – Gives a thourough two day plan on how to close a cottage
- Cottage Tips – Has tips on both your interior and exterior property winterization
- Canada Safety Council – Helps to prevent break ins and loss of property during the off season
- Canoe.ca – Cottage Home & Property Showcase – Provides info on how to keep critters out of your cottage
- Canadian Home Trends – Adds a great checklist for those closing down their cottage for the winter
One More Cottage Tip
If you have a custom wood cottage signs, there are a few steps you can take to add longevity to your cedar signs.
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Wash it with soap and water. A mild liquid dish detergent will do the trick
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Let it dry
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Give it a polish with a spray car wax (ie Turtle Wax)
This will add luster to the wood sign and serve as a protectant against the winter elements.
In the spring just wash off the wax coat and you are good to go. Our custom paint finishes last for approximately 7-10 years depending on the area your cottage sign is located and how much sun it gets. After that we suggest bringing it in for refurbishing. Refurbishing means we sand it down to remove the flaking paint and then recoat the cedar sign with brand new paint. Your sign will look like new!
Looking for ideas for custom cedar cottage signs? There are lots of personalization options to choose from. Be sure to visit our CONTACT US page to connect with one of our expert signmakers.
And we’re PLANKING
Creating Walls With Wood Planks
When a designer has a vision, it is our mission to make that vision a reality. Taking everyday materials and changing them to create interest is something that we do almost daily. In most cases, once the right materials are found to fit the design concept, then the construction can begin. In this case, it was more about fitting the material into the construction. The design was to create a wood plank wall in our Kitchener workshop for a Toronto restaurant. Finding a way to construct a wall that could be transported and installed to match the design specifications required, was the challenge with this project.
Even big sign projects start small
Instead of beginning with a wall of lumber, the project was built in several small sections. Each 24″x 24″ tile was made from cut cedar planks. When it was laid out on our workshop it resembled parkay flooring.
After seeing how the individual sections would fit together, the project was disassembled so that each cedar piece could be finished with a spray stain process. Once all the pieces were stained the cedar sections were stacked and transported to Toronto.
How we went against the grain
Each 24″x24″ cedar tile was attached to match the pattern that was laid out in the workshop. Adding dimension to the wall was a way to give it character.
It also was to be a reflection of the establishment’s name, Against The Grain Urban Tavern.
When the cedar wall installation was finished it transformed the back drop of the restaurant and ended up reaching 21 feet across the wall.
When a sign is not a sign, it can still be a sign of something else
While there is an absence of graphics and text on this sign project, to us it is still a cedar sign. The lack of words on this sign still represents the business name in an understated way.
Custom Wood Cottage Signs – Long Weekend Means Cottage Season
Victoria Day
The Long Weekend is upon us and that means many will be heading to cottage. Whether the cottage is 4 hours or 40 minutes away, you still want it to be your home away from home. Not only is a cottage your getaway from the everyday, you want it to be welcoming to friends and family too. The easiest way to get that warm friendly cottage first impression is by adding a custom cottage sign to your laneway. Its more than just an address marker. It is a personalized representation of what your cottage means to you. With fully customized Sign Depot cottage sign, you can choose the size, shape, colours, text and graphics to individualize the look of your sandblasted cedar sign.
For more examples of how unique your custom cedar sandblasted sign can be make sure to visit our Residential Gallery in our Portfolio.
As you can see our custom wood cottage signs show off your individual creativity and good taste to your cottage guests.
They make great gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, House Warming gifts or any special occasion. Cedar cottage signs are built to last so its the gift that keeps on giving. Not sure on what to put on a cottage sign that you are giving as a gift? Gift certificates are available too! This give the receipient lots of choice for their custom cedar sandblasted sign.
Cottage season will be in full swing soon! Make sure to contact us soon in order to get your custom carved cedar cottage sign into production. We want to make sure you have it in time for your first trek to the cottage this year. Email us, send us a tweet or message us on facebook.
We also want to remind all of our readers to stay safe this Victoria Day long weekend and remember not to let your guests drink and drive.
Wholesale Wood Signs – Featured In SignMedia Canada
Sandblasted Signs To The Sign Trade
The Sign Depot was thrilled to featured in the January 2011 Edition of SignMedia Canada. The article profiled the company starting from it’s humble beginnings and following how The Sign Depot evolved into a full service sign shop with a sandblasted wood sign wholesale department that wholesales to the sign trade. This is want makes us unique to many other sign shops. We are able to manufacture wholesale cedar signs here in our workshop. Our wholesale wood signs have been shipped all over North America and our clients come back over and over. Hand-carved wood signs have lots of options so that sign retailers can customize the look they wish to achieve
The Five Steps To Wholesale Wood Signs
We always want to give our clients the best possible service and in order to adhere to the quick turnaround times required for our wholesale we ask that they follow these 5 steps.
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Change all fonts to curves or line art
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Send us vector file formats – .ai – .eps – .dxf – .cdl or .cdr
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Confirm overall dimensions
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Let us know if the wholesale sign is to be Single sided or double sided
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We will need to know if the sign is to be Finished or unfinished
By receiving the digital artwork design and following the guidelines for ordering with our wholesale sign department, the process is streamlined and your should receive your quote within one business day. Please send the required info to sales@sign-depot.on.ca or visit our contact us page
*NOTE If you are a Designer and wish to learn more about The Sign Depot request an invite to The Sign Depot Designers’ Demo Day happening Wednesday January 26th 2011 from 3-6pm. We’ll be having live demos of how we manufacture signs here in our sign workshop and will be happy to answer any questions you have about out sign making processes.
Custom Wood Cottage Signs At Christmas
Cottage Signs for Christmas
