Custom Historical Site Signs And Wayfinding Signage

Signs For Historic Sites

Last month we asked our online audience what Historic Sites they enjoy visiting.  It was a varied list including Pioneer Villages, Military Reenactement Sites, Historic Ruins, Heritage Buildings and Natural Wonders.  Many of these places welcome visitors from all over the world, and how do they welcome them? With custom signs that are created to reflect the history of the site.

Custom Crafted Signs Made To Be Memorable

When the expert custom sign makers here at The Sign Depot are creating a sign for a historic site they consider these factors

• Visibility
• Close traffic areas
• Brand recognition
• Surrondings

With these four ideas in mind a custom sign can show off what the historic site wishes to convey to their visitors. With just a glance, guests get a good idea of what to expect from the site because of the traditional sign out front. Visibility is key to ensure that the sign is placed in the proper position.  If you factor in the traffic near by you will know if it is predominantly drive by or walk up traffic (and sometimes it is both).  Brand recognition come is the form of text, graphics, logo and colour choice and finally considering the surrounding area lets the sign designer know how to make the sign stand out but not look out of place.  In addition to conveying a message to passersby, the custom sign also provides wayfinding for the historic site.  You can learn more about the importance of wayfinding on our post about findability and wayfinding signs.

Let us know about some of the historic sites that you have visited recently and if you have pictures with their landmark signs we would love to see those too!

Heritage Signs, Traditional Signs, Re-Purposed Signs And Historic Sign Replications

Sometimes Its About Making Old Things New and Sometimes Its Vice Versa

Upon entering our showroom you will notice the newest edition of the Sign Depot crew.  ‘Roman’, as I’ve named him, was created from several rusted gears, scrap metal & imagination.

Projects like this pop up all over the shop, as we have a very creative bunch here.  You never know what materials are going to be re-purposed to create something entirely different.

But that’s not always the case.  Sometimes the client needs something new to replicate something old.  This happened recently when Doon Heritage Crossroads required a new sign to match their Historic surroundings.  The local attraction is a replica of a 1914 village where guests are invited to experience A DAY IN THE LIFE…

In order to achieve an authentic look the letters were hand-painted and the script was very basic, as was often the case for that era.  Creating this sign to easily match the other buildings on site would be a challenge for many, but through the use of the staff’s lettering techinques and fine craftsmanship they gave the sign the look of days gone by.  Heritage sign replications give sign makers a chance to use traditional sign techniques with modern materials.  This gives the heritage sign a historic look while making it a low maintenance sign through the use of present day sign materials.

 

Whether you choose Cedar, MDF, Acrylic or HDU these materials when treated properly add longevity to your sign and keep it from looking weathered.  Now if you are looking for the weathered look, we can help with that too.  Once you have decided on the sign finish you want we are able to create it from a variety of custom crafted sign materials and sign finishing techniques.  This will give you a unique, one of a kind heritage-look sign.

ABC’s of The Sign Depot With A Heritage Backdrop

Wandering in the Workspace

While walking in the workshop I happened to notice the “A“starring right at me.

With a variety of sign materials, wood shop machinery, tools and signs being constructed, I decided I could find the entire alphabet within the walls of The Sign Depot workshop. The challenge was on! With a bit of investigation the work space became a cross between a word jumble and a giant bowl of alphabet soup.  Every nook and corner was combed over to spy one more letter to add to the mix.

26 pictures later The Alphabet According To THE SIGN DEPOT was conceived.  In order to share the fun I created a slideshow so you can follow my travels and see how I creatively captured each letter through my camera lens.  The majority of the pics show off the restored heritage building we are in but the letters are signs of the time we have spend in this historic building.

Yes, some were sign letters, but this is behind the scenes look at THE SIGN DEPOT  after all. Turn up your speakers and boogie to the ABC’s of THE SIGN DEPOT

We would love to hear what you think and look forward to providing additional Sign Depot Videos about the type of signs that are created here in our sign shop.  If there is something we do that you wish to learn more about, make sure to list it in the comments and we will do our best to accommodate all of your requests.  We enjoy sharing our work with our audience and would love to hear more of what you enjoy reading about when it comes to custom sign making. In the meantime we hope this video brought a smile to your face and put a spring in your step!

How Our Heritage Signs Deemed Us A Museum of Signs

 

Museum Of Signs

… that was the quote of the day last week at our Designers’ Demo Day/Open House aka #designDAYsd from the one of guests Mr. Matt Scobel

We welcomed the Design community to stop in have a drink from Ridge Road Estates Winery and a bite to eat from Little Mushroom Catering while learning all the different ways they could incorporate signage into their clients portforlios. By reaching out to the design community we found a way to connect with artistic designers looking for unique items that they could offer their clients.  By holding this open house in our workspace we were able to let them know about many sign materials and substrates that we work with along with the artistic sign finishing techniques we use.

There was a Router Table/CNC demonstration, a gold leaf guilding application and a power point presentation highlighting the scope of work we can produce.

Heritage Heirloom Signs

We were so happy that many out of town, as well as local designers were able to make the trek to visit us in January.We received many remarks about our custom signs, but it was our traditonal  personalized wood signs that caught eyes of many.  They appreciated the craftsmanship that goes into making heritage signs and wanted to learn more about the sandblasted sign making process. The process of creating custom wood signs was a popular topic for the majority of design demo day and we were happy to answer all the questions we could in regards to custom sandblasted cedar signs.

First Round Of Feedback

Although we will be following up with the designers to hear the feedback from our first Sign Depot Designers’ Demo Day we were thrilled by the compliments we received on site!

To hear what some of our Designers’ Demo Day visitors thought of what they saw here in the The Sign Depot workspace take a look at this video, where we were deemed a Museum Of Signs.