Design

Best Electric Building Signs of 2010

Winners from the 2010 International Sign Contest’s Electric Building Signs Category

Published

14 years ago

March 25, 2010

Steve Aust Signs of the Times April 2010 Issue

FIRST PLACE

Fabricator
Jeff Battista
Tube Art
Seattle
(206) 264-2955
www.tubeart.com

Designers
Jan Lorenc
Stewart Sonderman
Hartmut Jordan
Lorenc+Yoo Design
Roswell, GA
(770) 645-2828
www.lorencyoodesign.com

Client
Northern Quest
Casino & Resort

Washington State’s Kalispel Native American tribe invested $87.6 million in a 346,000-sq.-ft. expansion of the Northern Quest Casino & Resort. Although much of that investment bolstered the facility’s gaming and lodging capacity, this bar’s sleek signage affirms the client’s goal of sophisticated environmental graphics. The 4.5 x 6-ft. sign, which protrudes from the bar’s exterior façade, comprises Altuglas Plexiglas® acrylic faces coated with 3M diffuser film and SloanLED blue modules.

SECOND PLACE

Fabricator

Mark Frank
Superior Electrical Advertising
Long Beach, CA
(562) 495-3808
www.superiorsigns.com

Designer
Arthur Desharnais
Superior Electrical Advertising

Client
Bice Bistro
This sign, which Desharnais designed and digitally rendered using CorelDRAW 12, artfully identifies an upscale Glendale, AZ eatery. The 7-ft.-diameter, aluminum cabinet bears a digitally printed gradient produced on a Mimaki JV-3 solvent-ink printer with 3M Scotchprint vinyl. The stylized ‘bb” logo attached to the cabinet’s face entails reverse-halo channel letters lit with white LEDs. The face-lit Bice Bistro channel letters, which incorporate white Chemcast acrylic faces overlaid with blue 3M vinyl, are lit with blue LEDs. The letters contain individual, silhouetted panels that follow the sign’s contours. The suspended aluminum cabinets feature letters produced with Superior’s MultiCam 3000 CNC router, backed with white acrylic. They shine brightly thanks to white LEDs.

THIRD PLACE

Fabricator

CREO Industrial Arts
Everett, WA
(425) 374-5903
www.creo-ia.com

Designer
Eric Levine
NBBJ Architects
Seattle
(206) 223-5555
www.nbbj.com

Client
5th Avenue Theater

The client wanted this 60-ft.-tall, vertical marquee to be energy efficient, yet impart a throwback quality for the venue, which was built during the 1920s. The sign’s illuminated areas include the patterned face; perimeter coves; halo-lit, primary copy; and top and bottom cabinets with push-through copy. To illuminate the sign, Creo used more than 2,000, white and red Allanson Storm Tight LED modules. To simulate incandescent chasing and scintillating lamps, but to save energy, the shop installed an additional 2,000 low-voltage, exposed LED lamps. The rotating numeral 5’s lighting entails SloanLED’s FlexiBrite red-LED, tube-rope lighting. The sign’s body comprises 0.125-in. aluminum, which Creo coated with Matthews acrylic-polyurethane paint and installed in three sections.

HONORABLE MENTION

Fabricator
Green Sign Co.
Greensburg, IN
(812) 663-2550
www.greensignco.com

Designers
Mike Harvey
Shawn Green
Green Sign Co.

Client
4th St. Bar and Grill

Selling Price
$13,880

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