Clover Signs Blog

When selling signs, we mostly get the payment by credit card.  However, when Gina from Gina’s Cakes asked us to make them a sign, we couldn’t resist.  We accepted payment for half the sign, then charged the other half in “cake.”

Gina was thrilled with her part of the deal and the cake was most delicious!  Clover Signs certainly recommends Gina’s Cakes as the source for your celebrations.

Of course, if you are looking for a sign, not a cake, you can get a hanging shop sign from us!

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.

It doesn’t take a sign maker to tell you that having nice signs outside your hotel, pub or restaurant helps attract customers - but most people would be surprised by how big the difference is.

In July 2007, we were contacted by The Old Thatch Teashop on the Isle of Wight and asked to design some signs for them.  The teashop was very plain, and  didn’t fulfill it’s potential in the busy tourism months.

Here is the Old Thatch just before the signs went up:

And here are the signs in place:

The pictures are not the best, as for some strange reason we decided to travel down and install them during the worst storm of the winter!

Since the signs have gone up, Patricia Whybrow, the owner of the Old Thatch is delighted with the amount of new business she gets.

In the end, having a decent sign could be the cheapest form of advertising, especially in an area like Shanklin where there is lots of competition.  People are wandering around and choosing what to visit purely by whim - so you have to make something distinct in the image you present.

If you want to discuss having a sign for your pub, restaurant or hotel, please feel free to get in touch.  We offer free sign design and beautiful hand carved signs.

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.

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.

As time goes on and our business grows we are becoming evermore international. We even got a request to link to Nationwide Pools The largest above ground swimming pool dealer in the United States that offers actual factory direct pricing.

We do not make slate signs anymore - we just cannot keep up with the work and the HDU house signs are so popular.

The only thing we will do with slate if someone really wants, is artwork.  We did this for a company we know in Germany called Sannerz Designs.

You take a picture (in this case their logo) and blast away the background.  The background is then gilded with real gold leaf.  It makes a very stunning sign.

If you have a piece of artwork you want done like this, you can simply contact Clover Signs and we will see what we can do.

Sorry for not posting for so long. November was a crazy month, with everyone ordering signs for Christmas presents, December was about the same, and for some reason, the “post Christmas slump” has not happened yet.

One sign we did for a Christmas Present was Widgeon Close. The customer wanted to make sure that his sign looked life-like and really portrayed the widgeons.

We promised him that it would - and here is what he said:

I have now received my ‘Wigeons’ house sign and must admit it has managed to match your bold claim. Yes it is perfect and better than my wife and I dared expect. Please feel free to quote me. Yes it is beautiful.

The sign was made in HDU of course, but with a relief carving of the ducks.  This was then painted, but it is the sculpting that gives it the dimension and feel.

Sculptings can be request on any sign, but just ask on our custom house sign page.

Clover Signs would like to thank all their customers for thier custom this year. We have officially made 1000 signs so far since January. What more, the sign which made it 1000 was our first hanging sign we sold:

We gave the customer a nice discount as well. We make the brackets ourselves, as we could not find a supplier in the UK who could produce them at the correct quality and price.

If you are interested, you can find a whole page of hanging signs on our website.

We have just published a guide to creating High Density Urethane Signs.  It was made mostly for sign makers, but any customers might be interested in seeing the process that went into their sign.

The article has pictures all the way through, so it’s pretty easy to follow.  Hope you enjoy it.

The big news is that we now make Slate House Signs!  Many people seem to want them, so we have sourced some fantastic quality black slate for the signs:

The signs are 6-8mm thick, and we sand blast the letters into them.  We then finish the letters with real gold or palladium.  The hand painted artwork looks great on the natural stone.

If you want one - you can buy a slate sign here.