My good pal, business partner, and long time sign painter (Mr. John Mearns of Sign Source) was in town last weekend for the Lonestar Round Up car show. Despite the unseasonably cloudy and cold weather we had here in Austin, we decided to tackle my building with some brushes and 1 Shot.
Sign painting is something I have zero experience with, but John is a 30 year vet and came equipped with everything we needed to get the job done. A week prior, I sent him a photo of my building, dimensions of the corrugation, and a vector file of the letters I wanted painted. From that, he was able to calculate the shrink of the letters caused by the surface area of the corrugation and create a vinyl mask.
So, our first job was actually the toughest of the day – applying the vinyl mask to the building some 12′ up in the air while fighting a cold wind, legs that had walked the Round Up all weekend, and corrugation that made a smooth application damn near impossible. It took a few hours and a lot of patience, but after cutting the sign into two centered sides we were able to get it down and on the building. We did have a few wrinkles and a bubble or two (or 1000), but all was easily fixed with a little painter’s tape.
Once the mask was up, it was just a matter of mixing up some 1 Shot and brushing on the paint. Admittedly, we were freezing our asses off… But we had a ball anyway.
And the results? My brand spanking new building now has a little soul and feels as though it’s been here forever. In certain light, the white “drop shadow” disappears and in others it pops. I’ve been thinking about striping the white with a bright red pinstripe, but have decided to live with it for a while and see how it does.
In any case, please excuse the inconsistent photography. Many of these were taken with the iPhone.
It sure looks great, especially above those retro styled doors.
