Cleaning house

They say if you want a clean house then you should just invite company over. It's true.

With eighteen guests coming from across Canada and the United States for four days next week for our Sign Magic Workshop you can bet we have started a deep clean of our shop. We know from experience they will be poking into every corner of the shop with their cameras handy. We encourage it. It's the very best way to learn and we hide no secrets.

Preparations are in high gear now in our shop. The dirty work is almost done and a deep clean is now in progress. We've been slammed lately, and the inevitable clutter and dust has been accumulating in areas less travelled. But in between working on the projects we will be featuring at the Sign Magic Workshop we've been sorting, stacking, sweeping, dusting, and organizing. By the time our guests arrive next week we'll be ready. 

-grampa dan

MOOOO... VE !

With the upcoming Sign Magic Workshop now only a week away it's time to get MOOOO... VIN.  We'll need every square inch of shop room. The large Meat Market sign is getting the final strokes of paint.  He'll be moved outside onto the porch to greet our guests as they arrive.

Our client isn't coming for him for another couple of weeks. I'll bet he gets lots of attention from the passers by in the meantime.  :)

-grampa dan

Build it and they will come!

Last year I challenged all of my sign making friends around the world to create just one sample sign for their shop display. The piece they were to create would be something that stretched their abilities. It was to the type of sign they would make if they could do exactly what they wanted, with no budget restraints. The sample sign could be small but had to be detailed and out there. I challenged them to pull out all the stops.

My theory was the sample signs my friends and I created would be both challenging and fun. They would stretch our abilities and give us a sample in our shop that would hopefully sell similar work in the future. For myself I upped the ante. I would do one sample sign each month. And I managed to do eleven and a half signs lasy year.

We are now two and a half months into 2011 and the results of my efforts last year are already evident. A number of my Sign CHALLENGE 2010 projects have garnered six national and international awards. The publicity and exposure surrounding these awards simply couldn’t be bought. One prize was an all expense trip to Las Vegas. More important than that were the extra skills we learned through our experience. And the twelve sample signs we created are working hard to sell new projects of similar scope.

Those twelve samples have undoubtably helped change the direction of our business. They have added tremendous momentum to our business, even in the short time since they were done. Imagine how it will be when the economy roars again!

Last week we signed up the latest of these cool projects that came as a result of these samples. More than ever I believe that if we build it they WILL come!

-grampa dan