The design game continues to be an incredible journey for 427 Design.

For those of you who have been Breaking Bread with us from the very beginning, you understand that Building Creative Unions and establishing One Fun House has been the foundation of our business. We have led the Fight Against the Ugliness for eight years, and shared our office space with some Out-of-This-World talent. We think we’ve done a pretty good job at Leaving Our Mark on This Town and it sure isn’t by some stroke of Luck that we’ve made it this far.

Now we’re One-Upping Our Game, yet again, and we invite you to join us at the eighth annual 427 Design Open House on Friday, April 25th at 4:27 pm!

Take a walk with us through the first seven epic Open House celebrations as we look back at all that we have accomplished and look ahead to all that is in store.

RSVP here to start playing!

If you came to our 7th annual Open House on April 26th, you may have noticed a new addition to our office walls: a huge, lighted marquee sign consisting of our name, star logo and a curving arrow (it’s kind of hard not to notice).

When we first picked our Open House theme nearly a year ago (Lucky No. 7/Vegas) we almost immediately decided that we wanted to make a sign. Few things scream “Las Vegas” more than large, lighted signs, but we knew that we’d want something that could not only fit into our theme, but remain in our office for years to come. Our creative director, Justin, volunteered to take on the enormous task of building the sign, and one of our designers, Alexandra, designed it.

Here’s a peek into the process:

Research

Most of our projects begin with extensive research. We had toured the Neon Sign Museum‘s boneyard on a trip to Vegas a few years back, so we started combing through the photos we took there for inspiration. We knew we wanted an arrow — and our logo was a given — but choosing the right typefaces and styles for the “427 Design” part was tricky.

We didn’t want the sign to feel too gimmicky or too themed; we wanted a classic and vintage look that would feel at home in our office.

While Alexandra was busy formulating the design, Justin was researching the construction end of the project. We initially considered making the sign from metal, but we quickly realized that wood was the most feasible option.

We knew we would be using bulbs (instead of neon), and we loved the dimensional quality of the signs with raised sides.

Design

We designed the sign as vector art in Illustrator. We bought strings of simple, clear, round bulbs and measured one — after the final design was agreed upon, we took the same file and plotted out the placement of each light bulb.

Laser-Cutting

With the final plans in hand, Justin enlisted the help of Brad’s son Bryan. Bryan and Justin traveled to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh (their Alma Mater) to use their laser-cutting table. The bases for each section of the sign were cut from MDF, and a hole for each bulb was drilled.

This saved a lot of time and potential headaches, and ensured that our sign was as close to the original design as could be.

Adding Dimension

After the individual pieces were cut out, Justin began adding dimension to each one with strips of masonite. The straight sides were relatively simple: a few nails, some glue and a very precise measuring.

The curves were a different story. In order to get the masonite around the tight curves, he had to notch each strip so it wouldn’t break under the tension. After nailing and gluing the strips, he filled in the notched areas with body filler (thanks USC!) and sanded each one smooth.

If this sounds fun to you, let me introduce you to Justin’s fingerprints, which reappeared recently after being sanded completely smooth.

Faking Metal

Although our sign was made from wood, we were able to mimic the look of the vintage, metal signs by using various painting techniques. After a few coats of primer, the entire sign was sprayed with a metallic silver spray paint.

The individual pieces were then painted with latex paint in their own color. Using a combination of scraping and sanding, Justin then distressed the pieces, paying special attention to the areas that would realistically have received the most wear (edges, around the bulb sockets, etc.).

Adding Bulbs

Turning a string of lights into a lighted marquee sign was no small task. Each bulb had to be removed from its string while the wires were wound around the back of each part of the sign. After the sockets were placed into their corresponding holes, the bulbs were screwed back in, one at a time.

We even used a vintage glass-dying kit to tint some of the bulbs — yellow for the star, and a few random red and blue bulbs to give it a used, vintage look.

Hanging the Sign

After everything was cut, sanded, painted and wired, the sign was ready to be transported from Justin’s shop to the office. We decided that it demanded space of its own, so we cleared off a central wall near our sitting area. Hanging such a large sign was a challenge, but with a few helping hands, a lot of picture hanging wire and a few monkey hooks, we got it up and secure a few days before the Open House.

We’re so incredibly happy with the way the sign turned out. The first time we lit all 209, 5-watt bulbs — for a total of 1045 watts — we were in awe (we might have also melted the first dimmer we attached to it). It’s definitely transformed our space (and maybe our electric bill too) and will surely be the highlight of our office for as long as we’re in this space.

If you weren’t able to make it to the Open House this year, you can read more about what you missed here, or check out our photo album on Facebook. If you’d like to see the sign in person, stop by — we’d love to show it to you!

Friday, April 26th was our seventh annual Open House, and we want to take a moment and thank the more than 200 people that attended. We try every year to top the previous year’s event, and we think we may have succeeded.

We hope you all had fun — maybe you even won a prize — but for those that couldn’t make it here’s what you missed:

The Sign

Our creative director, Justin, devoted weeks of his life leading up to the Open House building this 100% custom marquee sign (process post to come) that now hangs on a central wall in our office. We wanted to create a piece that would tie in to our Vegas theme, yet not look out of place hanging in our office year-round.

If you didn’t get a chance to see the sign in person, stop by and we’ll light it up for you!

The Shirts

A week before the event, we were busy screen printing t-shirts. We designed this year’s shirts based on the “flapper card” men and women ubiquitous on the Vegas streets/sidewalks. We chose the most obnoxious color possible (fluorescent orange) so that guests had no doubts who was a 427 Design team member.

We printed extra for guests to take home, and despite the cautionary words of our intrepid president, Brad Hain (“Who would want to wear a shirt like that?“), we ran out halfway through the night.

The Food

Our delicious, all-you-can-eat buffet was catered by the Diamond Deli — pulled pork sliders, seafood croissants, their famous brownies — and the food went fast!

We also had amazing cupcakes by Cloud Nine Cupcake (a new client of ours) and cut-out cookies for the fifth year in a row by one of our designers, Alexandra.

The Games

At 5pm our office space was transformed into a mini casino, with four blackjack tables, a poker room, four slot machines, a roulette table and fireman’s wheel. There were times when we wondered if we’d be able to pack every one in, but we were able to control the chaos for the most part.

Guests played for chips, that they could exchange for raffle tickets. They then took their raffle tickets and put them into boxes to win any of our seven great prizes.

The Raffle

At the end of the night we drew winning tickets for our seven prizes:

• A night at the Horseshoe Casino and souvenir gift basket
• A poker table and poker set
• Trio of flavored whiskey
• Treat basket and Longhorn Steakhouse gift card
• Stow Massage gift certificate
• Las Vegas-themed movie set and Cinemark Gift Card
• 427 Design poster set

Three of the prizes went home with their rightful owners that night and the other winners have been contacted. Thanks to everyone for playing!

The Canned Goods

This year, the Open House also doubled as a fundraiser for the Akron Canton Regional Food Bank. Guests were encouraged to bring in a canned food item (or several), to receive extra vouchers for the games.  We were blown away by the generosity of our guests, and ended up with a shopping cart full of food.

Of course we couldn’t resist stacking it in a pyramid for a mini photoshoot before it goes to the food bank.

Thanks again to all of our guests, and if we missed you this year, there’s always next year!

This year we’re celebrating our 7th year in business, and the theme of our annual open house is “Lucky No. 7.” We want all of our friends and clients to feel as lucky as we do, so this year’s party will be a little bit different than the past six.

We’ll have four blackjack tables, four slot machines, a roulette wheel, fireman’s wheel and poker table, and everyone gets a $100 voucher, which you can exchange for chips with any of the dealers.

The night will also double as a fundraiser for the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank. Should you wish to purchase more chips, you can do so with any 427 Design team member throughout the night. One dollar or one canned food item will get you an additional ten dollars in chips.

At the end of the night we will exchange chips for raffle tickets ($10 in chips = 1 raffle ticket) and you’ll have the opportunity to win a variety of awesome prizes.

We’ve been super busy these last couple of weeks screen printing (and glittering!) posters and felt postcards and turning the office into Akron’s own little slice of Vegas. We don’t want to spoil all of the surprises, so you’ll have to come on Friday and see what we’ve been up to. Doors open at 4:27 pm, gambling starts at 5pm, ends at 9pm and the prize drawings are at 9:30 pm.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Elvis arrives at 4:27 PM… and so should you!
• Our all-you-can-eat Vegas-style buffet will be catered by Akron’s own Diamond Deli (with cupcakes by Canton’s own Cloud Nine Cupcake).
• Enjoy (responsibly) a variety of beers and cocktails, including a special feature by the Hoppin’ Frog Brewery.
• Don’t forget to bring canned food items or cash to exchange for additional casino chips.

For the full list of the gaming rules, please click here and don’t forget to RSVP. Hope to see you tomorrow!

It’s that time of year again — time for our annual open house, that is. This year our theme is “Showdown at 427” and you’re all invited! If you haven’t been to one of our five previous events, you can catch up on years one, two, three, four and five before you experience no. 6 on April 27th (4/27, GET IT? HUH?). Of course if you’ve been here before that’s no excuse not to attend, and if you’d like to RSVP you can do so by clicking this here link.

We’re already in full-prep mode, screen printing posters, pressing buttons and collecting taxidermy. We even had a custom branding iron made, but you’ll have to wait until 4/27 to see how it gets used.

So put on your boots, saddle your horse and hit the trails (er, Route 8 would be fine too) — we hope to see you there!