My favorite signs

I love signs of all kinds. It seems my passion for signs rubs off on those around me. My grand daughter Phoebe loves signs too. She often comments on signs we see when we drive together and loves helping me make them in the shop too. Lately she has taken on the project of creating a way finding sign system around our house. Hand made signs are appearing on every door and many other places too. Many mark the room's purpose or show what is beyond the door. Other signs tell of how to work certain things - like door knobs. Some signs have words on them, but only a few as necessary. Most tell the story visually - the kind of signs I favor personally.

I realize I may be a teeny bit biased but these are some of my very favoritest signs I have seen.

-grampa dan

From flat to real

A number of years ago I got the wonderful opportunity to visit Disney's Imagineering in California. There were more than a thousand folks there who dreamed up ideas and then built the most imaginative projects on earth. I was surprised when my host and tour guide (a vice president) offered me a job - any desk I wanted. Although working there would certainly be a dream job I turned down the oportunity in a flash. The problem was I would be required to work at a desk doing one thing. I already had an even better job.

I get to dream up the ideas, draw the concept plans, sell the job and then put on a hardhat and start in on the real work. I get to weld, pound nails, create complex artwork for our CNC router, assemble the most marvelous things and then apply the paint to finish things off. I get to do it with a small creative team. We do it all in relatively short time frames compared to what larger companies are able to do.

It was back in June I did the first concept art for the Fox & Hounds Pub. Some of the drawings portrayed the fireplace and the area around it. I was excited about the chance to theme a fireplace. It turned out this project would offer the opportunity to do not one but two instead. 

Today we put the final touches to the main part of the fireplace in the pub. A large, upright timber still needs to be fabricated on the left side. This will be done after we open the new bar next week, freeing up the space where the temporary bar now resides. The fireplace was designed to showcase a piece of dimensional art above the heavy mantle. We later inserted the family crest as this piece of art. Colors are muted and aged to 'authentically' help tell the story we are showcasing in the pub. Focused lighting is designed to show the fireplace, the dimensional art and the London roofline above to its best advantage.

At the end of the work day we stopped as we left and paused to look and enjoy the piece we had created. There were a few changes of scale and the hearth was now made of brick but it was still very much like the whimsical drawing I had drawn back in June. It made me smile a big old smile! 

-grampa dan

The more twists the better!

I have no problem designing cool looking projects but the thing about all that detail I love to design is that it takes time - often lots of it. With each job we do our best to up the ante. It wouldn't do to simply do what we did yesterday. 

For the archway between the entry and the pub we decided a knarly and twisted grape vine would be just the ticket. It would look cool and also do double duty as it held up a monitor needed by the serving staff. Bending and welding up the armature was fun. But all those twists and bends would prove to be a challenge as we proceeded. The first challenge was for the electician to thread the welded steel structure with a flexible conduit big enough to fit a monitor cable through it - no easy task. He has almost forgiven me. Then we had to apply the mesh over which the sculpting epoxy would be applied. It proved to be one of the toughest projects we have done. But it did look cool. And that without the sculpted bark we would next apply. 

It's only going to get cooler from here on in. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan