http://youtu.be/SKYQymgSfbI I am often quoted as saying, "A business without a sign is a sign of no business", and this is so very true.  It never ceases to amaze me of how much impact good signage has on a business.  Case in point - Crossfit Vibe Gym in Costa Mesa.  The very day they installed their temporary banner, fitness enthusiasts started pulling into the parking lot.  The banner worked, and it worked really well.   But banners aren't, by their very design, meant to be permanent.  The Crossfit Vibe banner did its job for a good long while but eventually succumbed to our coastal winds, billowed like a sail, and blew off the building! The second issue with using banners is that permits are also temporary.  In the City of Costa Mesa businesses can have a banner raised for 6 months.  If you are caught using a banner for longer than that you may be subject to fines.  So, if you are a new business make a note, and the note reads something like this: “Call John at Focus Signs and Graphics at 657-346-2281 in six months’ time so she and her amazing staff can make me the most awesome sign on the entire planet” - it would be even better if you read it out loud in a voice from Bill and Teds’ Excellent Adventure like I did in my head when I just wrote this. When it was time for Tien and Jeff at Crossfit Vibe to get a sign, they came to us; which makes sense because we are about 35 yards away from them in the same business park and I would have had angina had I seen a sign installed next door to me that wasn’t made by my company…understandable, right? What they wanted was the largest, most durable sign they could get and at a reasonable price.  While it can’t be seen from space, they did get a humungous sign. Measuring in at over twelve and a half feet wide and six and a half feet high, using the word “humungous” is appropriate.  It is the heavy weight champion of dimensional letters, the veritable Mohamed Ali of Airway Avenue signage.  In fact it dwarfs my own sign, which in hind sight… We had a challenge in keeping this both affordable and durable.  Typically we would go with a 10 LB poly foam for a sign like this, but the problem when you use that dense of material to fabricate letters this big, you get really heavy letters.  This results in increased cost in installation as well, because the letters would need to be stud mounted to the wall – holes drilled into the masonry add to installation time and therefore cost. To avoid all of those issues we used a 2 LB poly Foam that was then sealed with stucco.  The foam kept the weight down and the seal would protect the sign against weather- not that we have “weather” in Coastal Orange County, but I’m just sayen’ we want our signs to be works of art that last!  To make the sign sparkle in the sun that we are so very fond of and the very reason we live here and some of us moved from Seattle for, we used back painted acrylic for the letter faces. Installation on a sign this size, particularly if there are shrubs or other obstacles in the way means using a bucket truck.  Some jobs you can use a scissor lift, like on a side walk with no impediments, but the big bucket was needed for this sign.  We decided to memorialize the event by setting up a camera and taking video.  Through the magic of windows media player and my own cunning, I have both sped up and edited the video to create a one minute moment of installation glory.  Click the link to behold a vision of glory to sign makers like us…or if you are just curious about what a humungous sign installation looks like. The big banner is now nothing more than a distant vinyl memory in the annals of Crossfit Vibe history, but it served its purpose well.  Banner out!  Humungous sign in!