Willow Craftsman Address Plaque

The Willow Font makes this address plaque really special to homes styled around the Arts and Crafts Movement

Willow Font

We named our Willow Craftsman Address Plaque after the Willow Font that is used. The Willow Typeface is the work of Dave Fabik and only dates from 1995. Willow preserves the vintage Craftsman Style look of the more famous, and much older, Rennie Mackintosh font. but retains its own character and and adds little extra punch. Fabik’s Willow Font seems more legible to many. We think the readability of the Willow Font is due to its bolder profile and slightly more conventional numbers.

Rennie Mackintosh for Stickley Address Plaques

Although the Rennie Mackintosh Typeface is actually a period design, the numbers have been criticized as being so stylized that they are hard to read at a distance. While we very much like the uniqueness of Mackintosh, we agree that the tight curls of some of the numbers can be a bit confusing when read quickly. The similarities between the 2 and the 9 seem to cause most of the readability issues and can be an issue with address numbers that need to be read from a distance.

As a final note, it might be coincidental, but the willow leaf form was often used by one of the founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris. All-in-all, the Willow is most appropriate for your Craftsman Style Building.

Rising To The Bait

This is No Fish Story

The talented designers at America’s favorite place for plaques, Atlas Signs and Plaques have done it again! Rising to the occasion with another new and unique Address Plaque. This time, a fish, most specifically, a Salmon leaps over your address numbers showering your home or cottage with a look that you won’t find anywhere else.

Our Salmon Address Plaque takes the fish off the hook and places it at your door, post, or gate.

Ranging from the Pacific to the Atlantic, the mighty Salmon has been honored in folklore, and relished for both food and sport, and now it is available as home adornment. From Alaska to Ireland and back to the Great Lakes, what a way to add some flair to the homestead. Even city slickers can make a splash with this piece of art.

The 8-step-process applies real metal to a durable HDU base giving your Atlas sign or plaque the ageless beauty of real cast metal without the weight, cost, or limitations of castings. Atlas Signs and Plaques will not rust, rot, fade, or promote insects and are suitable for exterior applications.

Handcrafted in the USA using American Materials and Labor.

Who Doesn’t like to be acknowledged?

Atlas Signs and Plaques was recently featured at Copper.org in their November ’10, Issue #43.

“The Copper Development Association Inc. is the market development, engineering and information services arm of the copper industry, chartered to enhance and expand markets for copper and its alloys in North America.” They are a terrific resource for and about all things copper.

Each monthly issue of their online newsletter carries articles as diverse as using copper in historical renovations to artisans utilizing the properties of copper in ways that are beautiful, thoughtful, and beyond even six thousand years of history.

After cruising the site, I picked up more information than I knew existed about copper.

Did you know that copper has been used by man for over 6,000 years? or that copper has antimicrobial properties that make it a natural for health care facilities as a prevention for hospital acquired infection? These are just the surface of the information available at Copper.org.

You can also find the world-wide standards for copper alloys, download data on copper tubing, become informed on the green properties of copper, and even find experiments and information for kids. This is one of the most informative websites I have seen, and the fact that it is about one of our favorite metals here at Atlas makes it even better.

Ornaments by Atlas Signs

Ready made! IN STOCK. Ready to ship…I know weird huh? I thought it would be fun to do something that I want to do more than what the client wants. I only hope they / you want what we make. But check us out we are selling these on Etsy and Keeping Atlas Signs and Plaques  limited to the signage and plaques we make. Other cool things coming soon too…all this and more at our new store Atlas Space and Place!

And a plethora of font choices from Atlas Signs and Plaques

We love our fonts. The ability to use any font that has ever come out of the great typeface designers is just one of the the things that sets Atlas Signs and Plaques apart from traditional foundry-cast. Even the names are interesting, ranging from Mona Lisa, to Footlight, to Bala Cynwyd, to Eccentric, to Eaglefeather, to the ever popular and recognizable Helvetica, and many more. The great architects and designer names are here as well, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carol Twombly, Max Miedinger, Rennie Mackintosh, Frederick Goudy, Richard Neutra. and others that are not household names,  but that you see daily as you read or drive. Many of these designers have defined entire companies, eras, and even countries with their font designs. For a little more about fonts go to another of our brilliant blog posts, Do Fonts Talk?

How to choose? We have made it easy in most cases by appropriately pairing fonts with plaques that are designed to fit buildings from a specific era or style. A few examples are the use of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Eaglefeather Font on our FLW Plaque, the Broadway Font with our Art Deco Address Plaque, the period Rennie Mackintosh Font with our Stickley Plaques, the Trajan Font with a heritage dating to Roman Times on our Rockdale Station Plaque (think Atlas Shrugged), and the Arts and Crafts Font on our American Craftsman Address Plaque.

Whew! Too many examples to list, but the fonts often set the tone and define the period for your plaque. Fonts are the finishing touch, and we think, are just as important as the message. Fonts are like the language, the dialect, or the regional accent and make the end result fitting, believable, and appropriate.

The final choice is yours, so we are making most of our font library available for you to preview. Click here for your font choices. When you order or have a request for a custom plaque, use the name of the font you would like us to use. It will help us to get going in the right direction, and get you the plaque that looks the way you want it.