Boxford Resources System

Sign making is something that every business needs, these days as more and more information is expected in the store themed applications are perceived to impart more information due to their visual content.

This whole website has been designed around a colour scheme with colour denoted patches. It is amazing how removing the need to read makes a signage system far more acceptable.

Classic signs always hold their place for certain products as they impart a sense of wholesomeness.

At keystage 3 I would have the pupils look at a signage system for the school. Giving each subject it's own colour and then colouring the door signs accordingly, you could also create a map of the school with colour patches.

At keystage 4 I would review keystage 3 and then add a design and make project for a local company.

At keystage AS I would review signage and then add in the difficulties of signage for handicaps like blindness. When I was seventeen I was involved with a signage system called tactile mapping, it never became compulsory but the idea was that by a doorway would be a map on the wall which using textures described the building to a blind person. From you are here to where are fire exists, toilets etc. Blind people have exceptional special qualities and these maps were if experimental a great success as always manufacture was prohibitive. These days with CAD / CAM it may serve a revisit.

Master Sign Writer

Classic Sign Making

Pin Striping

Laser cutters are more prevalent in schools than ever before and can be used to make signs in a number of ways, the engraving that takes place is very subtle and although the effect is very good i wondered if a heavier effect might be possible.

In the past i have engraved on the back of the acrylic sheet and rubbed paint into the rough surface with mixed success the thickness of paint was not always opaque.

Cutting letters out on a Stika cutter works well but is a second expenditure that my method eradicates.

Most acrylic comes with a protective plastic sheet, it struck me that this could be used as a template. Using a power setting of 50% and speed of 100 on our 40watt Gravograph machine in vector mode. The lettering could be cut out of the sheet if it was not removed before placing it in the laser bed.

WARNING check the composition of the plastic coating on your sheets before cutting, some plastics will give off corrosive and poisonous gases that could be harmful to you and the machine.

The letters could then be picked out leaving the acrylic exposed.

Letters

The exposed acrylic can then be sprayed using a paint that would not attack the acrylic. Plasticote seems to work well.

Spray

The finally the backing and the over spray can be pealed off and the sign hung.

I used fishing monofile with two tiny saw cuts in the acrylic to catch the wire.