Sunday, January 30, 2011

Signage at the Veterinary Hospital


Recently, I was asked to do some signage at a local animal hospital ( for our personal veterinarian). They have two waiting areas. One area is specifically reserved for cat clients and one area for dog clients. There was some informal signage, but nothing that was really visible.

At first my plan was to free style paint directly on the walls. I thought about stencils but wanted something a bit more original. There was a small dilemma for me while I was planning out the spacing and direction of the wording. Thinking ahead, what would the clinic do when they decided to repaint the walls? If I painted directly on the walls then the painters would have to paint around my lettering. That made my proposed lettering perhaps not a permanent fixture in the clinic.

So, I went to a local craft store to check out options. I found some raised lettering which was perfect. The lettering could be nailed on the walls so it could be removed if and when the clinic decided to repaint the walls themselves. The letters I chose were painted white. It made sense to leave the sides of the lettering white so if the painters were to repaint the walls, they would not need to worry about getting the white paint of the walls on the sides of the lettering.

I sponged the faces of the lettering with brown acrylic mural paint. Then, on the larger letters, I free hand painted paw prints. The clinic manager was very happy with the out come.
The photos show the lettering on my floor before painting, after painting and then being mounted on the walls in the clinic. It was raining today and mounting the letters in the clinic was a perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday.

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