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This year's Sign Invitational contest proved to be magical.
The annual Sign Invitational competition invites sign makers to submit proposals of dimensional signs following a certain theme for entry, with the best-of-thebest selected to participate ("Quite a Contraption," July 2016).
Since this year's contest was going to be held in Las Vegas, event organizers- James Dawson, owner/creative director of Synergy Sign & Graphics in Strasburg, Ohio, and Dan Sawatzky, owner of Imagination Corporation in Chilliwack, British Columbia-decided "magic" would be the ideal theme (think David Copperfield and Criss Angel).
Each creation had to fit inside a specific build envelope (24 inches longby-24 inches wide-by-72 inches tall) and be built in two sections-the sign sculpture and the shipping crate base beneath it. Each sign had to have the words "sign" and/or "magic" integrated in it in some fashion.
There was no limitation to tools or substrates used. Motion was prohibited in last year's entries, however that restriction was waived this year. Electric/battery power could even be integrated into the creation-which led to some amazing entries!
In addition to sculptures from Dawson and Sawatzky, other pieces included Peter Sawatzky (Imagination Corporation); Doug Haffher (Haffner's Fantastic Creations of Wyoming, Illinois); Aubrey Gealsha (Synergy Sign & Graphics); Douglas Hancock (Sign Pro in Alachua, Florida); and Janey Freid (Atlas Signs and Plaques of Lake Mills, Wisconsin).
Like last year, the event was held in the MultiCam USA booth at ISA International Sign Expo. (Note: MultiCam USA, Coastal Enterprises, SAi EnRoute, and Laird Plastics were some of this year's sponsors.)
After more than 900 votes were cast by show attendees, only twenty-five votes differentiated First and Second Place.
First Place: Magic Train-Dan Sawatzky. As the contest approached, Sawatzky thought about his early days in the industry painting historical murals.
"I often heard people marveling how these giant images seemed to come right off the walls, even though they were flat," he explains. "I used every trick in the book to make that illusion of dimension through perspective happen through my work. It is real 'magic.'"
Many...