Metro Sign & Awning 2013: The Year in Review

What a great year! Despite all the turmoil and difficulties for Boston, the northeastern U.S., and the world at large, we at Metro Sign and Awning have enjoyed the opportunity to meet the year’s challenges, to grow, to serve, and to do our bit to make the world a better place.

Some of our more exciting and successful 2013 projects include:

The Forum Restaurant: After the horrific events of Marathon Monday and the destruction that took place outside one of our valued customers, we did our small part to help them rebuild. Working with Boston Nightlight Ventures and the Back Bay Architectural Commission we put together a plan to reinvigorate the remodeled restaurant that included new awnings and face lit channel letters. It is wonderful to see the resiliency of this business, the employees and all their customers. Boston Strong!

City of Everett: We won the competition to develop a new sign for Everett High School. This gave us the opportunity to collaborate with the Superintendent, the Purchasing Department, and the school’s consultant, David Algiers, in creating an impactful entrance sign highlighted by the high resolution, full color electronic message center (EMC). This sign will inform the community of all the achievements of the student body as well as all the exciting events the school plans. The EMC will no doubt generate buzz for years to come and accentuate the school pride evident throughout Everett.

Waterside Place: Owned by The Drew Company and contracted to Suffolk Construction, this new luxury residential building in Boston gave us a rewarding opportunity to develop a signage concept that fit the residential building’s appearance and brand, while staying within the project’s budget.

Fox Run Mall & Auburn Mall: Owner Simon Properties brought us in for a wide variety of tasks at these malls: sign consulting, fabrication,installation, and even liaising to local Planning Board Members to explain technical details and help get the desired signage approved, including there-brand of exterior building signage, exterior way-finding signage, pylon signs, and interior way-finding sign systems. Metro Sign’s own in-house designer – Susan McGregor – initiated the concept used to re-brand and revitalize the Auburn Mall, successfully increasing traffic! On this project, we also managed permit acquisition, approvals, and planning, as well as fabrication and installation for an exterior roof-mounted sign, freestanding signs,exterior and interior way-finding signs, and the building-mounted main entry ID signs. While these projects will not be completed until 2014, during the past few months we’ve already done extensive work that has been greatly appreciated.

Gordon College and Northeastern University: We assisted in transitioning design intent into effective signage at Northeastern’s Warren Conference Center using HDU carved signage with dimensional lettering to create a fresh, attractive image that also refreshes the brand. At Gordon College, we updated the exterior campus way-finding signs and also enhanced the student center with new awnings and banners, and new branding on the exterior umbrellas used during warmer months. (Ask us about our work on UMASS and Salem State University.)

Daikanyama: The restaurant suffered from signage that wasn’t very visible. Elena Berry and I worked with Peter Darlow of Darlow and Christ Architects to gain Planning Board Approval and a variance to allow roof mounted signage – with illuminated letters in the color of the restaurant, outlined in white to help the letters ‘pop’ – for improved visibility.

We completed many other projects in 2013, of course (see our complete portfolio here), but these were some of the ones we look back on most fondly.

With best wishes for a satisfying 2014.

– Tom Dunn