In great measure

From BlackWhite magazine - issue 03, in the can

Sign Foundry hand-paints a larger-than-life logo for an iconic brand.

Whittaker’s has long been a household favourite; the family-owned business has been making chocolate since 1896. Their operation had been based in Porirua for more than a century, and its location on the Wellington flight path spurred an idea to turn the sprawling flat roofed building into one massive canvas. Sign Foundry was called in to sort out how to make it a reality.

Though technology has greatly changed the methods and capabilities of sign making over the years, their team still includes skilled craftsman capable of creating hand-painted signage.

“Large-scale signage like this is few and far between,” says Duncan Rourke, General Manager and co-founder of Sign Foundry. “While the team are qualified sign makers, this project required out-of-the-box thinking. We sat around a table and put forward some ideas, and while we might not have done it the way others would have tackled it, the process worked for us and the results were great!”

From concept to completion, it took over 1000 man hours to complete the immense logo. Aside from the commercial cleaners who prepared the surface, all of the setup, prep and painting was completed by Sign Foundry’s in-house team. A whopping 480 sheets of 2400mm x 1200mm corflute needed to be cut, which was carefully templated across the roof. At 25m tall and 75m wide, it takes up a total area of 1875m². By comparison, the famous Hollywood sign in California is 1460m².

“Since the logo is script with no real block letters, templating took some major work,” says Duncan. “It is long run roofing, so that required painting the up-rights and returns which significantly added to the quantity of paint. There is also a 1.5m drop part way through the roof along with fans and other obstructions that had to be dealt with.”

It took 16 litres of primer to mark the outlines and 140 litres of Resene Lumbersider to complete the two coloured topcoats, which was tinted to appropriately chocolately Resene Brown Pod. “We use Resene for a lot of projects, even to create the look of rust or other cool effects, but this was one-of-a-kind.”

“The finished product looks amazing, however, you need to pretty much be in space to truly appreciate the scale,” laughs Duncan.

To others interested in incorporating painted signage in their projects, he recommends having the company installing it involved from the getgo and to pick your timing wisely. “Be prepared for events outside of your control, like weather, or make plans to limit the effect.”

› To see more of Sign Foundry’s work, visit www.signfoundry.co.nz.

BlackWhite magazine

This is a magazine created for the industry, by the industry and with the industry – and a publication like this is only possible because of New Zealand and Australia's remarkably talented and loyal Resene specifiers and users.

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