Dave Mancia’s Sears Watch and Jewelry Repair Service on the third floor of the Sears store in the Los Altos neighborhood of Long Beach needed improvements and updates to both exterior and interior signage. Dave approached Exemplar Signs a & Graphics and we are partnering with him to improve his signage over time with an eye to helping him manage his cash flow. The Long Beach Sears building has two main entrances but only one entrance had a sign, a lone A-frame sign display. The first step was to clean the existing direct-print coroplast sign panel and insert in correctly into the A-frame to deter further abrasion to the sign panel incurred through daily handling. The next step was to build a second A-frame display for the other Sears main entrance. Dave had lost track of the artwork for his existing sign panel, so we re-created the entire design from scratch. Dave wanted to highlight his custom jewelry design and fabrication so we added that to his sign panel.  Dave also wanted this new display to have sign panels in both sides. Dave’s existing A-frame display can accommodate a sign panel on each side but only had one panel installed. We noticed that the colors of the existing panel were fading and dull due to sun, weather exposure and time-related oxidation. To enable our new sign for Dave to hold up better, we printed his new sign on high quality vinyl for sharp graphics and highly saturated UV resistant colors that pop, and then we laminated the vinyl to add resistance to surface abrasion, and oxidation. A week later, Dave was ready for a panel on the other side of the new A-frame display, which was made in a similar manner for a long life in harsh conditions. Here are images of Dave with his new A-frame and panels. Following that we replaced an interior sign that was mounted on a counter door in his third-floor studio. That sign was laminated vinyl on foamcore and the problem with that sign was that due to the soft foam center of the sign, customers and their children had inadvertently picked at the corners of the foamcore resulting in lifting the laminate from the vinyl. This sign looked particularly bad because not only were the corners dog-eared but the colors had faded and yellowed over time. We delivered a better solution for this door mounted sign. Instead of foamcore, we mounted the laminated vinyl on 3mm PVC. The thinner, denser substrate is less inviting to idle fingers. Additionally, when we applied the vinyl and laminate with both pressure and heat to ensure a better and longer lasting bond to the PVC substrate. The next phase of Dave’s signage refresh is currently in flight. Dave’s studio walls are paneled with slat-track paneling. We proposed a gallery of  images of Dave’s custom jewelry on PVC panels mounted to the wall with French cleats. The French cleats enable Dave to easily swap out jewelry images for seasonal campaigns or simply to show of new designs. We built the French cleats with PVC cut on a 45° angle on a table saw. As a reminder, here is a drawing of a French cleat mounting, a good way to deliver a sturdy, flexible, and inexpensive mounting system. Here is an image of a few of Dave’s custom ring designs mounted on 5”x7” PVC panels.