Not straight or narrow

As the last details are added to the front of the house it was time to start getting serious about the first stages of the landscaping. The final grades were first established and then we dug in the planter areas. No straight lines were allowed.

Once the edges were defined we carefully placed the bark mulch. It sure cleaned things up in a hurry! The giant trees looked like they had been growing there for centuries.

The concrete for the sidewalks, patio and carport areas and paved driveway will wait until spring to allow everything to properly settle. While we may put in a few of the major shrubs in the next weeks, much of the planting will wait until spring as well. In the meantime the weeds are gone and things look a whole lot neater.

It's looking less and less like a construction zone all the time and it sure feels good!

-grampa dan

One more sign required.

Imagine a sign that is so effective we have to keep our gates locked to stop people from coming onto the yard. We managed to build such a sign. Most people who see it don't realize it is part of our marketing strategy. Who would think it would have been so easy and so effective.

When we bought our property we built our shop at the rear, about three hundred and fifty feet from the road. This building doesn't look like any other shop. Constructed of state of the art, reinforced concrete inside foam blocks the shop building is designed to be efficient and soundproof. It silently screams of what we do from the oversized timbers, the giant metal, magical doors, to the giant dragon that 'flies' above the big planter out front. The shop building is very effective as a sign but it is only a small part of our 'sign' system.

The 'official' sign out by the road is relatively small as dictated by local bylaws. It features a fully dimensional ship sailing through a crescent moon. While it is a very cooll piece, most people don't even see or read this sign.

The thing that literally stops traffic on the road in front of our place of business is actually our house. It is the landmark that people remember. It is carefully and purposely designed to showcase everything we do and it speaks volumes.

If the gates aren't shut and locked it isn't uncommon to find people wandering our property, cameras in hand. Most are 'just looking', drawn in by the architecture out front and what they can glimpse from the road. Too often these people wander right into the shop if it's unlocked and even into the house on occasion.

While most are harmless I'm sure, each visitor takes a few minutes or more of our time with the endless questions.

We need to design and build one more sign for the front of our place. It will state that an appointment is needed to enter our gates. Hopefully this sign will work as well as the others. :)

-grampa dan

Definition of a sign

As the workshops approach I am begining to review my notes and think about the things I am going to teach. Much of what I say hinges around my definition of a sign.

A sign in my book is much more than a flat board with letters stuck on it. Anybody can make that kind of sign and in fact most signs in our world are exactly that. To stand out we have to be much more creative. A sign can be anything that draws attention to our customer's product, service or business. The more creative it is the more effective it can be. It should be a landmark. It should be so cool that everyone want to stand next to it, have their picture taken and then post it to the world wide web. The signs we make should SHOUT - LOOK AT ME -TAKE NOTICE!

You can bet these kinds of signs are challenging. But dreaming them up and building them is WAY more fun than building 'normal' signs. These kinds of signs don't even need words.

Here's a few notable ones we've built in the past...

There's been a lot of others just as imaginative as well.  In my talks with those who come to our studio to take our workshop this is my goal - to shake up their way of thinking so they too can have as much fun as I in dreaming up and creating the most imaginative signs possible.

-grampa dan