Lova Salon Sign
CNC-carved white oak sign for a Madison salon storefront.
The Brief
Lydia has been cutting my hair for over a decade, and I’ve followed her around from studio to studio. When she opened her own spot, Lova, on Madison’s east side, she mentioned she was looking to make her shop more noticible from the street. Turning her cozy shop from a non-descript storefront into something that would be recognized as a creative salon was
Material & Design
There was already a great wordmark for the salon- Lydia sent that to me, and I was able to quickly mock up some options.
After we had settled on white oak for its excellent oudoor weather resistance and prominent grain, we got to work visualiing the sign in the space to dial in size.
Carving
With the design approved, it was time to start building! The Shaper Origin excels at this kind of work, and is very conducive to my workflow starting with CAD.
Load the file in, and after a few roughing passes and a finish pass, the letters were carved. Rinse and repeat for the ouside ellipse shape.
Finishing
To make the letters really pop on the black background above the salon’s window, we decided to stain the relief of the letters black. I’ve had excellent luck with dying white oak black with india ink - the open grain absorbs it beautifully.
Since this is Madison, after all, we needed excellent moisture repellance. 5-6 coats of General Finishes outdoor rated Poly should keep this sign looking fresh for a while.
Last up was mounting the sign to some marine-grade HDPE spacers that would have it sit ~50mm proud from the backer, a nice extra touch.
Installation - Surprise!
When I first went to install the sign, I had it perfectly centered, and went to drive a few screws into the wood where it would mount. Only to discover that this “wood” was actually plate glass painted black! I had to pivot to a solution that wouldn’t dramatically change the aesthetic but was flexible and relatively non-destructive if/when future tenents moved in. We settled on bolting a black painted piece of plywood directly to the plate glass window, and mounting the sign to that. Armed with a diamond hole saw and the sheet of plywood, our second try went like a charm, and the salon is really looking inviting from the outside!
