When you are a business with multiple locations, it is important to make sure that your branding is consistent. When NeighborWorks America was opening a new office in Los Angeles, they were looking for a local sign company for their interior sign and found us online. In some cases, we will help a client design a lobby sign based on their logo and what they want. However, if a company with various locations already has a style of sign that they want, the design phase can be a lot quicker.
We received specifications for the lobby signs that NeighborWorks America had at their other offices and made the sign accordingly. They asked for fabricated stainless steel letters with brushed stainless faces with 1″ deep returns. We typically make our channel letters from aluminum, but we can use stainless steel if it is requested by a client. Stainless steel is more durable than aluminum, but it is more expensive and is harder to clean so the material choice depends on your priorities and the type of sign you need.
If a reverse channel letter sign is going to be illuminated, we make the letters 3 1/2″ deep and install them with spacers because that is the sweet spot for the LEDs. However, this sign was not illuminated so doing 1″ deep letters wasn’t a problem, and we just installed the letters flush to the wall because we didn’t need space for the LEDs to shine.
The client wanted a brushed finish on the faces of the letters. For letters that are being read left to right or right to left, we typically to a horizontal grain, however, the client specifically wanted vertical grain brush. We advised the client that we could either make the grain horizontal and make the bar in one piece, or make the grain vertical and make the bar in two pieces due to material size restriction, but the vertical grain was more important to them so we ended up making the bar in two pieces. There are many options when it comes to custom signs, so we may have many questions and options for the client to assure that they are 100% happy with the sign.