Category Archives: Blog

Views probably don’t come any more iconic that the ones enjoyed by our client’s latest venture in rooftop restaurants and bars…

Location. Location. Location. So goes the legend about priorities when looking for property, whatever its purpose. The sentiment behind that is written large in one of our client’s latest ventures. It answers to the name of Kitty Hawk, it overlooks some of London’s most famous landmarks, Trafalgar Square among them, and it can justly claim to be one of the capital’s most anticipated new rooftop bars and restaurants.

Being in the same room with our client ETM when plans are afoot for a new venture is an energising experience. They know their business down to the tiniest little detail, they know what makes a hospitality-centred venue tick and work, and they’re possessed of boundless imagination and creativity. That makes for a great conversation when Voodoo connects.

Their newest venture is Kitty Hawk. It’s a rooftop bar and restaurant overlooking Trafalgar Square and its surrounds. It’s been made into a wonderful place to be whether you’re looking for a convivial drink or a world-class dining experience. The atmospheric highlights are spot-on and it lives up to all of its positive billings and great reviews.

Voodoo’s part in the exercise that delivered Kitty Hawk has its highlights too. We were handed what amounts to an empty space above the streets of London, a blank slate from which to summon an identity, and the benefit of a few great creative brainstorming meetings.

As is our way, we set-to with a very broad brush and developed a mood board with place-holders in situ until we could engage with the design of a logo and other brand elements. Sometimes, things just go well. The place-holders got a really enthusiastic reception from our client and we were just asked to refine them. That’s not something that happens often but it did give birth to a great looking restaurant brand in this instance. There’s some typographer’s tricks going on in the tight assembly of lettering but, other than that, it’s a minimalist’s dream, quietly radiating quality without barking its own credentials in brazen self-promotion.

The logo became some exquisite fascia signage in our Bristol workshop. Looking totally in character in its revered surroundings but embodying use of modern materials and techniques. The theme carries itself to the interior with a discrete scattering of identity continuations, crisply defined and laser-cut, all making their contribution to the ambient branding.

We used cut and applied etch-effect films on some of the available glazed surfaces noting that difference between that and basic chemical or blast etching is indistinguishable these days. We did some very nice work on a glazed balustrade too with a motif in printed detail upon an ultra clear applied film that just vanishes into the glass.

We’re happy. Our client is happy. Kitty Hawk is now a London landmark within which lots of great experiences are going to happen. ETM has a streak of real genius when it comes to raising a building to a new purpose. We’re nothing less than delighted that we’ve had the opportunity to help.

Voodoo DesignWorks delivers characterful branding to a notable Bristol landmark…

As anyone familiar with North Bristol will know, the lower reaches of the A38 Gloucester Road as it finds its way toward Bristol City Centre, is home to lots of businesses, primarily shops, most with their own brand to promote. Rather than reflecting the complexion of retail more generally in the UK, with all-too-familiar brands and businesses dominating, the Gloucester Road rewards with what you might call ‘good finds,’ unexpected gems among the scribble of local colour that keeps people coming back.

The Gloucester Road used to be a carriageway for most of the traffic headed to and from Bristol before newer Motorways sucked all the activity away. Look along the A38 today Gloucester Road today, and the roadside architecture is punctuated with a building or two of some merit, befitting a time when the A38 was one of the region’s main conduits.

One such building of some vintage is Bristol North Baths. As might be inferred from the name, the building was once home to a swimming pool serving the good people of North Bristol. The building itself is Grade II listed reflecting its importance and its Edwardian influences. It didn’t in fact open as a pool when the last brick was laid after construction began in 1915. The very attractive building was instead home to a facility making aircraft wings. Purpose then served, the building was handed back to the council in 1919 and opened as a pool in 1922.

The new pool was unheated and though people were said to be made of tougher stuff ‘back in the day,’ few customers wanted to take the waters in winter. Problem solved. During winter, the pool had a deck laid over it, and the ‘Baths became a dance hall. The ‘Baths has also seen service as a Police Station, and it raised its head in an episode of Only Fools and Horses.

Bristol North Baths today, still answers to the name but it now houses some of Bristol’s most attractive and desirable office space. You would have never known it to look at the building though which is why we got a call to help give the ‘Baths an identity that would make the new purpose on its continuing journey more apparent.

Here at the Voodoo DesignWorks we take our customers’ needs very seriously but on this occasion we all had to be minded that we were being asked to interfere with a listed local treasure. We saw our job in terms of obligation toward a business needing to promote itself, and both reflecting and respecting local heritage. Our customer saw it in those terms too and so it felt like a partnership advancing as we proposed our ideas.

A detailed inventory of all we did at BNB wouldn’t speak to the quality of the job overall. It’s a story rooted though in picking up on design cues from the building itself, the heritage it has embraced, and its forward-looking purpose. As things stand now, with Voodoo having worked its ways, Bristol North Baths clearly has a new story to tell when the familiar landmark is observed.

While Voodoo DesignWorks plays centre-stage in the role of a signmaker, we’re a designer of no small repute too. We went right back to DNA-level brand development before even venturing a sign-design for BNB. We designed and produced a detailed brand-bible that re-tasked elements of BNB prior identity and bought it forward in a form that all agreed didn’t require any mental gymnastics to process. The impression our primary logo makes is immediate, it’s legible, and it registers as its own man in terms of originality. Our colourways really sing and the whole work unites to present a cohesive, well managed brand that’s used like the valuable asset we’ve made it.

Our brand bible informed all our works from that point. We designed and built a very impressive sign structure that’s now out front and is visible from lots of high-traffic vantage points up and down the busy A38. The sign is entirely original, that’s to say it’s not based on a component system. It’s fabricated from the raw elements it comprises and its cube-like proportions counterpoint the architecture that’s its host while giving the BNB brand an attractive and legible position on the building. And on the road.

We made liberal use of digital print around the entrance which gives the office emphatic ownership of the building but does so without harming or moving a brick that defines the frontage. It sits there making a big, orange splash, recessed into the iconic arch that countless thousands of swimmers would have walked through in times past. ‘Bristol North Baths’ still radiates from the stonework above our knockout graphics.

Inside, the space is beautiful. We take our hats off to the people who designed and fitted the building to make it fit for its new purpose. For our part, we supplied numerous identity continuations and graphics reflecting the ‘Baths’ origins and worked in a little conspicuity manifestation for the extensive glazed surfaces.

So, that’s how a treasured and listed building finds its future. It takes a sensitive new owner with a real sense of mission and connection with the bricks and the story behind them, and the work of some talented designers you’ll find just up the A38 at the Voodoo DesignWorks. Drop in and say hello if you’re passing. We’d be delighted to discuss your project and our client at BNB would be happy to discuss your office space needs too.

If you know you want a sign, but that’s about as far as your knowledge extends, read on. We can help you get what you want and make the whole process a lot simpler…

All sorts of people and all sorts of businesses want all sorts of signs for all sorts of reasons. Signs being what they are, the chances are remote that many are actually identical to each other. It’s the basic individuality of signs, and the numbers of ways it’s possible to make them, that results in sign buying and briefing sign makers appearing to be a far from simple undertaking.

This article will help anybody who is buying signs, whether for the first time for a start-up business, or for a longer established enterprise, to make sense of the process and to help themselves by understanding what makes for an effective briefing process.

Signage serves one of a number of fundamental purposes. Some signs inform, some direct, still others may advertise or promote the interests of the business or of a brand. Generally speaking, all signs, regardless of their area of application, need to be legible, attractive in their context, and suitably durable so that they last for the time required in whatever environment they find themselves.

Among the most popular and frequently seen types of sign is the so-called fascia sign or shopfront sign. Shopfront signs are typically mounted so as to span the available space above the windows and doors comprising the frontage of a retail business, a restaurant, or some other enterprise that needs to promote itself.

The would-be buyer of the shopfront sign has a number of decisions to make up front before seriously engaging with the design process or other parts of the journey that will ultimately deliver the signage that’s needed. The biggest decisions, perhaps driven by budget, revolve around whether the sign needs to be illuminated, and if so by what means, or non-illuminated.

Illuminated signs for shopfronts typically occupy what might be called the premium pricing bracket. However, the cost of the sign is driven by materials and the complexity that underpins its construction, rather than simply providing it with a means of illumination. Put another way, illuminated signs can, on occasions, actually cost less than non-illuminated variants.

A good place to start in specifying such a sign is with an idea that can be articulated as to what the sign might look like. A new business that’s just starting up may have a logo locked away somewhere in its proprietor’s mind and nowhere else. In such circumstances sign companies should have articulate and creative people who are able to work in such a circumstance and commit individuals’ sparks of ideas to paper. When engaging a sign company therefore, it pays to work with one that has signage design expertise aboard and is not simply a manufacturer.

A good sign company will listen to ideas communicated in an abstract sense and try to distil them to a physical visual that can be put in front of the would-be buyer, so confirming that the design is it least on nodding acquaintance with what the potential customer desires. Another advantage of working with a signmaker that has design capability, is that any design that is proposed will be practical to produce at reasonable cost.

Once a sign design is on the table for debate, broader analysis can be made as to the types of material, the size of the finished sign, and any other features or construction techniques that the sign may embody. 

Signmakers have a huge range of materials to choose from. Wooden signs for example can be made from the very material itself or from something that closely simulates it. Perspex signage and letters comprise a great many fabricated business signs and are to be found doing a great job in the wider world.

Plastics and wood are by no means the whole gamut of materials that a modern sign company can work with. Metal lettering in combinations with plastics in constructions such as rimless lettering, or rim and return designs are also available. Signmakers with a capability that encompasses precision cutting and assembly can make signs with push through letters which look very attractive.

Any sign company worth its salt should be able to show prospective customers these and other types of lettering and constructions, explain how they work and what aspects they embody that might recommend them. They should also give the prospective customer an idea of cost in the context of his or her own project.

Given that the subject can be quite complex and the amount of choice available daunting, the Voodoo DesignWorks has created a system for connecting customers to a source of expertise within the company called Voodoo Connect.

The system allows the prospective customer to sit down at a computer and to see a live streamed presentation which can be discussed in real time with an expert. The presentation revolves around real props which can be explained in detail and effectively puts the sign shop right there in front of the customer. The quality is extremely high and the presenter can’t see the prospective customer.

It’s easy to make an appointment to use the service, simply a matter of clicking a link which reveals our experts’ diaries, and choosing a date that suits. Once you’ve spoken to an expert in this situation, you’ll find briefing the project much easier and you’ll leave the online meeting with an idea of costs, timing, and what the signage might actually look like.

As we’ve established, Signs come in all shapes and sizes just, like the applications they serve. It follows then that briefing a sign company is something of a moving feast. We like to pride ourselves here at the Voodoo DesignWorks, that we welcome briefs and expressions of interest at the most primitive of stages. Even if you know nothing about Signs and how they are constructed, and only have a flicker of idea as to what you want, a conversation with us would be a productive one.

Similarly, highly developed briefs describing highly inventive signs will often meet with blank looks from the other sides of the tables some sign companies. We would like to think that we represent the polar opposite. No matter how outrageous your idea, you’ll find us engaged and very eager to help you turn your imaginings into practical reality.

In short then, briefing a sign company is a matter of describing what you want accurately and very well if you’re engaging a company that’s simply interested in making things. On the other hand, consider coming to The Voodoo DesignWorks with nothing more developed than a scintilla of direction or a spark of an idea. We will help you very quickly unravel the complexities that stand between you and getting the sign you want. That’s our business.

It doesn’t cost anything at all to bring your brief for discussion to The Voodoo DesignWorks. We also think you’ll be delighted to hear the prices that get signs manufactured and delivered here too. If you represent a large brand that knows signs inside out and backwards, we welcome your call too. We have some deeply creative talent under our roof and we know how to manage huge projects down to the tiniest detail.

If you need to brief a sign manufacturer. Brief Voodoo.

Great quality never costs as much as it saves. Find out more about low-cost signs from VOODOO…

What does it cost to put a sign above a shop front? If you put that question to a large sample of people, you could expect a very wide range of answers. Some people look at an illuminated sign on a shopfront and see a structure they knowingly estimate as costing many thousands of pounds. Others might argue that the very same structure would cost less than one thousand to design, manufacture and install.

The whole question of whether a sign offers value would meet with an equally wide-ranging view. Some can see a continuing return which would justify the cost of a sign that may last a decade or more. Others take a more short-term view and that can distort an appreciation of what actually represents a good investment.

Then there’s the more practical consideration – the budget. Whether the signage represents great value or whether it doesn’t, if the budget simply isn’t there to pay for it, it really wouldn’t matter what version of ‘value’ a sign delivered.

There is one thing everybody agrees though. It’s a pointless exercise installing a sign if it doesn’t reflect the quality of the business it promotes or if it simply doesn’t perform or get noticed.

So does buying what some people might refer to as a ‘cheap shop sign’ for example need to compromise on the signs performance? It comes as a surprise to many to learn that it is possible to produce inexpensive shopfront signs that work hard and promote the business well. What it takes is intelligent design and a deep understanding of the materials available and their performance.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive business sign, the experience of buying it will be less frustrating if you realise, upfront, that a low-cost sign is not going to be made from high cost materials. Be reassured though, if the sign you buy is properly constructed, the only people who know it was made at low cost will be you, and the signmaker you buy it from.

So, how would Voodoo DesignWorks make a low-cost sign for a shop or a restaurant? We begin by considering whether print could effectively substitute for the use of more expensive dimensional materials such as acrylic, metal, or wood. In many cases it can.

A printed fascia sign for example can be mounted upon a relatively inexpensive rigid sheet material which is in turn mounted to the shop fascia. Some additional finishing steps would be necessary, for example, provisioning a frame bordering the mounted sheet and the installation of a lighting system.

Turning to the printed elements of and a low-cost fascia sign first. Regardless of the cost, exterior affordable signage, is expected to last. We would begin by specifying a print receptive substrate material that is proven in extreme exterior applications. There are many to choose from.

And we tend to stick with what we know works, because that’s what delivers the best printed results. The material we would specify is typically self-adhesive so that it can be adhered to the sign’s panel work. Before it’s mounted the printed element of the sign would be laminated. The lamination it’s crystal clear and it protects the print from the wind and weather and in particular from the damaging effects of the UV light that’s all around us.

Digital print can deliver surprisingly convincing renderings of popular materials that are used in sign making. A good example would be wood. Natural timber, as a backing for a shopfront sign, has become very popular in recent years as businesses and brands tried to project warm and wholesome values. Real wood has a price attached to it though.

A printed ‘wooden’ background passes any amount of scrutiny at the typical distances shopfront signs are seen from, and many even pass the touch test. It may take years for an attractive patina to develop with exposed natural timber, but we can achieve the effect from day one with digital print.

With a digitally printed ‘wooden’ background for your low-cost restaurant sign, you get an amazing range of choices. If you want something that looks like limed oak, the answer is yes. You get to choose how old do you want it to look, and even the colour of the paint that underlies the lime effect. If you prefer something that looks like it’s made from pallet wood, that’s no problem either. And if you want it scorched with the brand to make it look like it’s been up-cycled from south American cocoa packaging, we can do that too.

There are some very useful rigid sheet materials around that we can use to produce the dimension of elements of a timber backed shopfront sign. In particular, we are into foamed materials that have some recycled content in them. They cut and machine effortlessly, and from 10 feet away you have a job telling what the material is.

Foamed sheets come in a range of stock colours. Really ugly colours as it happens. Not to worry – we can clad the sign elements we make from these materials with ultra durable exterior grade applied films in practically any colour your heart desires. The result will be wonderful.

You might not think that ‘low cost’ and ‘illuminated sign’ have any business being in the same sentence. Think again. We have our ways, and we have our means, of providing low-cost signage with the source of energy efficient illumination. It won’t be Vegas style extravaganza in theatrically controlled colour, but it will light up at night and it will stand out from the signs that surround it.

We can make a relatively small budget go quite a long way. You can help. Some simple signage that we can provide doesn’t require attention of an expert to install it. We don’t consider our installation costs to be expensive, but if we don’t have to send two men and a custom-built sign installation van to your site that’s a bit of money we can leave on the table.

We tend to do things very well at Voodoo and we’ve worked for some of the biggest names and brands on the High Street. Looking so capable and well-connected confers the impression that we don’t welcome calls from businesses that are just finding their feet. Let’s reassure you – we are as proud of the low cost signage that we make for businesses that are just starting up, as we are of the major engineering effort that produces some of the country’s biggest signs.

We would love to discuss your project. In fact we make it very easy to have a conversation. You can speak to our Tom Williams live and online. It it might not cost as much as you think to have a beautifully designed and expertly made sign from Voodoo. And a conversation exploring the subject with us costs nothing at all.

The welcome is warm. The coffee is hot. Let’s have a chat.