THE CHALLENGE:
One of our clients was moving his law firm into a new office and wanted something unique for his lobby sign.

An interior lobby sign establishes a sense of professionalism and is an excellent way to present your company brand. Sometimes its possible to make these types of signs into very unique presentations. The challenge here was to make a fairly simple, all type logo and turn it into something exciting.

Our final design was an all black, very sleek, curved  box that has an outline of the letters cut out and is internally lit. While this was one of the more expensive options presented, we knew it would make an impressive display.

THE PROCESS:
Now that had a direction it was time to figure out the fabrication details. We always design with the fabrication process in mind, but there are always many details to work out once a direction has been finalized. We turned back to some of the physical mock-ups we had done during the design process and made some refinements.

We had anticipated outsourcing some of the fabrication work – the face is made from a piece of 1/8” thick aluminum with routed or cut out letters which is then curved to fit over a box that has a matching curved edge. Working with our fabricator, we developed detailed shop drawings that describe every facet in full size so there are no miscommunications. We only had once chance to get this done correctly.

Part of the process also involved thinking through the complete installation process. We had to anticipate exactly how the curved face would fit against the wall and we needed to make sure it would be possible to access the interior lights for future service. 

We received the aluminum cabinet perfectly fabricated and painted it a semi-gloss black and added a thin silver border along the face. We installed several rows of LED's for the light source, added a diffuser panel behind the cut out of the letters and we were almost ready to install.

Some pre-planning on the best way to crate the finished sign so we could get it into the elevator was the final step before we were ready to go.


Installation required us to cut a hole into the wall and made some modifications to the studs to make room for the cabinet. We had designed the curved edges of the face to sit flush on the wall and the final appearance looks like the sign has no visible means of support. The final step was to pull the wiring up to the transformers, connect the power source and turn it on via a switch that was hidden in one of the offices.

THE RESULT:
Our client was very pleased with the end result. During the design phase we had made a number of drawings and a rough physical mock-up of the proposed idea. We knew our client didn't exactly know how the final project would look, but based on our reputation he allowed us to do what we do best and the end result is a truly unique interior sign for his practice.