When Davian’s Catering contacted us looking for help on designing the menu boards that they use for the summer months they had three requests. The first was that the material was very light weight. The second was that it had to be durable. And third, we have a budget that we had to stay within as they needed quite a few of these. Time to design a solution.
We started by looking at the way that Davian’s used the boards. They set them up at the events that they cater throughout the summer. Most of the times the boards are set up in a hurry and taken down with equal haste. We looked at aluminum but it was too heavy for the crew to set up and it had very sharp edges which would be a safety issue. Foamcor was out because the menus had to be able to handle a little abuse. The logical choice was Sintra, a 4mm thick PVC that weights almost nothing and is extremely durable. Sintra also adds a nice amount of rigidity and is completely weatherproof. So now we had our substrate and our design, what else needed to be decided on? This is a menu that is displayed quite often outside in the elements, so we needed to laminate the sign. Even with the new format HP 360 Latex printer, and the new inks that profess to be weather resistant, lamination is the right addition. We use 3M optically clear 8508 intermediate laminate which will provide a layer of protection between the ink and any weather. These signs will look great for a very long time. Most likely longer than they are needed to last.
Just as we were preparing to print the design we noticed that the sign distorted when we set it to the normal 24″ x 36″ poster board size. When the designer created this board, they set the aspect ratio at 24″ x 30.5″. There is no way to change this without distorting the images or adding a boarder to the design which would have destroyed the artist appeal of this menu. We decided to stop and talk to our customer to see what he wanted to do. He was very happy that we didn’t just produce the boards and we changed the size down to 30.5″ to maintain the aspect ratio. And as you can see, the boards look great.
This is what is possible when you work with Optimum Signs. We not only can produce your designs, we take the time to ensure that the design and the sign work together. If you need custom menu boards, or just someone to work with you on the designs you have, call Optimum Signs at 262.289.9481 or email at info@optimumsignswi.com.
