Made in SW Fla.: Sign maker weathers crisis

Erik Sine · January 5, 2009

Work force of about 40 can handle creative design, the really big jobs

BY LAURA RUANE • lruane@news-press.com • January 4, 2009

Jon Messick, a glass bender for Images Graphic Specialties, bends

a piece of glass that will be used in a sign for a client. (Andrew West/news-press.com)

There's more to sign making than immediately meets the eye.

Phil Lotti, administrator for the Florida Heart Associates, discovered this when ordering for his medical practice's new building that opened in November in Cape Coral.

Sure, sign makers must follow applicable city or county rules for signs, "but you really need people who can think outside of the box," according to Lotti.

He said he found such creative people at Images Graphic Specialties Inc., a Fort Myers-based manufacturer of signs since 1988.

Besides making the customary outdoor signs, the company took on Lotti's challenge to craft a three-dimensional version of the company logo - a heart with pipe-like embellishments - that, as Lotti put it, would "float" over a paneled wall behind the reception desk.

Amy Gauthier, an employee of Images Graphic Specialties puts Braille

beads into signs. (Andrew West/news-press.com)

Said Lotti: "It turned out beautiful. My logo looks like a sculpture."

Signs simple and complex are produced by an ensemble cast of skilled trades people at Images Graphic, a state-certified electrical sign contractor and an Underwriters Laboratories-listed sign manufacturer located at 3730 Canal St.

The work force of about 40 includes designers, people who program and direct machines to trace, cut and/or emboss letters, welders, painters, assemblers, installers and more. They handle a wide range of projects including interior signs that are readable by the visually impaired, store signs and shopping mall directories, large, freestanding signs and multi-location projects such as bank signs.

Messick bends a piece of neon glass. Neon is used more as a sign

embellishment than the main attraction, since government codes

seek to avoid a Las Vegas look. (Andrew West/news-press.com)

Twenty years ago, "we were doing smaller, interior signs and graphics. Over time we graduated to doing the big jobs," said John Hose, company president and CEO. The privately owned firm serves mainly Southwest Florida, but frequently has projects under way throughout the southern half of the state.

Two big jobs recently completed in south Fort Myers are an 88-foot-long metal sign over the entrance to Lakes Regional Park and a 15-by-by-24-foot pylon sign that will alert passers-by to tenants of The Village Shoppes at HealthPark, which is currently under development at Summerlin and Bass roads south of Fort Myers.

Neon-lighted letters spell out "The Village Shoppes," while the commercial center's logo and HealthPark designation are plastic sign elements illuminated by fluorescent lighting.

Neon is used more as a sign embellishment than as the main attractions these days. That's mainly because government building codes want to avoid a "Las Vegas look," said Ric Roberts, company art director.

Jon Messick, a glass bender for Images Graphic Specialties, bends a

piece of neon glass that will be used in a sign for a client.

(Andrew West/news-press.com)

Still, visitors to the manufacturing plant tend to linger in the room where Jon Messick bends glass tubes over an open flame to form sign letters or graphic images that will be filled with neon or argon gas.

Applying high electrical voltage to metal electrodes at both ends of the glass tubes makes the gas glow brightly.

Elsewhere in the plant, workers employ several high-tech tools, including laser cutters and large-format plotter-printers, to create signs out of vinyl and plastic.

Sign prices range from about $1,500 to $100,000 or more. The average job? "About $15,000 to $20,000," Hose said.

The company, which moved into its own 34,000-square-foot building in June, didn't feel the downturn that befell the region's construction and real estate industries in 2007.

By 2008, "things tapered off a bit. ... We're doing a lot more bidding and proposal-writing to get the same amount of business," Hose said, adding:

"Those big, really custom jobs are fewer and far between now."

One final sign of more frugal times: In the first quarter of this year, the company aims to introduce on its Web site a new line of customizable standard products. These, Hose believes, will deliver quality with the lower prices some customers require.