Gem & Bead Mall on 4th

Gem & Bead Mall’s giant sign. Keep in mind, the smaller sign to the left is probably around 10 feet in height!

Native Tucsonans know all about the Gem Show; Its our annual two weeks of craziness when the vendors and buyers of gem and minerals come from all over the world to our little town. A National company called Gem & Bead Mall has decided to call Tucson one of their permanent homes and has opened a HUGE warehouse on South 4th Avenue. This company also has stores in San Diego and Las Vegas. Located at 2901 S. 4th Ave (4th and 39th), this 26,000 square foot facility holds over 5,200 items from all over the world.

Sign Magic did the sign for GBM, which, as you can see if the photo above, was no easy task considering the height! The existing pole sign reaches to heights over 45 feet and our crews needed our bucket truck plus a rented crane to complete the install! We cut new acrylic faces for the sign and applied vinyl to the faces once they were already installed in the sign. This job is a great example of Sign Magic’s dedication to providing Tucson businesses with their signage needs!

U of A Bruegger’s Bagels

Campbell and Speedway location

The Bruegger’s Bagels at Campbell and Speedway, by the U of A, just had a new sign go up! Bruegger’s Bagels is one of America’s favorite places to get freshly baked breakfast treats, and its no different for Tucson residents! The U of A location decided it was time for a face-lift and had Sign Magic make them a brand new sign! This sign is pan channel lettering mounted onto a raceway. The white faces of the letters are laser routed on our routing table from sheets of white acrylic. The pans and raceway are made from aluminum which is routed and bent into the shape of the letters. Each of these letter pans are lined with LED’s which allow the sign to light up each evening. The sign is on a timer which is set to turn on and off automatically. The letters are fixed to the raceway and then our install crew mounted the raceway to the building. Next time you are craving a delicious bagel, or are driving by the U of A, make sure to check out this new sign!

Journeys Kidz

The finished sign.

We were in the Tucson mall today converting a sign to LED illumination. The sign for Journeys Kidz, a children’s shoe store, has a routed aluminum face with back-lit acrylic. The face of the sign has also been sand-blasted and painted. The sign was originally lit by fluorescent lamps. These lamps tend to burn out more quickly and require more maintenance. We took out the lamps and in their place wired the sign to be lit using LED’s. The LED lighting is not only cheaper to maintain but it is also cheaper on electricity when the sign is lit. LEDs have the added benefit of being brighter so Journeys Kidz sign stand out just a little better now than it used to!

This is the original lighting inside the sign, using the fluorescent lamps.

This is the sign after it has been converted to the LED lighting.

 

 

Cattleman’s Cafe 2

Cattleman’s Café 2 pan channel lettering

 

The owner’s of Cattleman’s Café located at the Marana Stockyard have just opened a new restaurant in Oro Valley. This second location is called Cattleman’s Café 2 and is located at 10110 N. Oracle Rd which is just North of El Conquistador. The owner’s would like to open a few more locations over the next couple of years to create a sort of brand for their sandwich and burger serving café. Sign Magic hopes to continue to help this company’s dreams become reality and give them some great signage as they expand across the Tucson area. This sign is pan channel lettering routed from aluminum. Cattleman’s is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day from 6:00 am till 8:00 pm.

Sycamore Elementary School – VAIL

The Vail school district had Sign Magic put this sign up at each of their schools, in honor of them each receiving the A+ School of Excellence award.

Sign Magic just put up another sign for the Vail School District. This time, the honor went to Sycamore Elementary School, on S. Houghton Rd. Vail is known for having excellent schools and have been recognized by the Arizona Educational Foundation. The A+ School of Excellence program is a comprehensive school assessment that celebrates and honors success in Arizona schools. This award is retained for 3 years before the school needs to reapply. Every one of Vail’s schools, (elementary, middle & high schools) have all received this award in recent years, some more than once! Sign Magic is proud to be a part of Vail’s success in educating Arizona’s youth.

3 New Signs Up!

Yikes Toys

    Sign Magic has just fabricated and installed three new signs in a shopping center off Broadway! The first is for Little Bird children’s clothing. This was cut from white acrylic and the pans were mounted onto a raceway which was then mounted to the wall. This sign is lit with LED illumination. The next sign is for Picante. This is also cut acrylic but red instead of white. This sign is also a pan channel sign mounted onto a raceway and lit using LEDs. The third sign we did is for Yikes Toys. It was made in the same way as the other two, but yellow vinyl was applied to the white acrylic before being installed.

Picante

Little Bird

 

 

HMS Bikes!

Sign after installation

A close up look at their cool logo!

We’ve just finished a really cool sign in Marana! HMS Bikes is located at 8225 N. Courtney Page Way. These pan channel letters were mounted on a raceway, which in turn was mounted on the front of the building. Each letter, and the face of the logo, was cut from sheets of acrylic using our laser routing table. The logo itself was printed out onto vinyl using our large format digital printer, then placed over the acrylic piece. The logo and each of the letters are lined with LEDs. These hook up to a timer, which will illuminate the sign each evening and then turn it back off come daytime. 

New, Oro Valley Mattress Firm

Mattress Firms are popping up all over the place! We just installed another, this time in Oro Valley, on the Northwest corner of Magee and Oracle. This sign, like the other Mattress Firm signs that Sign Magic has installed, is made of pan channel letters and lit using LED illumination.

Green Valley Mattress Firm

Pan channel letters, LED illumination.

Green Valley just got a Mattress Firm and Sign Magic installed their signs! This sign’s faces were cut from sheets of white acrylic. The pan each face is fitted to contains LED lighting to illuminate the sign at night. Sign Magic has installed all of the new Mattress Firm locations in Tucson and the surrounding areas. The newest one is located at 18720 S. Nogales Highway in Green Valley, at I-19 and Nogales Highway.

Ramona Morales Apartments

  Another really cool, custom sign was just fabricated and installed, this time in Benson, AZ. The Ramona Morales Apartment complex, located at 550 W. Union St, Benson, AZ is the latest Sign Magic client to get their sign installed.  A lot of work went into this sign, and seeing it finished and installed proves that our staff really does know how to pull it off! This sign has a tiled face,which our guys put together themselves here in the shop. Then a rubber-like vinyl was placed on top of the tile so only the areas of the sign being treated by the sand-blaster were showing (the wording and logos on the sign). After we got the sign back from the sand-blasters, a few layers of black and teal paint were applied and then the protective rubber was peeled off. A frame was built around the sign, and painted teal to match the lettering on the face. The tile made this double-sided sign extremely heavy so in order to install it, we had to use a large crane. The custom signs, like this one, are always the most fun to work on, and always end up really standing out once they are finished. 

The finished, installed sign.

This rubber vinyl-like material protects the parts of the sign that won’t be sand-blasted.

The simple tile front to the face, before sand-blasting, paint or the frame was done.