Digital E-dition December 2021 PRESENTING THE 2021 SIGN DESIGN WINNERS Congratulations to the 2021 Best of the Best Winner Christian's Memorial Sign – Foppe Visual Communications Highland, IL Designed internally for a heart broken mother that lost her son to cancer. She wanted to honor him at the bird sanctuary that they frequently visited. Foppe worked with Eliza to develop this interactive display for kids to enjoy and learn from, as well as see Christian’s name. It may be hard to tell from the photo, but each bird has its photo on one side with the description on the other. It was built for wheelchair accessibility as well. ! “Best of the Best” overall winner is selected by ballot from all attendees at the fall conference. The Best of the Best winner receives $500 cash prize, which is generously being sponsored by ISA’s Industry Partners! In addition, the winner receives a special plaque, and the sign will be prominently featured on the cover of the 2022 Member Directory! Winners of each category be presented an attractive trophy. 2nd and 3rd place winner will receive colorful certificates.
2021Sign Design Awards The ISA Sign Design Awards Program is a signature recognition program of Illinois Sign Association. Every year the annual industry competition showcases the “Best of the Best” of the Illinois sign Industry. The program provides recognition in seven categories for design and installation that showcase the expertise of sign companies, designers, and technicians in the state. Category winners are presented at the 2021 ISA Sign EXPO featuring the Fall Education Conference & Industry Awards Program selected by the awards committee in advance. 2021 Winners Illuminated Signage and Sign Systems Cochrane Premier Properties, Bendsen Signs & Graphics, Inc. Legacy Sign Group, Legacy Sign Group City of Bloomington, Prairies Signs, Inc. Non-Illuminated Signage White Oak Farm Venue, Legacy Sign Group Plymouth Gateway, Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Christian's Memorial Sign, Foppe Visual Communications KWK & Associates, Prairies Signs, Inc. Exposed Neon and Faux Neon Gas N Wash, Van Bruggen Signs, Inc Humorous Sign Whatever…Just Wash Your Hands, C. Johnson Sign Co. Commercial Signage D.H. Hill Jr. Library at NCSU, Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Providence Living at Maitland, Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Gas N Wash, Van Bruggen Signs, Inc Vehicle Graphics Toasted Chicken, Van Bruggen Signs, Inc Ancho & Agave, Prairies Signs, Inc. Apache Landscaping, All-Right Sign, Inc Restored or Rehabilitated Existing Sign Princess Café, All-Right Sign, Inc Warner Theatre, Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Chicago Records, All-Right Sign, Inc Foppe Visual Communications … began in 1995 as FOPPE DeSigns, Inc. servicing clients in the large format graphics industry. We experienced steady growth but decided to focus more on clients in 2008. We changed our DBA to Foppe Visual Communications. Most of our clients were coming to us from the architectural signage and graphics area and we put our attention toward them. Now we generally partner with construction companies and architectural firms that recommend their customers to us. We create branding elements that might not have been thought of. We bring vision, options, and clarity and are able to tie things together from other fields and disciplines. Our family business is based upon the artistic talent plus years of graphic design and production knowledge of Tom Foppe. Gabe Foppe is a talented graphic designer, production, and installation. Thomas Foppe, Jr. focuses on estimates, production and installation. JoAnn Foppe is the main client contact for sales and accounting. FOPPE Visual Communication 809 Broadway Highland, IL 62249 www.foppevisual.com All in the family…Thomas, Gabe, and JoAnn Foppe.
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Illuminated Signage and Sign Systems 1st Place Cochrane Premier Properties Bendsen Signs & Graphics, Inc. Face lit and halo lit sign. Logo has digital print material applied. Halo lit green using RGB LEDs. Bottom cabinet is internally illuminated with routed out copy that’s backed with white poly. Poly has digitally Printed 3M perforated vinyl applied. (Photo: Evan Shaffer accepts the 1st Place Award) 2nd Place Legacy Sign Group - Legacy Sign Group One (1) double face monument sign with (2) LED illuminated single face sign cabinets with push thru copy / stone veneer base / corrugated metal background with wood clad ends and top caps
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Illuminated Signage and Sign Systems 3rd Place City of Bloomington - Prairies Signs, Inc. A custom 3-sided triangular monument sign that includes routed aluminum faces with push thru acrylic, internally illuminated with LED lighting, a real stone base (not faux) with a limestone cap. This sign serves as a “gateway” sign to the community. Andy Carby, Prairie Signs accepts the award from Sign Design Awards Chair, Mike Dunn of Mid-west Sign Supply.
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Non-Illuminated Signage 1st Place White Oak Farm Venue Legacy Sign Group One (1) double face monument sign / non-illuminated w/ White Oak/Farm Venue as 1/2” thick plex flat cut out letters and remaining items as vinyl lines/copy / with stone veneer base. Shaun O’Brien, Legacy Sign Group __________________________________________________________________________________________ 2nd Place Plymouth Gateway Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Located in rural Wisconsin, Plymouth is famous for what Wisconsin does best, Cheese. In an effort to embrace and celebrate this rich history, Poblocki designed and fabricated a gateway arch to signify the importance of their craft. Stone and masonry columns anchor the steel fabricated truss highlighted with custom fabricated logo. The over the road sign creates a historical portal to the Cheese capital of Wisconsin. 2nd Place Christian's Memorial Sign Foppe Visual Communications (2021 Best of the Best Winner – See front page)
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner WATCHFIRE SIGNS Chris White (Northern Illinois Territory Manager) Chris.White@watchfiresigns.com Faye Rowell (Southern/Central Illinois Territory Manager) Faye.Rowell@watchfiresigns.com 800-637-2645 www.watchfiresigns.com Products: Watchfire Signs designs and engineers the best looking, most durable outdoor LED signs and digital billboards to help businesses and organizations increase visibility and drive growth. Headquartered in Danville, Ill., Watchfire has manufactured electric signs since 1932 and LED signs, using meticulously sourced components from around the world, since 1998. Our products include indoor and outdoor LED displays, fixeddigit and virtual scoreboards, gas price signs and digital billboards. Areas served: Nationwide Social Medi Links: Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/WatchfireSigns Twitter – https://twitter.com/WatchfireSigns LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/watchfire-signs-by-time-o-matic Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/watchfiresigns
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner WORLD WIDE SIGN SYSTEMS, INC. Mike Lawrenz (VP of Operations) MLawrenz@wwsign.com Jeremy Leitzke (Sales) Cindy Huebner jleitzke@wwsign.com chuebner@wwsign.com P.O. Box 338, 446 North Cecil Street, Bonduel, WI 54107 800-874-3334 www.wwsign.com Products: Exclusively wholesale manufacturer of electric signs, pylons, monuments, custom signs, architectural signs, formed or flexible faces, channel letters, routed products and digital prints. Area served: North America & Caribbean
3rd Place KWK & Associates Prairies Signs, Inc. Our client wanted a reception wall sign. One HUGE requirement from them is that it had to work cohesively with the existing office design. We pulled inspiration from the glass doors that contain the cross hatch design, the bronze tones, and the transparent “feel” from the glass itself. We designed the “KWK” letters to have cohesion with the doors. Even reversing the letter style to add more flare. The sign itself is produced out of ¼”clear acrylic with polished edges. It includes ½” brushed aluminum decorative stand-offs to add dimension off of the wall. Finally, bronze aluminum “KWK” letters that are mounted to the clear acrylic.
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner WEITZ SIGN COMPANY Mike Weitz (PRES) mike@weitzsign.com 2400 Kerper Boulevard Dubuque, IA 52001 563-556-5316 Fax 563-582-8064 www.weitzsign.com Products: Wholesale channel letters, flat cut letters, custom fabrication, extruded signs, architectural signs, neon. Area Served: Nationwide
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Exposed Neon and Faux Neon 1st Place Gas N Wash Van Bruggen Signs, Inc Unique neon directional sign inside a convenience store. Multidimensional sign using various thicknesses of PVC for the sign background, letters and arrow. Finished in satin acrylic urethane and 3M high performance vinyl accents. Cold Beer letters are single tube blue neon, arrow is single tube yellow border with white highlight. Bill Van Bruggen Van Bruggen Signs, Inc
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner THINKSIGN Brian Lappin (SALES) brian.lappin@thinksign.com 5680 Shepherdsville Rd, Louisville, KY 40228 502-909-5976 www.thinksign.com Products: Founded in 1998, ThinkSIGN is the designer and manufacturer of one of the finest on-premise LED signs available. Our superior design, stringent sourcing and quality control coupled with industry-leading software and support allow us that claim. Headquartered in Louisville KY, ThinkSIGN has partners in all 50 states and a dedicated team of professionals to support any project large or small.
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Commercial Signage 1st Place D.H. Hill Jr. Library at NCSU Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Poblocki worked with Alexander Isley Inc. on an environmental design program for the D.H. Hill Jr. Library, the main library at NC State University in Raleigh. We fabricated and installed a mural on interlocking 4-panel steel modules that were affixed to the curved wall. There were also custom glass graphics and a corner-based wayfinding system guiding visitors on their journey between areas within the building.
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner DAKTRONICS, INC. Corporate Office: commercial@daktronics.com 201 Daktronics Drive, P.O. Box 5128, Brookings, SD 57006-5128 888-325-7446 www.daktronics.com
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Commercial Signage 2nd Place Providence Living at Maitland Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Our customer gave us the sign concept from Innovations Design Group. We worked with material vendors and customer’s paint colors/logo and created building signage that we also used to create the interior sign family. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3rd Place Gas N Wash Van Bruggen Signs, Inc Incorporated an area specific 1940’s vintage postcard card image into the graphics decor of a convenience store. Digitally printed on 3M 480C envision wrap film with 8548 gloss overlaminate. Applied to interior brick wall. Sam Van Bruggen, Van Bruggen Signs
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner Henry Van De Werken Miratec Systems Mobile: 630-864-7491 www.MiratecSystems.com henryv@miratecsystems.com
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Vehicle Graphics 1st Place Toasted Chicken Van Bruggen Signs, Inc Goal...Create eye catching, retro designs for a local chicken joint’s vehicles and food truck. Microbus – using inspiration from the era of the vehicle itself, applied the logo and company information in an exciting way. Combination of digitally printed vinyl and highperformance vinyl. Smart Car – simplified, yet playful, graphics for this car. Combination of digitally printed vinyl and high-performance vinyl. Food truck – an explosion of color and images, everyone is sure to spot this food truck in a crowd! Complete wrap using digitally printed vinyl. All vehicles also include an illuminated chicken head atop the vehicle. Fabricated aluminum channel shape finished in satin acrylic urethane. Illuminated with white LED. Faces decorated with digitally printed film.
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner Craig Gray Account Manager Wensco Sign Supply Cgray@wensco.com 630-360-4318
2021Sign Design Award Winners - Vehicle Graphics 2nd Place Ancho & Agave Prairies Signs, Inc. Andrew Carby, Prairie Signs 3rd Place Apache Landscaping All-Right Sign, Inc
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner BRANDON BENDER Electro-Matic Visual, Inc. 23660 Industrial Park Drive Farmington Hills, MI 48335 www.empvisualsolutions.com bhbender@electro-matic.com 312-237-0573 AKZONOBEL COATINGS Erick Lavery erick.lavery@akzonobel.com 815-534-0461/815-254-0611 Tech Line 800-618-1010 www.signfinishes.com Products: Grip-Gard Primers, Grip-Gard BC, Grip-Gard EFx-LV Area served: North America
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner CHAD ENGSTROM Optec Displays, Inc. 1700 S. De Soto Place Ontario, CA 91761 800.876.1668 x258 626.252.8333 www.optec.com
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner Jim Murphy jmurphy@midwestsignsupplyco.com Mike Dunn mdunn@midwestsignsupplyco.com ______________________________________________________ Mike Valluzzi mvalluzzi@badgerinc.com
ISA 2021-2022 Industry Partner Brian Davis National Accounts Manager, Sign m: 630-945-1157 | bdavis@sloanled.com SloanLED.com ___________________________________________ 2021Sign Design Award Winners - Humorous Sign 1st Place Whatever…Just Wash Your Hands John Johnson, C. Johnson Sign Co.
2021Sign Design Award Winners-Restored or Rehabilitated Existing Sign 1st Place Princess Café All-Right Sign, Inc. Worked with suppliers Our customer, The Princess Café, uncovered an incredible discovery during some revocations, a Vintage hand painted sign from the 1940’s. We carefully moved piece by piece to our shop, created a new design for the replaced window, had new wood specially milled to fit the tongue and groove, replaced damaged wood, updated and touched up the painting, painted the new designed section and reinstalled.
2021Sign Design Award Winners-Restored or Rehabilitated Existing Sign 2nd Place Warner Theatre Poblocki Sign Company, LLC Worked directly with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) to restore the Warner Theatre’s signage to its former glory. Our engineers and designers worked with the customer to flawlessly recreate the historic signs with intricate detail and updated technology. Working with Kahler Slater and MacRostie Historic Advisors, our team spent hours in the city archives searching for old black and white photos of the original theatre. We focused on delivering as accurately as possible details like color, bulb style and spacing as well as the pattern of the stained-glass element. The end result is a spectacular building-mounted blade sign and a new marquee outfitted with state-of-the-art digital displays.
2021Sign Design Award Winners-Restored or Rehabilitated Existing Sign 3rd Place Chicago Records All-Right Sign, Inc Worked with suppliers to revitalize a double face road sign previously advertising a carpet store to a new double-faced road sign for Chicago Records. The sign includes new faces, paint and channel letters with vinyl background to create additional dimension.
2021 Illinois Sign EXPO Success! Hosted at the Tinley Park Convention Center on October 12 and 13th the association saw the largest gathering of sign industry professionals from sign shops to vendors, manufacturers, and allied trades as the industry declared it’s time to build live business connections again! Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner The dinner program began at the conclusion of afternoon Illinois Sign EXPO Happy Hour. The evening’s agenda included the Annual Meeting and Election of Officers, President John Johnson’s State and History of the Industry, a Scholarship Award presentation, the Maury Ely Award, and a special welcome from Conference Planning Committee Chair Tabitha Bowen. The main event was the presentation of the 2021 Sign Design Awards and the “Best of the Best” Mark your calendars for next year’s event We are excited to announce that the Illinois Sign Association will host the 2022 annual event on October 11 & 12th at the Tinley Park Convention Center again … LIVE and in person. Dozens of suppliers, manufacturers, and service providers will be on display at the table top tradeshow with timely, informative breakout learning experiences and outdoor demonstrations. The Annual Meeting and Industry Awards Dinner will feature presentations and connections with the state’s leading sign companies and allied trades on Tuesday evening October 11, 2022. In addition to the annual meeting, the election of officers and the sign design awards will be presented including the best of the best voting. The scholarship awards and the Maury Ely award for outstanding leadership and service will be part of the program. The event is produced by the Illinois Sign Association and sponsored by the allied trades showcasing the region’s best suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and services. Members are reminded to Invite colleagues and installers, designers, and managers to take part in the event. The tradeshow and education experiences will be free to industry members thanks to generous sponsorship of our allied trade members 2021 ISA Board of Directors President Vice President Secretary/Treasurer Past President Directors: JOHN C. JOHNSON JASON TOMPKINS BRANDON BENDER TABITHA BOWEN BARRY COX CHAD ENGSTROM KEVIN LASKA ZAC MARTIN MIKE WEITZ SARA WERKMAN Membership in the ISA Membership is open to all sign companies in the state of Illinois and related trade service businesses in the sign industry. Click here for membership application and more information. ISA Membership Application The Illinois Sign Association was founded in 1969 to elevate and promote the standards and professionalism of the custom electric sign industry in sales, manufacturing, and service. Office@isa-sign.com www.isa-sign.com C. Johnson Sign Co HENRY VAN DE WERKEN Miratec Systems ANDREW CARBY Prairie Signs, Inc. Bendsen Signs & Graphics, Inc. Electro-Matic Products, Inc. All-Right Sign, Inc. Turnroth Sign Optec Displays, Inc. North Shore Sign Altec Industries, Inc. Weitz Sign Company Van Bruggen Signs, Inc.
In case you missed it … President’s Award President John Johnson presented a special award to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Alderman Brendan Riley and Alderman Brian Hopkins for their collaboration in the recently enacted City Council ordinance which reduces a permitting roadblock saving up to 90 days of the approval process. The change will go into effect January 1 Mayor Lori Lightfoot's address to the ISA click here https://www.isa-sign.com/ Alderman Brin Hopkins 2nd Ward (left) and Alderman Brendan Reilly 42nd Ward (right) receive the President’s Award from ISA Executive Director Russ Salzman for their support of the revised Chicago sign permitting ordinance.
Once again, many thanks to ISA’s 2021-2022 Industry Partners! Added thanks to the EXPO Table top exhibitors …. Avery Dennison Indy Imaging, Inc. Matthews Paint UFB Fabrication Identity Group Indy Imaging, Inc. Metomic Corp. Yorston and Associates __________________________________________
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