Metal sculpture graphics are easy—and look great!

By signcraft

Posted on Monday, January 13th, 2025

Many signs simply give the business name or their service to viewers. They provide the necessary identification. But a sign that uses creative effective design does much more than just identify. First it is appealing to look at. It draws the viewer’s eye and changes them from a viewer to a reader—and often into a customer. It delivers much more value.

Along with the fundamentals of good sign design, a creative sign maker has plenty of tools to create that extra appeal. On this sign, Peter Poanessa, Keene Signworx, Keene, New Hampshire, used shape, dimension and a gilded graphic/sculpture to make the sign a pleasure to see and inviting to read—even if you aren’t necessarily looking for a bridal shop.

“This dimensional sign project,” says Peter, “was at a location that I am very familiar with: 84 Main Street. It’s the location of a new bridal business and was also the headquarters for our Walldog mural event back in 2019.

“It’s a two-sided sign that projects from the building on a shop-made custom bracket. The owner wanted white and gold, which is usually not a good color combination for legibility. We found a way, though, to give her what she wanted but still have a sign that reads well by adding a little gold sculpture.”

Here’s how he fabricated it, step-by-step, with his comments on the process:

“The two 42-in. round sign faces were cut from 18-pound 1-in. SignFoam HDU board on the CNC router,” says Peter. “We used a new mounting method for this one and it worked out great. The incised lettering was routed in the face, then mounting brackets were added to the back so that no fasteners would have to go through the sign faces. We routed horizontal pockets in the back of the HDU panels then secured pieces of aluminum angle to them, using screws and Lord Adhesives’ 40619.”

“The aluminum angle would be fastened to tubular steel members of the projecting frame.”

“We welded up the steel frame in the shop and painted it. The sign projects roughly 48-in. overall from the storefront.”

“The vine and leaves graphic were waterjet cut .100-in. steel. I sent the design file to a local metal shop to do the cutting. I planned to bend the leaves so I had him cut me a few samples first to play with. Bending turned out to be very easy.”

“Using two pairs of Vice-Grips, I twisted the leaves and shaped the graphic into a natural organic shape.”

“We could have left them flat, but bending the leaves made it a lot more interesting.”

“We welded 2-in. threaded mounting studs to the back of the steel and used spacers so that they could float above the background and give a nice soft shadow.”

“We positioned the steel graphics on the panels and marked the location of the holes that would be drilled to accommodate the stand-offs. The panels were prefinished with water-based acrylic enamel and masked before the lettering was routed. We went on to drill the holes and paint the carved lettering black.”

“I sent the graphics out to be powder coated, then we finished them with 23k gold leaf. The graphic is stud mounted to float above the background.”