Mark's Guitar Shop, located in Spokane Washington, needed a new sign for their storefront. This particular street in Spokane has quite a few unique signs and buildings, capped with a building at the end looking like a milk bottle. This being the case, we needed to design a sign that really stood out, was creative, and bold.
Please note: the Mark's Guitar logo was not created by me, however it was altered slightly for the sign.
Below is the initial technical drawing I created:
Detail of the tuning-peg element:
I also created 3D renderings to help visualize the concept for the store owner:
I thought adding strings to the guitar would be that special element which ties the whole sign together. We decided steel aircraft cable would be a good stand-in for guitar strings as they both have texture to them.
Since the neck of the guitar was stylized, and not the same width all the way down, I needed to create clear acrylic "string guides" which helped each string follow the shape of the guitar neck.
While originally I wanted to hide these "string guides" underneath the letters of "guitar shop" – I realized leaving them spaced evenly down the neck would make them seem like frets – it was perfect.
A closeup work-in-progress photo which shows the 'string-guides'. Each guide has six routed holes for each string, however the width of each individual string guide is different, allowing the aircraft cable to bend along the neck and follow the varying width of the guitar neck:
The finished, and installed sign:
