By Peter Poanessa
Posted on Friday, August 1st, 2025
Of the wide variety of exterior sign choices one can make, one of my least favorite is the typical fabric covered awning. Don’t get me wrong—they have their place in the commercial landscape. They can greatly enhance the look of some buildings. But for me, the excitement of designing a new storefront is usually dashed when the customer says, “Well, we have this awning….”
We do work for clients all over the country, but in general I make my living in a small market in New England. Occasionally we get involved with an awning whether we want to or not. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, we have a great awning fabricator that we have worked with successfully in the past. But selling someone else’s products has never been much fun.
The worst of these situations is when someone is moving into an existing location and wants to either reuse or re-cover an existing frame. To remove the frame from the building, have a new cover made, recover the frame and then reinstall the frame costs almost as much as a new awning. It’s likely to cost more than a brand new sign designed just for their needs.
Add to this the fact that awning fabric starts to look pretty ratty when it starts to get dirty or worse yet starts to fray and rot (which it always does). Because of these issues, I started looking for a creative way out.
Existing awning, new sign
First thought: If we are forced to use the awning for the redo, can we still do a new sign? The answer is a resounding yes. The awning can simply provide the structure on which a new sign can be mounted. The framing is there to attach to, and in the case of an existing awning with a printed message, a sign can be made to cover the old message if designed right.
For these cases, we have also found that getting a close match to the color of the awning and simply painting over the old message is a good start. Then, depending on the shape of the awning, the new sign can be a flat panel, dimensional piece or even sculpture of a sort.
Most storefront awnings are either a waterfall or a traditional shed shape with or without a vertical valance. If there is a vertical section, the sign could be attached to it. But if it is a straight shed roof shape, we have been designing and building dimensional signs that stand off the awning in a vertical plane with bracketing that connects back to the awning frame for support.
This allows for some interesting configurations. When fastening through the fabric we have simply put a dab of silicone at the point the fastener has penetrated the fabric and haven’t seen any indication the fabric would fray, and the oldest of these is approaching a decade.
Shop-built custom awnings
Even more fun is to convert a simple awning request into a shop-built custom awning job. I love to build things and like to think outside the box. Some of possibilities include ordering or building a conventional awning frame then covering it with something other than fabric. Think metals, wood, acrylic—all of which have endless possible combinations.
Next, think about a shop-built awning with panels of copper-clad overlaid plywood frames. We have built a few of these, and they are extremely strong, weather durable and much more of an eye catcher than a standard awning.
For this type of work, we borrowed our construction method from the boat building trade. First we design the profile then cut out bulkheads or frames on the CNC router. When we design them, we include pre-spaced notches for stringers of inexpensive strapping or possibly overlaid plywood. These pieces are screwed together and set in epoxy.
This method builds a very strong and light frame that you can hang anything on. The advantage of this when using copper cladding is that there is no need to worry about galvanic corrosion as you would if you were to put copper over steel or aluminum.
Curve the tubing
Another great tweak on the awning theme is to think again about alternatives for the lowly awning. How about having awning tubing bent into a graceful curve then making a long gable style roof that could hold a sign or go over top of a sign? The roof cladding could be sheet aluminum and the face trim could be cedar.
This approach won the Curry Copy project for us. Big fans of curved shapes, we used 20-ft.-long galvanized awning tubing for the letter mounting on the Markem Imaje sign. This job was awarded to us after much scrutiny when the company was bought out by a French firm, and they wanted a new look for the corporate headquarters. The next time you get the call that includes a run-of-the-mill awning, sit back and let your imagination run wild. Like everything in the small custom shop, our days are as interesting as we choose to make them. Have fun.
Peter Poanessa’s shop, Keene Signworx, is in Swanzey, New Hampshire.
This article appeared in the March/April 2014 issue of SignCraft.
