2011 Signs of Support Grant Recipient: Boy Scout Troop 318

Press Release: Evansville, Ind., January 30, 2012 – AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama has announced it will donate or discount signage to at least 40 local non profit organizations through its Signs of Support Grant Program.

Through Signs of Support, AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama aims to support local non-profit and charitable organizations through assisting in replacing or creating effective, affordable signage for their cause. This is the third year for AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama’s Annual Signs of Support Grant Program.

AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama will begin accepting applications for the Signs of Support 2013 Grant Program in the Fall of 2012. For more information visit www.SignsOverAmerica.com, visit the showroom located on Evansville’s east side at 1300 N. Royal Avenue (at Vogel) or call us at 812.477.7763.
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Here is the list of the 2012 Signs of Support Grant Recipients:

• American Red Cross Southwestern Indiana
• Ark Crisis Child Care Center
• Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Ohio Valley
• Christ the King
• Covenant Life Ministry
• Evansville African American Museum
• Evansville ARC
• Evansville Area Community of Churches
• Evansville Association for the Blind
• Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra
• First Christian Church
• Girl Scouts of Southwest Indiana
• Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville
• Habitat for Humanity
• Harper PTA
• House of Hope Southwest Indiana
• Junior Achievement of Southwestern Indiana
• Keep Evansville Beautiful
• Mesker Park Zoo / Evansville Zoological Society
• PC Pound Puppies Inc
• Public Education Foundation of Evansville Inc
• Rolling Thunder Inc
• Rotary Club of Evansville
• Smile on Down Syndrome
• Southwestern Indiana Master Gardener Association
• Special Olympics Indiana Vanderburgh County
• Startup Weekend Evansville
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure Evansville- Tri State Affiliate
• SWIRCA & More
• Sycamore Services Evansville
• The Koch Family Children’s Museum of Evansville
• The Literacy Center
• The Make-a-Wish Foundation
• Tri-State Food Bank
• United Caring Shelters
• Vanderburgh County CASA
• Vanderburgh Humane Society
• YMCA of Southwestern Indiana
• Youth First

From the official SIGNARAMA training manual comes this beautiful illustration of top-o-the-line, state-of-the-art computerized sign making equipment.

If I know anything about Jim Tatem, I would bet he was the one behind this bit of sign training cleverness.

The most important sign to learn how to make is...

* Photoshop may have been used on fridge pictures

We started with a heavily used, rather old refrigerator. We added some creativity, a swath of vinyl, a liberal dash of ink, two kinds of lamination, and one amazing graphics installer. The result is something you’d be proud to bring home to mama… especially if she needed a cold glass of milk and leftovers.

Some Creativity

In-house projects like this fridge wrap give us an unconstrained chance to strut our stuff and flex our creative muscles. Oddly enough, when no constraints exist, designer’s block seems to hit the hardest. Have you ever sat at a blank canvas of any sort (Photoshop, word processor or actual physical canvas) and you think, “I could do anything! Where do I start? I wonder what Twitter has to say.” Three hours later you still have a blank canvas. So I decided to treat myself like a customer.

As a customer, here’s my requirements for this project:

1. I want our logo – and make it BIG! (for those of you who don’t get this, click the link to appreciate some tongue-in-cheek design-geek humor)
2. It’s gotta be awesome, fun, quirky and epic… just like us.
3. An idea: open the fridge and take a picture of what’s inside. That could be the front… that would be funny… it’s just an idea.
4. Another idea: instead of food on the inside it could be filled with gold bars like Fort Knox looks like in my imagination, then you could make the outside look like a bank vault door… it’s just an idea.
5. Can you do anything with rhinestones or sequins? Anything shiny?

Fridge Wrap Front

It was then that I realized I make a horrible sign company customer. After this project sat on my desk a few more days and the blank canvas screamed ever louder at me, I had an idea: People oftentimes use their fridge to display things they’re proud of like pics of friends and family, toddler art and other mementos. Let’s have it tell a story! Then just like that, the design started falling together.

When I was brainstorming with a couple of the production guys, they asked if it could be written on. Cool! We’ll make it interactive. Out of that came the idea of the freezer door’s cork board which has dry-erase lamination. I didn’t want people to have unconstrained creativity (that’s a ridiculous concept), so I gave them some creative direction: Haiku, Doodle-this, create a caption.

Vinyl, ink, lamination and a 3M trained graphics installer

Fridge Wrap corkboard closeup

We used the same 3M vinyl that we use for vehicle wraps. Not only because it’s a great product but because Billy, our installer, is newly trained by 3M. I’m still sign-shop-geeking-out about our HP25500 latex printer and how cool it is. I’ll spare you the details, just know that it is a fine machine. For lamination, we used the 3M lamination that partners with the 3M vinyl. Lamination wasn’t strictly necessary in this case because the risk of UV fading is nearly non-existent but the lamination will still protect the graphic from scuffs and will make the surface of the refrigerator cleanable with off-the-shelf cleaning products. On top of the cork board print, we installed dry erase laminate so we could doodle all day.

Extreme Makeover disclaimer

No, Ty Pennington and his merry band of do-gooders at ABC had nothing to do with this project. If you’d like more info about the Extreme Makeover branded shows check out ABC’s website. The ‘Fridge Edition’ logo is merely an homage and tribute to the good done for folks who need it.

Gone are the days where your marketing plan could consist of dropping $10,000 for a year in the Yellow Pages while you sit back and listen to the phone ring. Options for how to spend your marketing dollars and time have exploded in the past 5 years. You can actually spend more money on free marketing now than you spent 10 years ago in the Yellow Pages⁽¹⁾.

Cleverness is the new big

So what does this mean for you in 2012? Small business owners, marketing directors and anybody touching the vast spidery tendrils of marketing will need to be more savvy and knowledgeable in using the marketing time and dollars allocated to you. Throwing more money at an ad to get a bigger spot is no longer acceptable. Cutting through the marketing hype and cleverly using the tools at your disposal is the way of 2012. This ability to wisely choose what to do will put you one more step ahead of your competition.

Three marketing ideas to get excited about this year:

1. Vehicle Wraps – Some compelling reasons exist for us including this on our list, and not just because we wrap a lot of cars and trucks. Compared to radio, TV and billboards, car and truck wraps are ridiculously inexpensive. Roughly $3,000 will get a wrap on a decent sized vehicle like a small box truck or a minivan.⁽²⁾ When was the last time you spent only $3K on a billboard, and how long did that last? Also, vehicle wraps grab your attention. The vehicle could be in a parking lot or driving down the road and people will turn to look. I love driving in one of our wrapped vehicles and watching drivers and passengers mouth the words ‘Sign-A-Rama’ as they read what’s on our wrap.
2. Social Media Marketing – Fragmentation. That is going to be the name of the game in 2012. Social Media fragmentation. I won’t be so bold as predicting the fall of Facebook or the toppling of Twitter, but I will say that knowing where your customers are and being consistent in reaching them will be crucial in the effectiveness of whichever platform(s) you choose.
3. Face-to-face – Yep, get out of the office, meet at your favorite coffee house, tea house, ice cream shop or pub, and take an active interest in someone else’s business. When you are with this person, don’t take out your cell phone (unless you’re showing baby pics). Show that person they are valuable by refusing to be distracted by your phone.

Your turn

What will you do in 2012? Will you do the same things you’ve done in the past? Will you try something new? A little mix of both? Let me know in the comments.

Blizzard, the Evansville Icemen mascot, looks on approvingly as the wrapped Zamboni sweeps the ice

This isn’t just your typical Zamboni wrap. There is something deliciously ironic about a smoothie-wrapped Zamboni (Zambonis are typically filled with the slushy shavings that are the byproduct of cleaning and sweeping the ice). Especially when said Zamboni has a custom built straw! Oh, it gets better… you suck a smoothie out of a straw, right? This straw is stuck on with suction. See what I did there? So you have your smoothie-wrapped Zamboni with a suctioned straw for emphasis. Love it!

The Zamboni’s custom shape and fiberglass and steel construction make it a perfect fit for our 3M trained graphics installer, Billy Collins.

For more about the Evansville Icemen and to book tickets for their upcoming games, check out evansvilleicemen.com. Need your vehicle wrapped? We can wrap just about any vehicle you can throw at us… Zambonis included. Give us a call at 812-477-7763, or Request a Quote.

Design ideas

If you don’t have your own design team, use ours! Our designers love helping companies look their best.

More information about Tabletop Banner Stands

You can see more information about our tabletop banner stands at: Breeze Retractable Tabletop Banner Stand and Vort-X Mini Tabletop Banner Stand

You can find out more about Evansville Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden by visiting their website: www.meskerparkzoo.com

Click the links to find out more about our laser engraving services or request a quote.

Santa Walter at the Annual Chamber of Commerce Open House

About Where’s Walter

The Where’s Walter series highlights the mysterious activities of the owner of AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama in Evansville Indiana. See all of the Where’s Walter posts.

Sign-A-Rama Chili Cook-off Poster

Rules:

1. 1 Winner – Best Chili.
2. Chili must contain meat.
3. Chili must be tomato based.
4. Chili must be prepared by a Sign-A-Rama employee or an immediate household member.
5. Chili will be judged by outside judges.
6. Make enough to go ‘round.
7. Make it awesome.

We’ll keep you posted on the competition and will announce the winner here. Warning: if we don’t answer the phone for a couple hours that Thursday, just know that we are contentedly feasting on a variety of home-cooked chili.

Walter accepting Make-A-Wish's Signs of Support Grant Application

Today is the final day we are accepting applications for our annual Signs of Support Grants. Many of our Sign-A-Rama team volunteer at various organizations but as a company, the Signs of Support Grants are how we give back to this community. Thank you for all of your hard work in the Evansville area.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” – James 1:27

About Where’s Walter

The Where’s Walter series highlights the mysterious activities of the owner of AmeriStamp Sign-A-Rama in Evansville Indiana. See all of the Where’s Walter posts.