Clover Signs Blog

Throughout the course of the year, we here at Clover Signs can’t help but notice the tendency of people to request a house sign design that is in keeping with that particular time of year. For instance, many crocuses and daffodils are requested in Spring, and we seem to paint a lot of blackberries and apples in the Autumn and poppies in November. This seems quite logical except when you stop to think that your house sign will be up year round. Nevertheless, we are still receiving orders for and making numerous Holly House signs like this one.

Holly Cottage

Tempted? It’s not too late for that last minute Christmas present. However, orders must be placed by the 10th of December in order to deliver by Christmas. Just remember, a house sign will last many years and will be on your house throughout all the seasons, so don’t limit yourself to the present moment.

Generally, when people are ordering some new sinage, whether it is for their recently rennovated house or they are opening a home B & B, they want the complete package to be delivered from one company. As of the beginning of 2008, Clover Signs has made both hanging signs and wrought iron hanging brackets. There is nothing special about it but The Cart Lodge has become easily our most-referred-to sign; ie. “I want a sign just like The Cart Lodge”.

Popular hanging sign with wrought iron bracket.

To request your own customised sign (double sided or otherwise) visit our Hanging Signs page on our business website.

Have you ever wondered what inspired (or possessed) Charles Rennie Mackintosh? I have often pondered his exquisitely unique style and found nothing even remotely similar. Whereas in the sign industry we mainly utilise the font that bears his name, he was primarily an architect, and a quite successful one at that.

Born in 1868 in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Mackintosh was a working class boy and one of 11 siblings. From an early age, he demonstrated an obsessive passion for art, relentlessly drawing the flowers his father grew on his allotment. It’s thought he also suffered from a mild form of autism, which could explain his reputation for mood swings as well as his attention to detail seen in his artwork.

Along with three other art students, Mackintosh established the “Glasgow Style”, first shown in a collection of metalwork panels, posters, furniture and silver work at the 1896 Arts & Crafts Exhibition in London. From there, “The Four’s”  notoriety grew and together they developed a repertoire characterised by stylised motifs of Celtic, Oriental, Egyptian and natural inspiration, including the iconic Glasgow Rose.

Here are a couple samples of our own Rennie Mackintosh designs which have proved increasingly popular.

Most Londoners or visitors to the capitol have surely seen the Blue Plaques that comemorate figures of partcular historical importance and the buildings that they inhabited. According to English Heritage:

They open a window into another time by showing us where the great and the good have penned their masterpieces, developed new technologies, lived or died.

In the 140 years of its existence, the blue plaques scheme has errected over 800 plaques. English Heritage receives about 100 proposals every year, but it can take between 2 and 6 years from the initial suggestion to the erection of a plaque.

Luckily it didn’t take quite so long for one of our customers to receive his House Plaque. He received his plaque less than one month after his initial inquiry. His request, however, did not stem from the noble desire to celebrate “the great and the good”, but merely to have a laugh. Regarding his plaque he explained:

It’s actually a copy of a sign I saw in San Fransisco when we were there three years ago; I crossed the road to read it and really smiled as most Americans do not get the english type of humour very well and this example crossed all boundries.

Well, we here at Clover Signs, also smiled at this “Blue Plaque”. We just hope that Engligh Heritage doesn’t track down our customer and remove his unapproved plaque.

Even if you own a private estate, a set of signage (as long as they are nice signs) will only enhance the property.  Clover Signs was recently commisioned to make 16 signs for a country estate.

Here is what the client already had:

And this is what we did:

Those are just a couple examples of the signs.  If you are looking to have a set of signage made for your estate, please don’t hesitate to try out our free design service.

It has become popular to have a home bar these days. Once you have the room, equipment and drinks, a hanging home bar signs is all you need to finish it off.

We make the brackets ourselves as it is very hard to get custom metal work done these days.  The signs are all made out of HDU, a tough synthetic wood, which is hand carved and gilded.  Any artwork is done by hand. The hanging hardware is all stainless steel.

If you are wanting to add that finishing touch to your home pub then a home pub sign is for you.

Most of our work is making small to medium sized signs. However, sometimes we do get a request for a really big sign. St Antony’s Primary School asked us to make a 7 metre long sign with 3-D letters and sculpted butterflies.

Here is how their sign looked before we replaced it:

Here are the 2 butterflies we sculpted trying to escape from the sign shop

And here is the new sign we made:

We don’t have a section on our website yet devoted to school signs, so please just contact us.

If you can tell me (without looking it up on Wikipedia!) what the TARDIS stands for, then this is the sign for you:

We first designed a very plain sign with just the words “The Tardis” in gold, but the customer informed us that we were not creative enough. With that in mind we set about to create this. They were very happy with edition 2 and bought it on the spot.

This is why we offer free design, so that you can be sure you get the sign you want.

When we were asked to paint a picture of Herbie onto a sign, we decided it would be far better to just make the car instead!

Unfortunately it is one of the worst photo’s we have taken, so it doesn’t look great, but keep in mind that this is a completely flat sign. It’s amazing what an artist can do with some paint. Hand Painted Signs are our speciality, so don’t hesitate to ask for something strange! We enjoy the challenge.

Because we now make our own hanging brackets, we can now supply you with pub signs and hotel signs.

Not everyone needs a bracket, but we are now setup to make large signs with the correct hardware for hanging.

Here is a small one we did for someone in France. We suggested that they have the phone number on a “sub sign” in case they ever change it. They took our advice, and were very glad, as they changed their number before they even had the sign up on the wall. It wasn’t hard to make a new sign with the number.