It’s that time of week again, folks: the time where we talk about some of the cool projects we’ve been doing and the cool people we’ve been working with. This week’s project is the donor board at the Historic Franklin Theatre! The Franklin Theatre (yes, they do spell “theatre” that way, I’m not just getting fancy on you) was reopened and revamped in 2011 after having been in somewhat disrepair for many years. Located right on what has been voted “America’s Favorite Mainstreet,” (go Franklin!) the theatre has been restored to its former glories of the golden age of Hollywood—including a huge art deco marquee.

Picture of the marquee through the window. We love the style of their signage!

The theatre is wholly a community institution and, although they regularly get business as a movie, concert, live theater, and event venue, they are a non-profit organization. This means that it takes a lot of donors and a lot of committees to keep it going! One of the ways the theatre shows its appreciation for these donors is by displaying their names on large glass panes in the theatre lobby. Previously, they had all of the donor’s names printed on one large piece of clear vinyl that went over each pane.

So, all of these names were printed on one big sheet and applied at once. It makes initial installation easier, but if anything needs to be changed you have to replace the whole thing, which can get expensive.

They approached us because they needed new pieces of vinyl because some of the text needed to be updated. We suggested that instead of getting a whole new sheet every time just one or two names needed to be added or taken off, they could have us cut each letter out of vinyl. That way, if they needed to change something again they could easily remove or add the acrylic letters. It's one of those projects that initially takes a little more work but saves lots of eventual work in the long run. Considering that the last donor boards were made in 2011 and they are already being updated in 2013, it seems likely that they will need to be updated again in the next few years. It makes sense to make these continual changes as cost-effective and simple to install as possible. 

When cutting pieces out of vinyl you can either do it by hand (which would take FOREVER and be extremely difficult to do well) or you can do what we did and run the vinyl through a plotter. The plotter is a machine that allows us to turn the text into vector files—basically it reads the outlines of the letters as shapes instead of as characters—and is smart enough to take that computer file and cut out the shapes you need cut out. Brilliant! We just had to line up the vinyl on the plotter correctly and choose the correct setting for the type of vinyl. We used cast vinyl so it was placed on the first setting. Fun fact: cast vinyl begins as a liquid that is poured on the transfer sheet and baked, whereas calendar vinyl begins life as a sort of rubbery lump that is then rolled onto a transfer sheet. This means that cast vinyl is a little higher quality, thinner, and glossier. Perfect for going on glass! 

Our trusty plotter. We line the vinyl up to the white tick marks on the front of the machine.

After the vinyl goes through the machine and the outline of the letters are cut out, we have to do a process called "weeding." Weeding vinyl is exactly like weeding your garden: you just take out all of the stuff you don't want! After weeding we had an empty sheet with just the letters on it so it was simple to stick them to the glass panes. We placed the letters behind the glass to prevent vandalism or damage that might be easy if it were placed on the outside of the glass. It also makes the lettering on the glass pane look seamless. 

Ta da! The finished product. Sorry my camera on my phone takes blurry pictures in low lighting, but it the boards look great in real life :)

And voila! The boards look exactly the same as they did before (which is what they wanted) but now it will be easier for them to update the text in the future.

Looking to get recognition signs like these or other lobby signs for your company? Let us know about it because we'd love to help! Contact the experts at 12-Point SignWorks and get a free estimate on your project.