Ridgetop Estates Real Estate Billboard located on Route 17 near Chester, NY

BIGGER IS BETTER! That generally rings true in marketing, of all the large scale pieces of collateral available to marketers perhaps the biggest is a billboard. Therefore, it’s always great to have the opportunity to work on such a project.

The Ridgetop Estates billboard sited along Route 17 in Chester, New York was created in the summer of 2010. The production of this billboard was comprised of numerous components. First there needed to be a professional photo taken of the model home. Therefore, a favorite photographer was sent to the site. Prior to the actual shoot the location was scouted relentlessly to determine what the best time of day was to capture the perfect light. Unsurprisingly it turned out to be about an hour before sunset. The photographer utilized a medium format camera to ensure there would be proper resolution for the final grand format print. The chosen chrome was sent out to be drum scanned for a digital file.Once the digital file was returned, it was retouched a bit. The grass, driveway and sky were altered to better fit the final composition layout.

The layout in this case required some serious political maneuvering on the part of the art director. You see, the developer wanted to list many of the home’s features along with their logo and phone number in addition to the real estate brokerage’s. It took quite a bit of convincing when working with all of the parties involved that listing the home’s features would be too much information for a billboard. The typical convention of billboard design mandates that the audience only has approximately 5-10 seconds to read all of the information before they have driven past.

After much gnashing of teeth, the internal and external clients were convinced to limit the design to one phone number and eliminate the home’s features and only list the price and location. In a perfect world the phone number would have been large across the grass below the home, but having convinced everyone to limit the contact information to one line some compromise was required. Compromise was also required to allow both the broker and developer’s logos on the billboard.

Upon approval of the final design the files were sent off to the billboard owner’s preferred vendor for grand format print production and installation.

The Meridian Signage for a condominium real estate new development located in Suffern, NY.

Suffern, New York is a really wonderful place to live and work. Its main thoroughfare Lafayette Avenue is reminiscent of the scenery in a Norman Rockwell illustration. The Village of Suffern is known for the historic and beautifully restored Lafayette movie theater which is complete with its own working Wurlitzer organ used during the screening of vintage silent films. For this Graphic Designer, though, the town’s main marquee is the sign near the condominium building known as The Meridian.

This sign was a fun project to work on because the campaign was built from the ground up. Meaning, the development’s logo and entire marketing campaign needed to be designed from scratch. The name “Meridian” conjured nautical imagery based on its association with navigation. Therefore the logo design incorporated a compass rose as the mark. You can see this and other logo design samples in the corresponding portfolio section of this website, by clicking here.

The sign’s design is fairly simple. The primary element is the logo set over a burgundy background, which was the main color in the Meridian’s graphic design system.  Meanwhile the, only supporting color utilized is the Meridian’s cream color. This allows the contact information and Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty logo to stand out clearly in black. The only other design elements in the sign are a few of the condominium’s features and the address.

Because the Meridian sign was intended for only temporary use as a marketing piece, little thought was put into its shape or the materials it was produced with. Instead, size was the sign’s key importance. The sign was created using a four color grand format UV print mounted to a 10 foot by 5 foot sheet of Alumalite and installed on two painted 4×4 posts.

For those unfamiliar with materials Alumalite is a composite substrate consisting of an interior corrugated plastic core sandwiched between two sheets of aluminum. This material is ideal for promoting real estate new development projects because of its durability, lightweight and relative low cost. Its lifespan is not as long as other materials, but for use in real estate marketing it lasts for the duration of most marketing campaigns. The largest size sheet of Alumalite available is 10 foot by 5 foot. Although this size would be too small for readability on the side of an interstate, in a small town like Suffern, it really is quite large.

For Graphic Designers and Art Directors, one of the most validating things in life is to walk past one’s own work. Living in Suffern, this Art Director has the opportunity to walk past a labor of love on a regular basis. It’s rough being a practitioner of the disposable arts, though. As the Meridian Development has almost completely sold out (a good sign for a successful campaign) this sign will be dismantled sooner than I like to think.

Mountain Lake Estates signage for a real estate new development on County Rd. 21 in Wallkill, New York

It is always so exciting when you unexpectedly run into one of your old designs on the street. While driving some back roads through Orange County, New York  to go to the Shawangunks this morning for a hike, I stumbled upon a project I worked on in the fall of 2010. It was some signage for the real estate new development, Mountain Lake Estates, near Newburgh, NY.

I remember being disappointed with the outcome of the project because there were many changes made that I didn’t really think were improvements to my initial design comps. However, I was surprised to see that the actual sign came out a lot better than I expected it to. It actually really stood out on the road.

The stone wall graphic on this signage was  drawn by hand, scanned in on a flatbed scanner, and then Autotraced in Adobe Illustrator. The Mountain Lake Estate’s sign layout as a whole was also created in Adobe Illustrator.  The sign was created as a  6 foot by 4 foot grand format print mounted to allumalite and installed on 4×4 posts. I kind of wish the installer had cut the posts down a little bit. I guess I’ll have to call them about that on Monday.