YESCO Wins Industry’s Top Sign Design Awards
2009—Denver, Colorado
Herm Medina, YESCO Denver’s art director, was recently informed that his design for the new Argonaut Wine & Liquor store sign has won the industry’s most coveted national awards.
The honors include “Best of Show” and “1st Place – Commercial Electric Category” in the International Sign Association’s 2009 Sign Design Competition, as well as “1st Place” in the Sign of the Times 2009 International Sign Contest in the electric building signs category.
Denise Miller, communications manager of the International Sign Association (ISA) told Medina, “The judges were impressed with the high quality of signs this year and felt that your design was the overall best in show because of the difficulty of fabrication of the sign, the clarity of its message, and it elegantly incorporates an EMC into a traditional form of signage.”
Medina is quick to point out that the accolades are shared. “I’m extremely happy about this,” he said, “but without the help of everybody here at YESCO it wouldn’t have happened. From Rick Bellefeuille, the project’s account executive, to project manager Mick Bodah and installation manager Bill Ferguson, this was a real team effort.”
Pointing to the client’s role in the process, Medina explained, “Projects like this occur not only because we create exceptional designs and build outstanding signs at YESCO, but also because we have customers who have great visions for what they want. It takes a customer with a lot of vision to make something like this happen.”
In this case, the customer was Hampton Partners, owners of Argonaut Wine & Liquor. “They were integral to this project,” claimed Medina.
The sign – a 15.5-foot-high recreation of a bottle of fine wine, complete with popped cork and fizzing liquid – is a three-dimensional fiberglass-over-metal-frame structure with a stunning metallic finish, including gold-leafing around the bottle’s mouth. It is embellished with illuminated letters and fiber-optic accents.
The iconic display enhances the Argonaut’s new, two-story brick building on East Colfax Avenue, which comprises part of a revitalization effort within Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. In addition to garnering awards, it has already attracted significant attention, starting with what has been described as “a media circus” during the installation process. When YESCO installation expert Chad Mikalson emerged from the Argonaut’s newly attached bottle after making final electrical connections, The Denver Post captured the moment in a photo and featured it, together with an article about the new store, on the front page of its business section. Plus, the sign’s award-winning design will be featured in the Sign Awards issue of Signs of the Times magazine.
With the Argonaut display, Herm created a landmark sign design for a landmark business in Denver,” stated Mike Freeborg, sales manager and assistant division manager of YESCO Denver. “It's great to see his hard work pay off with these richly deserved recognitions.”
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