Progress of a painted sign – Vail Lake Monument Mural

Recently Big City had the opportunity to provide painted graphics on a two-sided 6 ft x 40 ft monument sign. Painting the graphics provided cost-effective signage for this large “canvas”.

Here is what it looked like originally – I’d say it was ready for a change:

The process of providing new signage typically follows the path of settling with the client ahead of time on what we’ll be doing. A scale rendering and photo mock-up are typically provided, here is that documentation for this project:

With approval from the client in hand, the graphic production begins. As documented elsewhere in this blog, full-size paper templates are drawn and perforated with tiny holes on the drawn lines. Charcoal is pushed through the holes on-site to transfer the design to the sign surface.

Next, I began laying in colors. The colors were intensified here, as signs need to be less subtle than printed materials to be properly eye-catching.

More colors were painted, and the design began to take shape.

Part of the design included a transparent shade, that shows the background colors through it. Here are a couple of detail shots of that:

The layout is almost always printed out in full color at scale to be able to see what we’re trying to accomplish, and as paint colors are mixed they’re tested on this scale rendering:

The final result: