'Entrance sign' to Oil Droppers.

As most of my regular readers will know, my best mate Stuart has started up a workshop servicing and carrying out restoration work on air-cooled VW's. And you will also be aware that I recently made two signs for the workshop which I'm pleased to say Stuart liked and they are now proudly displayed on the side of the workshop and on the office door. If you did miss this blog entry, check out the 'my blog archive' menu on the left of this page and look for the 'signwriting for the Oil Droppers garage' entry from October. Anyway now the winter is here and it's dark by the time I get home from the day job and as I also live alone, the evenings seem to drag on during the winter months so I decided to make yet another sign for the Oil Droppers workshop. I don't tell Stuart I'm making these signs, and Stuart doesn't really ask me to make them I just do them primarily to keep me occupied in the evenings and when they are finished I offer them to him because they have his company name and logo on, and they are no use to me. I always say to him before I show him the finished sign that if he doesn't like it then he doesn't have to use it, he could always use it for firewood, having said that I've been very lucky so far as Stuart has liked the previous two signs, I just hope the same applies to this sign. You can visit the Oil Droppers face book page here: https://www.facebook.com/#!/oildroppers

I had the idea for a sign after Stuart just
happen to mention that he wasn't sure that
new customers knew where to go to get to
his workshop, so I searched my shed and
found some 4mm ply that used to be behind
the bulkhead in my bay. It was too big for an
entrance sign so I had to cut it to a reasonable 
size and square it all up using the straight
edge and tape measure.

Although I hadn't really decided what I was
actually going to write on the board at this
stage, or what font size or font style I was
going to use, the board size looked just
about 'right'. So the next step, after sanding
the whole thing down is to give the board 2
coats of a base colour. I like white because it
really makes the wording stand out and makes
the sign more vibrant.

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry on
the Oil Droppers sign, I am old skool when it
comes to sign writing and therefore mark out
1" squares in pencil to help me position the
wording centrally. Once all the painting has
been done I simply use an eraser to remove
the remaining grid lines.

OK onto the wording, this sign is intended to
show old and new customers where the office
and workshop are. I decided to use the same
font as I had used on the 'Office' door sign
that I recently made for Stuart just to keep all
the signs uniform and looking the same.

Not sure if you can see but I have now drawn
all the wording onto the sign.

Time to start getting some colour onto the
board. As I was using the same style font on
this sign as my previous sign I decided to keep
the colour scheme the same, this way the
customers sub-conscience will see all the
signs that are the same style / colours, very
much like the way mandatory or prohibition
signs are always the same colour.

The black I was using seemed a bit washy and
opaque and wasn't covering the bright white
background very well, and after it was dry it
still didn't look much better. It would have been
fine had I been going for the aged look, so I
had to give all the black wording 2 coats,
which was very time consuming, still I did
say the evenings dragged on, so at least I had
something to do in the evenings.!

After the black was dry and I was happy with
the coverage, the next step was to get the trade
mark 'Oil Droppers' red paint out and start
on the logo. The sign looks OK at this stage
but it needs something extra, a bit more
pazazz.!

The finished sign complete with a border and
the word 'Entrance' underlined. Not sure if
you can see but I also added a thin black out-
line to the Oil Droppers' just to help the letters
stand out and to tidy up the edges. The whole
sign has also had 2 coats of exterior varnish.
So that is another sign completed for the Oil
Droppers garage, I just hope Stuart likes it.
I have one more idea for a 'fun' sign for the
workshop which I will do in due course, so
keep an eye out for that blog entry coming
soon.