July 17, 2020

Can’t be done? Nobody likes to hear those words and some see them as a challenge to overcome. Signs Express (Newcastle) locked horns with a very complex vector creation task and delivered some stunning graphics to its customer…

There’s nothing quite like word-of-mouth when it comes to generating business and one of Signs Express Newcastle’s current customers had no hesitation in recommending the company to an incoming tenant in the same building who wanted to put her new tattoo studio, Mercury Ink, on the map.

The artist had previously sought the help of a couple of other companies who, when confronted with the design idea defining the sign she wanted, had said it was a bit too clever or complex for its own good and that ‘it couldn’t be done’ without extensive simplification.

The team at Signs Express Newcastle took a different view.

Working from a sketch supplied by the Mercury Ink Studio, the Signs Express team settled down for a long and detailed job. The ‘art’ was first scanned and the image then used as a temple for manually creating the vector detail needed. It’s a complex and very involving job. It’s not very forgiving either.

The type has its own flow and is surrounded by very elaborate embellishments that need to retain the sense of the lettering they decorate. Deviations from the path would destroy the feel of the logo and be very obvious in the finished result. The finished result, in the event, turned out brilliantly thanks to the skills and hours invested. It’s brilliantly legible, and yet has echoes of the tribal influences that it takes. It sits on a contrasting field of graduated colour that lifts and gives the whole presentation a dimensional quality.

That dimensional quality radiates powerfully in the version made for the studio’s window. It was printed on Metamark MD5 Clear. The MD5 clear interrupts the clear glass to the extent it looks like an acid-washed etch. The lettering is crisply defined. The colour and its subtle gradation brilliantly rendered. The whole graphic looks very together because it is - it’s a single contour cut piece.

Inside, the same design is rendered as a wall graphic printed on Metamark MD5’s high tack version. It continues the theme established by the stunning window graphics and which is also echoed in MD5 on the studio’s door.

Who said it can’t be done?

The graphics confer a sense of quality and command of the subject on the business they identify. With tattoo studios being among the fasted growing categories of new businesses opening, others now have a high bar to get over. Signs Express Newcastle hasn’t just given the customer what the customer wanted, they’ve proved that they’re equal to some very complex origination tasks and that they’ve got a real feel for the materials they use too.