Clover Signs Blog

Clover Signs would like to announce that we are no longer making slate house signs. The simple reason is this: Our carved signs and house signs have become so popular that we cannot concentrate on 2 things at once.

Slate and stone is still a great choice for a house sign, so we would like to recommend Rustic Stone. Rustic Stone make all manner of slate house signs and signs on boulders, ideal for setting next to driveways.

However, if you were dead set on getting that beautiful custom painting, and simply had to have it on slate, Your Signs, based on the Isle of Wight is the place to go. From simple house number plates to superb custom painted house plaques, their dedicated team of house sign makers and house sign artists combine traditional arts & crafts  techniques together with contemporary  resin & reflective lettering technologies  to produce elegant, quality, long lasting house signs that will  enhance the look of your home in daytime and also help  make your home address easier to find during hours of darkness.

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 magnetic message board, sign for your pub, restaurant or hotel, please feel free to get in touch.  We offer free sign design and beautiful hand carved signs.

I just wrote an article about acrylic paint, which tells in broad strokes why it is so great for signs.

We often get questions like “Why is my sign unvarnished? What can I do to protect it?”

The answer is simple – nothing! The acrylic paint we use is great for outdoors, and because we don’t varnish it, it can always be touched up in a number of years.

Acrylic paints stay bright and don’t yellow like oil paints do. They are ideal for signs and outdoor artwork.

Here is a beautifully done sign by one our artists:

We do all our art by hand and never print our signs. This means that we can put any picture you want onto one of our hand painted signs! Lots of people see our gallery and think that’s all they can have. If you need something custom made, just ask.

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.

Yes, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll has appeared on a sign at last. Someone managed to rename their house “Graceland” and purchased this large sign to make the meaning clear.

Elvis himself is chip carved into the sign and gilded with real gold leaf, as are the letters.

Now for all you Elvis fans wanting one, just ask for a custom house sign!

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.