GOOD CAUSE – GREAT GRAPHICS
Vinyl Signs Whitby helps one of its regular clients with some graphics that benefit the RNLI too…
Whitby Lifeboat crews have been saving lives for at least two hundred years and have been recognised with the RNLI’s medal for gallantry thirty-six times. The station today operates two boats, one works in inshore waters and the other, the mighty Trent Class, covers offshore events and has a range of some 250 nautical miles.
Services like those delivered by the RNLI come at a price, and impressive beasts like Trent Class lifeboats have to be paid for. Thankfully, the RNLI ranks very highly in the affections and respect of the British public and it’s one of the best subscribed of all the major charities. It’s probably true to say that somewhere, right now, there’s an event happening that benefits the RNLI.
The RNLI, Whitby, and its community, have a close and enduring relationship and the boats have been, and are, crewed with volunteers from the town among others. With a view to giving something back to the teams and the organisation itself, the owners of Whitby Tool and Plant Hire came up with a great idea, easily adaptable to others who’d care to involve themselves.
When Whitby needs heavy plant or tools that aren’t typically on the shelves in the sheds, Whitby Tool and Plant Hire is where they turn. Among the company’s fleet of hardworking site assets there’s a particular dumper truck that now, thanks to its owners’ inventiveness, works hard for those who rent it, and gives something to the RNLI too. A percentage of income from the dumper finds its way to the RNLI every time the dumper turns a wheel.
To promote the scheme and raise a bit of further interest still, Whitby Tool and Plant Hire got in touch with Vinyl Signs Whitby, and not for the first time. The go-to tool hire shop and Whitby’s best-known signmaker have a long term relationship that’s seen everything from labels to signage change hands over the years. This call required graphics promoting the RNLI connection and Vinyl Signs Whitby obliged.
The hardworking dumper now wears on the flanks of its very accommodating bucket a picture of the offshore boat on one side and the inshore boat on the other. ‘Pictures’ actually sells it a little short, they’re custom designed posters attesting that the dumper contributes 10% of its income to what all agree is a really great cause.
Robert Lamerton, Vinyl Signs’ owner, took a particular interest in the job having himself crewed a Whitby lifeboat for many years. The offshore boat in those days was a Tyne Class but it’s mission no different to the ones attended by the mighty Trent today. Thanks Robert. It’s appreciated.
The Vinyl Signs team printed its great looking posters on Metamark MD5 protected against dumper-type battle-rash with a mixture of Metamark Matt and Gloss MG700 Laminates. Text elements were cut and applied Metamark M7 so producing applied posters that get the message across and that are capable of taking a knock or two. The whole plot looks brilliant and is another great example of Vinyl Signs Whitby getting the details right.
CATCHING THE EYE
Vinyl Signs delivers exactly what the customer orders and a winning livery is reimagined…
Vinyl Signs Whitby is run by Rob Lamerton and a very capable team. The quality of the work this long-established sign business delivers is nothing less than exemplary and it stems from the meticulous attention to every detail that’s invested in every job the company does.
The company is well equipped. It has within arms’ reach every tool a modern signs and graphics manufacture needs to function efficiently. Its hardware’s well maintained too and operates at the very peak of its performance. All this illuminates an attitude to design and production that distinguishes the company and its output. Every detail is ‘right.’ The result – signs and graphics that keep customers returning time and again.
One such customer making a return trip to Vinyl Signs Whitby recently was Dennis Crooks. With something like 150 years of combined experience under its roof, Dennis Crooks started in 1977 and is right to cast itself in the role of one of the country’s best known and most capable suppliers of fresh fish. Known for giving its customers exactly what’s needed, Dennis Crooks procures the best fish available, and takes care of all the processing needed to prepare the catch according to customer requirement – by hand.
Dennis Crooks’ ID and its vehicle liveries are both well known and very attractive. While on holiday recently though, William Crooks’ eye was attracted by a sign featuring a stylised fish with scales that caught the ambient light and sparkled in a way that really demanded attention. On returning to the UK, he got in touch with Rob Lamerton at Vinyl Signs Whitby, described what he’d seen, and enquired as to whether the effect could be recreated in Dennis Crooks’ liveries.
Rob Lamerton suggested a construction comprising coloured self-adhesive vinyl, digital print and use of a speciality material to define the mirror-like scales to his customer and the job was given the go-ahead. Metamark M7 SignVinyl was used for the lettering elements, the digital print was provisioned on Metamark MD5 and the cut and applied mirror-like scales were made from Metamark Silver Polish.
The supplied job required a lot of manual application skills and attention to small details – all readily available at Vinyl Signs Whitby. The finished result works with the long established livery design but gives it a flash of colour and light that refreshes it and makes it look new. It’s a really brilliant result and makes great use of a material that’s little known outside experienced circles.
In the final analysis this stunning livery speaks powerfully to the trade that Vinyl Signs Whitby’s customer operates. It radiates quality and underscores a towering reputation. It also makes the same point as every other piece of output leaving Vinyl Sign Whitby’s workshop – attention to detail, meticulous quality and deep reserves of experience, all tend to produce the best results.
VINYL SIGNS INSTALLS SIGNAGE FOR TOWBAR EXPRESS STADIUM AT THE TURNBULL GROUND
Vinyl Signs of Whitby have recently completed work on the new Towbar Express Stadium at the Turnbull Ground.
Towbar Express are now major sponsors of Whitby Town Football Club. The stadium has been renamed The Towbar Express Stadium at the Turnbull Ground. Vinyl Signs designed and installed the new signage which required extensive scaffolding to erect the very large signs on the stadium walls. Watch a short installation video below:
THE ANTIDOTE TO WHITE GOODS
There’s a few ways of disguising an incongruous looking fridge in a kitchen that’s themed around something other that white or steel. Thanks to Rob Lamerton and the team at Vinyl Signs Whitby, there’s now another…
The customer was straight to the point. Was it possible, they asked, to wrap or cover a fridge in much the same way as you might do a vehicle? No hesitation on the part of Rob Lamerton and the team at Vinyl Signs in Whitby. Yes, we can wrap or cover pretty much anything and a fridge isn’t going to put up much of a fight.
Then comes the question of what to wrap the offending fridge with. Digital, print? A pattern? A Design? All are possible. But how about a colour? How about this, particular orange?
Sometimes luck is batting with you.
Rob Lamerton’s customer had gone to great lengths to find, and then to centre the theme of the kitchen in question around a particularly pleasing shade of orange. It was repeated in places around the room and it was chosen from among thousands of shades of itself and other colours available. Such is the way modern tastes in colour dictate things. Thankfully, there’s more than a little science and research behind the way Metamark chooses the colours it includes in its vinyl ranges.
The colours that occur in the wild these days seem to uncannily fit with colours found in the Metamark Materials Swatch. That’s because the colours are a reflection of modern tastes and contemporary specification. There, in the most unlikely of places to find a colour for a domestic appliance colour, was the orange. The orange that Vinyl Signs Whitby’s customer wanted.
Most reports of this type detail the material the sign producer chose to do the job in question. On this occasion, the material almost chose itself. It was Metamark MM-CC in just the right shade of orange. MM-CC is a cylinder cast material expressly for colour-change wrapping and in the hands of the team from Vinyl Signs Whitby, it was skilfully and flawlessly applied to the fridge.
The result is one that raises a smile from the customer. It’s exactly what was wanted. It’s more than that though. Under the protective covering of MM-CC is a pristine appliance that will stay that way. The colourful wrap will resist chipping, it’s easy to clean and it clearly demonstrates the potency of wrapping objects other than vehicles. It also demonstrates how Vinyl Signs Whitby finds a profitable channel for its talents.
PRACTICALLY PERFECT
Vinyl Signs Whitby delivers a sensitive and affordable restoration that’s practical and full of character…
The Poachers Pocket is a very traditional country outfitters located in an area of Whitby that reflects its traditional roots. Its windows are full of the wares associated with country pursuits and it’s very much a part of the landscape, having traded in the town for years. The sign above its doors was originally rendered in paint on glass – a medium that tells of the shop’s vintage. Time had begun to make its effects known on the sign though and so Vinyl Signs Whitby was called in to consider remedial measures.
Replacement of the sign, it was agreed, was the best course of action but like-for-like would have been both prohibitively costly and disruptive. Removing a well aged glass fascia is, in addition, an invitation to discover the horrors behind it and, with the fabric of the sign being essentially sound and weatherproof, it was decided to leave it, and its peeling coats of paint in situ.
Rob Lamerton and the team at Vinyl Signs Whitby decided to fabricate a cover for the visible elements of the glass fascia from an affordable modern and weather resistant material and to mount upon it the replacement lettering and background reflecting the original character of the retiring sign.
The team set about matching the colours needed for the new sign. The Metamark colour palette was loaded into Vinyl Signs Whitby’s design software and something amounting to a perfect match for the weathered green background of the original sign and its aged lettering was selected. The resulting data was then printed on Metamark MD5.
MD5 and the notion of closely matched colours are no stranger to each other and neither is the attention to detail needed to carry off such a transformation unknown to Vinyl Signs Whitby. The panel was installed, complete with its MD5 print.
The result isn’t going to turn any heads and that’s what makes this gem of a sign all the more remarkable. It’s been there for years – nothing appears to have changed. What a glance doesn’t tell though is that, beneath the convincing fascia graphic, is an aged glass fascia, complete with painted sign elements. It’s out of sight, not going to get broken and not likely to weather any further.
As signs go, this example is nothing more than a familiar fascia, and nothing less than perfect.
THE POWER OF GOLD
A very successful home-based business decided to open on the high street and came to Vinyl Signs Whitby for a very special sign to put its name on the map…
Thanks to a wonderful fascia sign by Vinyl Signs Whitby, Rhoobarb and Co has a presence among Whitby’s businesses that’s hard to ignore. It radiates class and quality. It’s a perfect fit within the town’s tightly regulated planning policy. And Rob Lamerton’s customer is, understandably, delighted with it.
Rhoobarb and Co began its career under a different banner as a home-based business offering its clientele a range of beauty treatments and products. It grew rapidly and to the point where home no longer seemed an appropriate place to operate it. So the decision was made to take it, and the products and services it offered to the high street.
The company’s founder wanted an eye-catching and memorable name for the business and “Rhoobarb” certainly ticks that box. Interior design came under the microscope too and the decision was made to “do things properly” so a designer was consulted. Among the designer’s output was a proposed trading style to inspire the creation of a sign. Rhoobarb’s founder had very definite views on the subject of the signs too.
Given the new location of the business Rhoobarb wanted a sign inspired by the construction of the one used on the business next door – an establishment trading under the name of The Moon and Balloon. All roads from there led back to Rob Lamerton and the team at Vinyl Signs Whitby who made the it.
Rob’s prescription for Rhoobarb is brilliant in its simplicity and yet the effect it achieves is dazzling. The Rhoobarb and Co sign comprises flat-cut letters mounted to the fascia on stand offs. The acrylic is a dull gold in colour. Rob edged the mounted letters with a thick outline made from Metamark Gold Polish, a cut and applied self adhesive material with a mirror-like durable gold finish. The type used supports the provision of an outline and helps it maintain a consistent thickness throughout. The effect achieved in this simple construction is stunning. The sign looks a million dollars but cost Rhoobarb and Co a lot less.
Rob Lamerton served time learning his trade with brush in hand. That eye for layout and proportion has a role among today’s production hardware and modern materials. With results like those achieved for Rhoobarb and Co in Vinyl Signs Whitby’s portfolio, the company’s talents are certain to be much in demand.
Nice job, Rob.