The Signs of Business

AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama Gives Back To The Evansville Community

We are so excited to announce the recipients of the third annual Signs of Support Grant Program!

Press Release: Evansville, Ind., January 30, 2012 – AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama has announced it will donate or discount signage to at least 40 local non profit organizations through its Signs of Support Grant Program.

Through Signs of Support, AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama aims to support local non-profit and charitable organizations through assisting in replacing or creating effective, affordable signage for their cause. This is the third year for AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama’s Annual Signs of Support Grant Program.

AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama will begin accepting applications for the Signs of Support 2013 Grant Program in the Fall of 2012. For more information visit www.SignsOverAmerica.com, visit the showroom located on Evansville’s east side at 1300 N. Royal Avenue (at Vogel) or call us at 812.477.7763.
————————

Here is the list of the 2012 Signs of Support Grant Recipients:

As a 55 year old small business, we are oftentimes finding obsolete training manuals, long-forgotten strategy documents, old office equipment and other things that have escaped the recycling bin, trash heap or donation box. Here are two of my favorites that we found today:

From the official SIGNARAMA training manual comes this beautiful illustration of top-o-the-line, state-of-the-art computerized sign making equipment.

If I know anything about Jim Tatem, I would bet he was the one behind this bit of sign training cleverness.

We started with a heavily used, rather old refrigerator. We added some creativity, a swath of vinyl, a liberal dash of ink, two kinds of lamination, and one amazing graphics installer. The result is something you’d be proud to bring home to mama… especially if she needed a cold glass of milk and leftovers.

Some Creativity

In-house projects like this fridge wrap give us an unconstrained chance to strut our stuff and flex our creative muscles. Oddly enough, when no constraints exist, designer’s block seems to hit the hardest. Have you ever sat at a blank canvas of any sort (Photoshop, word processor or actual physical canvas) and you think, “I could do anything! Where do I start? I wonder what Twitter has to say.” Three hours later you still have a blank canvas. So I decided to treat myself like a customer.

As a customer, here’s my requirements for this project:

1. I want our logo – and make it BIG! (for those of you who don’t get this, click the link to appreciate some tongue-in-cheek design-geek humor)
2. It’s gotta be awesome, fun, quirky and epic… just like us.
3. An idea: open the fridge and take a picture of what’s inside. That could be the front… that would be funny… it’s just an idea.
4. Another idea: instead of food on the inside it could be filled with gold bars like Fort Knox looks like in my imagination, then you could make the outside look like a bank vault door… it’s just an idea.
5. Can you do anything with rhinestones or sequins? Anything shiny?

It was then that I realized I make a horrible sign company customer. After this project sat on my desk a few more days and the blank canvas screamed ever louder at me, I had an idea: People oftentimes use their fridge to display things they’re proud of like pics of friends and family, toddler art and other mementos. Let’s have it tell a story! Then just like that, the design started falling together.

When I was brainstorming with a couple of the production guys, they asked if it could be written on. Cool! We’ll make it interactive. Out of that came the idea of the freezer door’s cork board which has dry-erase lamination. I didn’t want people to have unconstrained creativity (that’s a ridiculous concept), so I gave them some creative direction: Haiku, Doodle-this, create a caption.

Vinyl, ink, lamination and a 3M trained graphics installer

We used the same 3M vinyl that we use for vehicle wraps. Not only because it’s a great product but because Billy, our installer, is newly trained by 3M. I’m still sign-shop-geeking-out about our HP25500 latex printer and how cool it is. I’ll spare you the details, just know that it is a fine machine. For lamination, we used the 3M lamination that partners with the 3M vinyl. Lamination wasn’t strictly necessary in this case because the risk of UV fading is nearly non-existent but the lamination will still protect the graphic from scuffs and will make the surface of the refrigerator cleanable with off-the-shelf cleaning products. On top of the cork board print, we installed dry erase laminate so we could doodle all day.

Extreme Makeover disclaimer

No, Ty Pennington and his merry band of do-gooders at ABC had nothing to do with this project. If you’d like more info about the Extreme Makeover branded shows check out ABC’s website. The ‘Fridge Edition’ logo is merely an homage and tribute to the good done for folks who need it.

Marketing is not the same now as it was 5 years ago. You have more options than ever and you likely have a smaller budget than you need or want. What does your marketing plan look like for 2012?

Gone are the days where your marketing plan could consist of dropping $10,000 for a year in the Yellow Pages while you sit back and listen to the phone ring. Options for how to spend your marketing dollars and time have exploded in the past 5 years. You can actually spend more money on free marketing now than you spent 10 years ago in the Yellow Pages⁽¹⁾.

Currently tied for second place in their division, the Evansville Icemen are on a hot streak. They’ve entered this week’s midseason All Star break as the most improved team in the Central Hockey League. Last night’s 4-1 win over the Bloomington Blaze was a fitting end to the first half of the season. It was also a good night for the Sign-A-Rama Evansville Team. Several of us got together to cheer the home team and to check out the first appearance of the newly wrapped Zamboni.

Tabletop Banner Stands are ideal for showroom displays, trade shows, and kiosks. In your showroom, draw attention to a particular product or service. At a trade show, announce a special deal for attendees. For part of a kiosk display, include a QR code on your tabletop banner stand to direct your foot traffic to your website where they can enter a drawing, sign up for your newsletter or make a purchase.

Design ideas

If you don’t have your own design team, use ours! Our designers love helping companies look their best.

More information about Tabletop Banner Stands

You can see more information about our tabletop banner stands at: Breeze Retractable Tabletop Banner Stand and Vort-X Mini Tabletop Banner Stand

These laser engraved wood plaques for Evansville’s Mesker Park Zoo and Botanical Garden are absolutely beautiful.

You can find out more about Evansville Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden by visiting their website: www.meskerparkzoo.com

Click the links to find out more about our laser engraving services or request a quote.

Merry Christmas! Walter visited the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana‘s annual open house today.

About Where’s Walter

The Where’s Walter series highlights the mysterious activities of the owner of AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama in Evansville Indiana. See all of the Where’s Walter posts.

Usually, the week between Christmas and the New Year is a good week for us to work on projects and prepare for the coming year. This year we thought we’d do something a little fun for our team: Chili cook-off! Woohoo! I can’t wait to see what some of our people can come up with. We’ll have judges for the official tasting on Thursday, December 29. The prize, of course, is a major award.

Rules:

1. 1 Winner – Best Chili.
2. Chili must contain meat.
3. Chili must be tomato based.
4. Chili must be prepared by a Sign-A-Rama employee or an immediate household member.
5. Chili will be judged by outside judges.
6. Make enough to go ‘round.
7. Make it awesome.

We’ll keep you posted on the competition and will announce the winner here. Warning: if we don’t answer the phone for a couple hours that Thursday, just know that we are contentedly feasting on a variety of home-cooked chili.

Evansville’s 200th anniversary is next year. Evansville has changed much over the last two centuries. From a humble village on a river to a thriving river trade town to a proud supplier of P-47Ds and LSTs during World War II to recent accolades of “All-American City” in 2004 and voted the best city in the country in which “to live, work, and play” in 2008, Evansville continues to improve. I’m convinced that the reason for Evansville’s recent recognitions is the non-profit and civic organizations that are doing so much good in and for our community.

Today is the final day we are accepting applications for our annual Signs of Support Grants. Many of our Sign-A-Rama team volunteer at various organizations but as a company, the Signs of Support Grants are how we give back to this community. Thank you for all of your hard work in the Evansville area.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” – James 1:27

About Where’s Walter

The Where’s Walter series highlights the mysterious activities of the owner of AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama in Evansville Indiana. See all of the Where’s Walter posts.