Surf Dis­trict Gate­way Sig­nage: Cre­at­ing an Icon While Min­i­miz­ing Risk

Zach Sto­ry, Project Man­ag­er at Lat­i­tude, raised con­cerns about fab­ri­ca­tion and instal­la­tion with the orig­i­nal design. From here, the project team worked to come up with solu­tions and alter­na­tive plans to present to the client.

Rec­om­men­da­tions included:

• Refin­ing the logo into a more fab­ri­ca­tion-friend­ly mark that stayed true to the Surf Dis­trict brand.

• Replac­ing the steel plate with a cus­tom, shal­low alu­minum cab­i­net that is just one inch deep.

• Design­ing for ser­vice­abil­i­ty, allow­ing all wiring to be com­plet­ed in the shop pri­or to installation

Once the client signed on to these alter­ations, the result was a much lighter struc­ture that could be installed with a boom truck instead of a crane, reduc­ing road clo­sures, improv­ing safe­ty, and sim­pli­fy­ing future main­te­nance. To fur­ther man­age risk and logis­tics, the cab­i­net and logo were fab­ri­cat­ed in four sec­tions, ful­ly pre-wired, and deliv­ered with pri­ma­ry ele­ments already attached.

Instal­la­tion didn’t hap­pen under ide­al con­di­tions — and that’s where the redesign paid off.

Weath­er and traf­fic lim­i­ta­tions short­ened the ini­tial instal­la­tion win­dow, allow­ing only the main cab­i­net to be set up on the first trip. Thanks to the reduced weight and sim­pli­fied mount­ing strat­e­gy, that phase was com­plet­ed smooth­ly and efficiently.

On a fol­low-up vis­it, the install crew affixed 14” let­ters onto the struc­tur­al steel beam that stretch­es over the road, cre­at­ing a gate­way to the Surf Dis­trict. The team planned ahead for cold-weath­er drilling, which was exe­cut­ed flawlessly. 

Win­ter added one more curve­ball when snow and ice entered an uncov­ered access pan­el, freez­ing the con­duit, which tem­porar­i­ly pre­vent­ed illu­mi­na­tion. Lat­i­tude coor­di­nat­ed close­ly with the gen­er­al con­trac­tor on a return vis­it to thaw the con­duit and com­plete final con­nec­tions so the sign could be ful­ly illuminated.

The best signs are built on col­lab­o­ra­tion, fore­sight, and real-world expe­ri­ence. The Surf Dis­trict gate­way sign deliv­ers the visu­al impact the City of Clear Lake envi­sioned while proac­tive­ly solv­ing the prob­lems the orig­i­nal vision posed.

By design­ing with fab­ri­ca­tion, instal­la­tion, and future main­te­nance in mind, we were able to:

• Reduce instal­la­tion and main­te­nance risk
• Improve long-term serviceability
• Pre­serve design intent with­out compromise
• Keep sched­ules and logis­tics manageable

The fin­ished sign now stands as a vibrant, icon­ic wel­come to Clear Lake’s Surf District. 

Have ques­tions about this project or fac­ing chal­lenges on your project? Let’s con­nect ear­ly and reduce that risk.