Synergy Sign & Graphics: A New Angle on Branding

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These days, branding comes in more varieties than you can shake several sticks at. There’s a dizzying array of social media outlets, email marketing techniques, and online advertising tactics that all promise to bring unparalleled exposure to your business. Now, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing new and exciting branding strategies, but they can make it easy to forget about tried and true methods. A professionally constructed exterior sign is a one-time investment that provides constant advertisement. Night and day, 365 days a year, a good sign heralds your brand to the world passing by. No monthly service fees or web development skills required; all you need is the right sign company and the right material.

A New Angle Wellness Spa and Salon in New Philadelphia, Ohio found themselves in need of some fresh branding efforts, so they approached Jim Dawson and his team at Synergy Sign and Graphics to see how they could bring a little spice to their advertising strategy. Check out Synergy’s blog to see some of their other impressive projects, and visit their website to commission a sign of your own!

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In process: After routing, during the beginning stages of painting

For this project, the Synergy team chose to use our PBLT-30 material, one of the higher densities commonly used in signage. The high density of the material gives the finished product a higher strength profile and allows it to hold edges better than lighter weight materials, allowing for greater detail to be carved into the sign.

The crew used Enroute Pro 5 CNC software to create the tooling paths, which were then carved out with their Multicam CNC router. For this sign, the team went with a raised border and lettering to really make it stand out from the background. They also used their router to mill out a grain pattern, giving the entire sign a faux wood effect. All the classic aesthetic of a sandblasted wood sign with none of the downsides! They then used Modern Masters metallic latex paints for all surfaces, finishing off the sign with a cream, black, and gold color scheme that really gives the sign the pop it needs. A local mason installed the cultured stone pillars, and the Synergy team attached their finished sign with a steel frame and bolts. Another job well done by Synergy! Check out their gallery of custom carved signage to see some of their other professionally constructed displays. 

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Weapons to fight for

The crew have been busy painting the first of the features for the Motiongate project in Dubai. As always it starts with a minimum of three base coats of color. The last base coat was blended down from light to dark to give the features some weight. Instead of going straight to the colours we kept to the wood colours. A first light glaze was painted on and wiped off judiciously. Then we went back in with some dry brush for the paint colours on the box. It created an instant old look.

The colours were added to each piece. The key is to keep things complimentary so the individual pieces didn’t compete with each other.

Then all the colours were on the boxes and barrels it was time for some details to make things special. In the How to Train Your Dragon Movie (which the features are based on) the dragon journal is written in a unique cryptic alphabet. With a little web research we could add the lettering to the box. It translates to read HAGGIS.

The boxes were polished off yesterday. Today it was time to put the finishing touches to the swords and axes. The crew worked their magic with the glazes and a little silver dry brush.

Tomorrow, the final coats of dull clear will go on to take away the shine of the semigloss paint we use and to also make the pieces more durable for the waterpark environment they are going to.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Atlanta EnRoute Workshop

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“The EnRoute workshop was worth every cent. The instructors patiently relayed, in detail, every aspect of EnRoute’s 2.5D, 3D, Rapid Texture techniques and the many other functions of Enroute. I am now able to take advantage of the tremendous features provided in the software. Thanks!”
– Henry from H & S Marine Plastics
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From rapid texture to advanced toolpathing our workshop will provide you with a variety of new techniques for you to get the most out of EnRoute software.
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Atlanta Workshop Location
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Austell, GA 30106
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Our Atlanta Workshop will be a 3-day event packed with useful information to help you enhance your skills using our software.
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Space is limited, so register early to guarantee your seat!
It’s $1,295 to attend the EnRoute Atlanta 3-day workshop, but you save $200 when you register by March 15th. Attendees from 2015 save $300 when you register by March 15.
To register, contact Luke Benik at:
Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Painting techniques

It’s fun to design dimensional signs in EnRoute and pure magic to watch the MultiCam carve the sign unaided from Precision Board. The result looks pretty good. But that is really only half the way there.

The real magic is in the painting process. The first step is to introduce some mild texture where it’s smooth. This subtle texture is created by brushing on some heavy bodies primer. The best I’ve ever found is Coastal Enterprise’s FSC 88 – WB (the WB stands for water based. It comes out of the can the thickness of cream. It dries quickly and if you use a small brush and leave the brush marks in on purpose it dries with that same look.

Then come three coats of acrylic paint. We use a top quality house paint… or in the case of this plaque  a gold metallic made by Modern Masters. Three coats are important if you want the piece to last.

Then comes a series of glazes. We always work from light to dark.

For them to work properly you need texture and the more the better. We load on the glaze and then wipe it off before it dries. The glaze stays in the lower areas and wipes off the raised areas. For wiping we use soft terry towel material. It’s the best and we go through pickup loads of rags each year. (We buy used towels at the thrift store.)

The first glaze on the Daniel plaque was made by mixing some gold with a teeny bit of metallic cherry and mixing this paint with an equal amount of clear. For the clear we use untainted deep base paint of the same brand. To make the custom mix deeper colours the paint stores start with a clear base. It looks milky in the can but dries clear. The paint store folks will look at you weird but this is what we buy to make our glazes.

The next glaze was made from black cherry. Like the previous glaze it was slopped on with a big brush and then wiped off with a towel. If you look close you can see a little more dark glaze was left in the middle of the panel to make the letters pop.

The panel was allowed to dry overnight and then some metallic gold was brushed onto the letters. When this was dry a little darker color was gingerly dry brushed onto the bottom of the letters to give them a little extra depth.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

The Sign Invitational. Update

So, here it is. Our concept rendering for our entry into The Sign Invitational

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We are extremely excited to get started on the fabrication. 5 weeks out. I hope we can get it all done.

-Jim

Published with permission from Synergy Sign & Graphics. Source.