ImageFirst News

Designers and fabricators aren’t always on the same page especially if they’re not under the same roof. The worst feeling is thinking your sign is being installed in 3 weeks only to find out there’s an issue with the design once it goes to production.

Design­ers are tasked with inter­pret­ing con­cep­tu­al designs and brand stan­dards and putting a cre­ative spin on how logos, col­ors, and fonts work with­in a com­plete archi­tec­tur­al sig­nage pack­age. The Image­First design­ers are also cross-trained on pro­duc­tion meth­ods in the man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty, pitch­ing in with the pro­duc­tion team when need­ed. While this helps us be effi­cient, it also ensures that our design­ers know how things are built effi­cient­ly and effec­tive­ly.  Our man­u­fac­tur­ing team ensures that they can bring that vision to life. 

This col­lab­o­ra­tion and cross-train­ing allow our team to tack­le engi­neer­ing, wind load, the best way to add illu­mi­na­tion, and how to choose or val­ue engi­neer mate­ri­als for design.  It is pos­si­ble because both the design and man­u­fac­tur­ing is done in Grin­nell, IA then trucked or shipped to install loca­tions across the country. 

Most prob­lems can be solved before the job even hits pro­duc­tion with the right heads around the table. Our process allows us to make sug­ges­tions, across spe­cial­ties, about com­pli­ca­tions we have run into on past projects that may be help­ful on the cur­rent project. Then take those con­cerns with solu­tion options to the team or the client.

For exam­ple, a mas­sive elec­tric gui­tar sign was recent­ly com­plet­ed for a client. The body of the gui­tar was 22-feet long. It was built in Grin­nell and deliv­ered in one piece and hung over a tem­po­rary stage. Design­ers and pro­duc­tion col­lab­o­rat­ed to make the sign with flex­i­ble LED lights that cre­at­ed the look of neon at a much more afford­able price. They also had to engi­neer the sign to fit secure­ly onto a tem­po­rary out­door stage and then eas­i­ly tak­en down and stored after the event. 

Anoth­er recent project used our faux corten steel mate­r­i­al that uses a chem­i­cal reac­tion to cre­ate the look of rust­ed met­al. This sug­ges­tion reduced costs allow­ing illu­mi­na­tion in the sign. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty was a val­ue to the client and solar-pow­ered lights were pur­sued. A place in the sign’s stone base was cre­at­ed to house the solar bat­tery and added an access pan­el that can be removed for main­te­nance. The pan­el was placed a small dis­tance away for both sun expo­sure and visu­al effect that the sign was solar powered.

“What’s great about the process, is that a client could lit­er­al­ly come to us with a sketch on a nap­kin, and we could make it happen,”

says Mike McK­eag, Pres­i­dent and COO. ​“Our design­ers know how to val­ue engi­neer the design to cre­ate the desired look, and they bounce ideas off the man­u­fac­tur­ing team to make sure every engi­neer­ing con­sid­er­a­tion regard­ing weight, weath­er, and wind load is tak­en into account.”