Signs of the Times - July 2017 - 37

design, permitting and installation
of a range of products, including
monuments, entrances, streetscapes
and dimensional signs. "We excel
at creating larger exterior signage
and lighted signs," said Jacob Wolfe,
ASG's owner, "especially in blurring
the line between synthetic and real
materials."
As clients across the nation are
becoming more budget-conscious
and material-savvy, many sign companies are turning to synthetics -
in this case, foam - in combination
with brick-and-mortar materials, to
create less expensive, lower maintenance, longer lasting designs.
When the Town of Tyrone contacted
ASG to produce two municipal
monument signs identifying the
north and south city limits as a DOT
project, it required levels of clearance
beyond the norm from the municipality and its engineers, including
site location, material selection and
crash-impact requirements. Thankfully, not only does using foam save
money and maintenance time, it's
impact resistant and carries a higher
safety rating than standard masonry.
It's why more towns and cities are
beginning to demand it, Wolfe noted.
After completing the design, ASG
turned to longtime partner, Custom
Foam Fabricators in Fayetteville, GA,
to produce the main structure and
exterior of the piece - an elegant 14
x 3 x 6-ft. synthetic foam monument
sign with a urethane hard coat and
spray-stucco finish, hand painted
and hand carved to resemble real
brick and stone.
Back at ASG, logo circles were
custom v-carved in-house on a

ShopBot CNC Router Table from
0.5-in.-thick, solid acrylic, and painted
custom metallic gold and bronze using
polyurethane custom-mixed paint.
The main sign panel, establishing
the town's founding in 1911, was a
router-cut, 0.125-in. solid aluminum
plate painted bronze with polyurethane
paint, while the raised gold lettering
was waterjet cut 0.25-in. aluminum
with an anodized gold finish.
Installed on a 6-in.-deep concrete
footer with breakaway aluminum
poles and expandable foam per DOT
requirements, the main sign panel
was installed using 2-in.-diameter
aluminum round standoffs, painted
gold to match the letters. Loctite
Threadlocker was then applied to the
standoffs to deter vandalism. Not only
is the Town of Tyrone prominently

displaying ASG's monument sign as
the hero image on every page of their
website, but The City of Fairburn,
which is just a few miles away, asked
for permission to duplicate the design
for their own city limit signs.
"We're now fabricating three
similar monument signs and will be
installing them shortly," said Wolfe.
AWARD-WINNING DESIGN
When developer Siepmann Reality
Corporation (Waukesha, WI) wanted
to create three monument signs to
mark the entrances and exits for
Windrush, a prominent rolling hills
subdivision in lake country just
west of Milwaukee, they knew they
needed to hire someone special, a
sign company that could bridge the
divide between the subdivision's
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