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With the design for the Hazelnut Inn finally in hand we set to work in EnRoute. I had done the design using Adobe Photoshop using my iPad as an interface. I based the lettering on an actual font but modified it a fair amount. Now that needed to be done using vectors.

The main sign for the Hazelnut Inn is undoubtably the most important as it will set the tone and be the first taste of the experience guest will have in this place. The final design came about after much discussion and many tries. It is said that designing for yourself is the hardest thing I’m a believer! But the end result is well worth the struggle. From the first concept two things remained the same – the tree and the lettering.

As is most often the case we started off with a concept drawing. I brought this into EnRoute and traced over it to create the vectors needed to make the reliefs and for the plasma cut parts as well. The lettering was curved to the shape of the scroll using the warp tool. The only thing not settled was the ornamentation on the scroll as the debate had not yet been decided. I handed the vectors over to Peter at this stage

We formed the pieces for the crown using our roller and also by hand as necessary. Then everything was welded up into once assembly. While we could have routed the end pieces it was easier and faster the do it by hand. We formed some pencil rod in the shape we wanted and then attached some metal lath.  The ring around the crown was cut from a piece of 16″ diameter pipe

We formed the pieces for the crown using our roller and also by hand as necessary. Then everything was welded up into once assembly. While we could have routed the end pieces it was easier and faster the do it by hand. We formed some pencil rod in the shape we wanted and then attached some metal lath.  The ring around the crown was cut from a piece of 16″ diameter pipe. The Curved flat bar was hand shaped and formed in pieces.

 The second inn sign to go into production is the Copper Crown. To do this sign did we tried something new. The scroll would be routed, flipped and routed once more.

We tool pathed the North Star sign and then sent it off to the MultiCam. We routed it from 30 lb Precision Board. There was still a little work to do in EnRoute. The piece below was cut from 0.1 steel plate. It would be the ring around the star and also act as structure  between it and the front piece.

The inn signs are now in full production and looking good. In the next series of emails I’ll be taking you through the steps we took to create them. This will be a little different than most of my posts because Peter and I jointly worked on these files and he uses a slightly different path to production that I might. The thing with EnRoute is the the program is so powerful there are most often multiple ways to do a task. As we were designing and building with ourselves as a client we also changed things on the fly to make it better.