St. George Plantation: Less is more

Mr. Billboard, you've been downsized

We were recently included in the entry redesign at St. George Plantation. It includes a new fence with massive pedestals and landscaping. The redesign also featured a new scaled down dimensional sign. We had provided the original entry sign at least a decade back.

The replacement is placed much closer to the actual entrance than the original and simply did not require it's massive size.

 As a matter of interest the original St. Geo. Plantation sign remains the largest sign (20 ft x 5.5 ft) built in my career, It was one of the largest sandblasted signs in North Florida and designed by Cade and Associates Advertising.

The home-owner's design committee sought an elegant look. A clean, non-rustic design approach was the direction we followed. In this layout I relied upon clean lines, subtle manipulation of contrast and generous negative space to direct the viewers eye to the graphic center.  Font selection was also in the forefront of my mind while designing.  Chuck Davis, founder of letterheadfonts.com created LHF Stanford Script. 

Some procedures:

There are many ways to build a sign. Selecting the right tools is very important. On this project I successfully straddled the fence dividing traditional carving and modern computerized routing.

The basic, 1/2 inch thick HDU elements were first cut out on a small computerized

machine called The CarveWright.

The top edges of the script lettering were removed with carving tools.

Here I was clearing away the corners created by the router's bit.

The chiseling was followed with sandpaper bonded to 

a tongue depressor.  As you can see the upper characters have a smooth rounded face.

After the characters were primed and painted polyurethane construction adhesive was spread on the backs. The lettering and osprey graphic were affixed

a top their embossed counterparts on the 2 inch thick sandblasted panel shown below.

Slight texturing and levels of dimension can add variety within a design.

This variation within a layout holds our attention and gives the positive impression that a lot more is going on even though the composition is quite simple.

The back of the sign would be in view. The pressure treated 4x4 posts

were wrapped with white .04 gauge sheet aluminum.

P/T while durable in the elements does tend to crack and warp eventually.

This aluminum treatment is a eye pleasing solution for exposed structural framing.