What To Wear – Wood Fashion

Trends in wood fashion and sign design

For many years wood has been a staple in the construction, furniture and landscaping industries.  It’s multi-purpose and durable.  It displays well in a natural finish, stained or painted, and blends well in a variety of surroundings.

Lately the design industry has taken a look at how to incorporate wood, and that has transcended (or should I say TRENDscended) to the fashion industry.  Now wood is becoming trendy in the high fashion circles.  Wood fashion  finds  are now making their way into today’s hottest looks.  Wood fashion items tend to be fun and functional.  The question is would you wear wood?

 

Where would you wear wood?

The thought of wood accessories is not new to jewelery industry.  Bangles, earrings and wood beaded necklaces are very popular and match nicely with the latest styles.  Finding new ways to accessorize with wood is the latest craze!

Suddenly wood is cool to carry.  Take your wooden purse, sunglasses and iPhone case with you wherever you roam to give yourself an edgy look.

Wood will continue to show up in the latest style trends and the design world is watching.

What’s Next For Wood?

Fashion designers are not the only ones looking for ways to incorporate wood.  Interior designers are adding wood in ways that go well beyond furniture.  The images below are just a few of the ways wood has added style and dimension to create interest and unique qualities to design projects.

Looking for ways to stay on trend? Contact us here at Sign Depot and we can create a wonderful wooden sign project that will make a style statement.  Find your favorite finish.  Create with contour cuts.  Choose to chisel.  Stand out with stains. These are ways that wood would make you unique to those around you.

What do you think of wood as an element of style?

Online Community Involvement – Sign Depot Blog VIEWER’S CHOICE

Back at the Big Brown Desk

After a week of holidays I’m back at my desk, but with so much catchup and not really sure what was worked on last week, I’m at a loss for this week’s post.  Instead of running around the workshop, I decided I need to play some catchup here at my desk.  This means I need some input in the blog post department.  Who better to help me with that than the SIGN DEPOT BLOG READERS?  So I’m taking a poll on our Facebook page.  Just pick any of the answers I’ve listed or feel free to add your own idea!  On Friday we’ll see what topic won.  THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING in the First Sign Depot Blog VIEWER’S CHOICE poll.  We love our online community and want to be able to give you in the information you want to see from us whether it be about construction of signs, or The Sign Depot’s community involvement.

UPDATE

Community Open House was the winner.  Read more about it on The Sign Depot’s Community Involvement post.

HDU Signs – Making A Daisy Blossom

Delighted to Decorate the Daisy

We reside in the Access Storage/Doon Twines building and were delighted when our friends from The Frugal Decorator told us that they were moving into the building as well.

The showpiece of their logo is a Daisy & they wanted to make it the standout item of their front entrance-way as well.  It was created using HDU otherwise known as High Density Urethane.  HDU is a sign substrate that is cut in layers on a CNC router table and pieced together to create a dimensional sign.  With the addition of LEDs the custom HDU sign will be visible from busy intersection in both daylight and night time hours.  This makes The Frugal Decorator sign noticeably predominant on that side of the building which will increase walk-in traffic, something that everyone wants.  Once people notice something new they often will stop by to see what you offer.

Artistic Signs Finished In Gold Leaf – How To Shine Up Another Brick In The Wall

Letter Love

The workshop at Sign Depot has been filled with various letters and numbers over the last few weeks.  So many in fact,  that I figured multiple signs were being constructed at once.

Although we had fun with our Word Jumble earlier this year, I figured this time around I would find the word within the word(s) and this is the one I came up with.

But I’m not sure that was what the client had in mind, so I waited patiently for the finished product.

And the finished product had a specialized finish of its own.

Getting To Know More About Gold Leaf

In order for the letters to stand out from the red brick background, they were finished in gold leaf, otherwise known as guilding. Gold leaf guilding is an intricate process.   It is a process where small amounts of genuine gold leaf is applied evenly to a surface to create a full coverage and a brilliant shine. We only use 23K gold leaf from Italy when it comes to our artistic signs, as it is top of the line when it comes to gold leaf.  This type of sign finish not only creates eye-catching contrast, it also adds shine to the brick backdrop.

 

As busy intersection requires something that will catch your eye quickly, and that was accomplished with the use of dimensional letters with a gold leaf finish.  It is always important for your signs to visible to both vehicle traffic as well those walking by.  Your sign is a 24 advertisement of what your business does best.  Make sure it is a great representation of you and your company.  Find ways to incorporate artistic elements into your business signage and your signs will become landmarks that stand out from the surroundings.

All in all it’s more than just bricks on a wall.

How The Sign Depot Prepares For The Pending Postal Strike In Our Community

Will The Canada Post Strike Affect The Sign Depot?

… Hopefully it won’t .

We’ve spent the better part of the last few weeks watching the headlines regarding the Canada Postal Workers Strike.  From the news earlier this week it seems almost unavoidable.  Being that many of our clients pay by company cheques, we needed to take precautions to make sure this strike didn’t cause cash flow problems.  These are the steps we’ve taken and in sharing them, we hope your are able to avoid some hurdles as well.

Where To Start

• Take a look at your accounts receivable.  See what is left outstanding.  Contact those clients and see if their payments have been sent.  If they said it’s been sent, ask for the cheque number.  This will give you an idea of what cheques you will have to track down in case of mail that is held back or lost during this ordeal.
• Check your accounts payable.  If you regularly pay by cheque you might find your payments will become overdue if you mail them out.  Look for alternate methods of payment (see below)
• How will your products end up in the hands of your clients?  If Canada Post is your main method of shipping you may want to look into setting up an account with a courier service.

Start Your Action Plan

• For your accounts receivable, how many of your clients are local?  Can you make payment pickup arrangements?  Every invoice I sent out this week had this message attached to it

• For your out of town customers, see if they are able to pay by credit card or through an online banking transfer.  If those methods are not available to them then suggest they make courier arrangements.
• Accounts payable should also make arrangements as well.  Many companies will accept credit and online payments, and depending on their methods for payment acceptance you may be able to take the bill to your bank and pay it by cheque through the teller.
• Inform your clients that frieght charges may change during this time period if you are changing your shipping methods.

Today the National Post asked if anyone would notice if there’s a strike.  We think so, and we’re taking some simple steps to avoid mail disruptions during the postal strike.  Find a way that works best in your community to avoid business interuptions and make sure your clients and customers know that they are still your top priority during a postal strike.