When I started working for Office Sign Company, there was a trend that I picked up on pretty early. Sitting close to the customer service area, I had the privilege of listening to many of their conversations with customers on the phone. If any of you service reps are reading this blog, I’m sorry – I’m not that much of a creep. In actuality, it was extremely informative listening in on the conversations that customer service had, for a multitude of reasons: (a) I learned a little bit more about what kinds of questions our customers ask – which certainly has turned me into a better marketer for this company, (b) I got to know more about the ins and outs of the products that we were offering, and (c) I learned something very unique about our company – we don’t say NO to a project.
Any customer that has taken the time to research our website, send us an email, or call our customer service line, we feel like we owe a YES to. Thus, at the end of every calendar year, our highest selling item is “Custom Signs.” Why? Because every company is unique and their needs are, too. Although we do offer free personalization on all of our office signs and sign solutions online, we also understand that our customers are a creative group who may like to have unique and custom signs for their office, too. For this reason, we do everything in our power to equip our team with both the production and service capabilities to make custom sign solutions for our clientele.
Today, I am going to go through an example of this with a job that we did for Fargo Monthly Magazine, and their 2016 “Flavor Awards.”
(pictured: some of the custom signs that were produced by Office Sign Company for the Flavor Awards)
I was approached by Andrew Jason from Spotlight Media, the overarching production company that creates Fargo Monthly Magazine, about these awards approximately a month before the awards were distributed. I learned that these awards were intended to be distributed to restaurants and bars around the area that were some local favorites. The awards celebrated everything from “Best Beer” to “Best Sushi Roll.” Knowing that I would likely be eating at several of these establishments over the next year, I wanted our team to do a tremendous job on these awards so that diners and breweries alike would feel proud to hang these awards on their walls.
After our meeting, Andrew sent me over some high resolution images of the dishes that he wanted to display on his awards. I sent Andrew a few different products to begin with, so he could get an idea of some of our standard products. These included our Clear Acrylic Standing Award, our Black Piano Wood Base Award and our Wood Plaque with Full Color Prints. From here, Andrew was able to find certain components from each award that he liked.
Andrew liked the fact the substrate/material for the clear acrylic award, was fascinated by the full color prints on the wood plaques, and enjoyed the prestige of the black piano award. From here, I was able to meet with our talented team of designers and fabricators to come up with a custom solution: a Reverse Printed & Laser Engraved Clear Acrylic Award w/ Standoffs. Let me break that down for those of you scratching your heads…
This custom sign solution includes three main components that make it unique and beautiful:
- Reverse Printed: in layman’s terms, this simply means that we digitally printed the image you see above (the Best Cocktail graphic, and the solid black bar to the left of it) on the back side of an 1/8″ clear acrylic panel. Pretty simple right? The joys of printed on the back side of clear acrylic are (a) it makes the front side much easier to clean, in the event of fingerprints and lipstick marks getting on your signs – seriously, people may kiss your signs if they’re that pretty – and (b) it adds a little bit of dimension to the graphic, which is certain to catch visitors’ eyes.
- Laser Engraved: not only did we laser engrave the outside edges of these awards (for a sharpened look), but we also laser engraved the “Fargo Monthly Flavor Awards / HODO LOUNGE / CUCULAR CALI” and the Flavor Awards logo on the front sides of these awards. This, meshed with the reverse print on the back of the awards, creates a pretty stunning, sophisticated aesthetic for these awards.
- Polished Silver Standoffs: as a mounting method, we thought there was no better option that our polished silver standoffs for these awards. The polished silver has a fantastic look to it, as well as the fact that the standoffs add extra dimension to these awards when mounted to the wall (“standing off” the wall about 3/4 of an inch). I like to tell customers that the mounting method they select is essentially the cherry on top. An expired cherry can ruin your ice cream, and a delicious cherry simply makes the rest of the bowl that much better. Okay, maybe that analogy is a bit of a reach.
When we handed these completed awards over to Andrew, he was impressed (as were the restaurants who received them!). Now, its a personal joy of mine to head over to one of the various eateries in town and enjoy a meal. I’m sure my girlfriend is sick of me spending the whole time staring at the signs on the wall, though…
If you ever are interested in a sign, award, or any other product that you don’t see on our website, please give us a try. Like I said, we don’t say ‘no’ to a project, and our happy to put our design and fabrication skills to the test to build you the perfect custom sign solution for your office. To learn more, please contact service@officesigncompany.com or call us at 701-526-3835. If you’re in the Fargo-Moorhead area (or if you’d like to make a trip!), come chat with us in person at 310 NP Ave N, Fargo, ND 58102. Can’t wait to get working on a custom solution for you!
Written by: Jack Yakowicz
jack@officesigncompany.com
www.officesigncompany.com
