Clover Signs Blog

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.

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.

Hey, Today I found a Internet forum dedicated to High Density Urethane.  The forum is called: HDU Sign Makers Forum

The forum is new, but hopefully others will post some pictures of their work there.

We have started posting useful articles on traditional sign making covering art, design, carving etc.

You can find them all here: The Traditional Sign Maker

If you want an article written, or wish to post an existing one on your website, please get in touch and we will help you.

After much research, we have put together a article on house names and their history. You can read the article here: The History of House Names.

House naming is an interesting subject, and I am sure we will add to the article at a later date. Until then, here is a wonderful quote from A.A Milne:

THE Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, and the beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: “TRESPASSERS W” on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather’s name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn’t be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one—Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers.

“I’ve got two names,” said Christopher Robin carelessly.

“Well, there you are, that proves it,” said Piglet.