Exemplifying Educational Excellence, Inside and Out

Multifaceted Signage Suite for John Cooper School's New Rock Math & Science Center

In August 2016, the John Cooper School in The Woodlands, Texas, opened the doors of its new state-of-the-art Rock Math & Science Center. Designed to spark and cultivate students’ interests in STEM activity, the three-story building houses 56,000 square feet of classrooms and laboratories as well as a rooftop garden and the impressive 135-seat Ramirez Lecture Hall.

Creating a brand experience that fosters pride

As the School’s newest building, the Center needed signage that exemplified modernity, innovation, attention to detail, and precision to not only match the brand of the School but to also set the foundation for future funding and donor attention.

This is crucial for the livelihood of private educational schools. The John Cooper School brings in funding from donors to help meet its mission of providing a challenging education in a caring environment to a diverse group of select students. New buildings, the latest in educational tools and processes, and hiring top educators are all funded in part from donations. Campus facilities are named after donors, and multiple plaques around the campus commemorate donor activity and giving.

Showcasing stand-out quality, consistently

Although the architect supplied initial exterior sign concepts, no interior signage was specified, and the exterior concept could be improved. The John Cooper School trusted us at Saifee Signs to deliver a comprehensive signage suite that represents and reflects the John Cooper School’s high standards of excellence—inside and out. We got to work on meeting this goal.

Collaborating, designing, and fabricating under one roof

Many companies do only design, or only production—but Saifee Signs is different. We provide design, production, and installation—a complete turnkey project which makes a project like this very easy for a school’s administration.

Getting to work...

After consulting with the School on its goals, we designed two options for exterior and interior signage to enable the School to choose the best fit for its budget, timetable, and future projects. For the Center’s exterior signage, the School chose handsome cast aluminum letters with a brushed effect because it offered durability that would maintain quality and attractiveness for many years—even in Houston’s tough climate.

Once the scope was finalized, our in-house teams collaborated under the same roof to design, fabricate, and deliver the package in about 45 days. Because we offer these services as one point of contact, we minimize back-and-forth and eliminate the miscommunication that can threaten a project’s timeline and budget. Finally, we installed all of the signs for the School.

Expanding the project across the campus

The John Cooper School was so pleased with our consultative approach for design, craftsmanship, product quality, and timely delivery that additional signage projects were planned, engineered, and finalized.

We worked to cultivate pieces that matched the Rock Art & Science Center’s new signage while preserving and complementing the campus’s existing design elements. As a result, the School now has a harmonious, complete signage scheme across its full campus, solidifying its identity as a premier educational institution worthy and deserving of donor attention.

Background

The Ensemble Theatre is one of Houston's finest historical cultural institutions. In early 2016, the organization realized that despite the growth in communities all around midtown, their membership was not benefiting from that growth. At that point the Ensemble's board and staff realized they had to advertise their services to attract bigger audiences.

Research showed that updating the signage was the most cost effective solution for the theater so visitors to the Midtown Houston Cultural District were able to locate the building with ease in the midst of all the surrounding development in the district. In response, The Ensemble Theatre applied for grants and received $100K from various art foundations including the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Arts Respond Cultural District Project.

Solution

Once the funds were in, The Ensemble Theatre started looking for a skilled creative partner that could both design and build the signage for them. After looking at design proposals from architectural design and sign companies in Houston, they chose Saifee Signs & Graphics as their partner based on the creativity of their design solution and close coordination with the City of Houston and the members of the Theatre Board to deliver their dream project.

The Saifee Signs team assembled a plan to upgrade the dated signage, along with adding new lighted signs for improved night identification and changing the surface paint color for added contrast to the signs. The signs were manufactured & installed on time and on budget.

After this revitalization project was completed in August 2016, The Ensemble Theatre has seen a marked enthusiasm amongst their regular theatre patrons as well as a growing interest from neighboring cultural institutions and new communities around them. The Theatre is now well identified from all sides and can't be missed by anyone passing by at day or night.

Sam Houston State University Signage, Huntsville TX

How Saifee Signs helped a general contractor complete SHSU exterior building and interior signage on-time and on-budget

Background

In 2011, Saifee Signs was contacted by Pepper Lawson Construction (now Ferrovial - Webber) to bid on a large acrylic logo and a lifesize silhouette of Sam Houston for the interior lobby of SHSU's new Residence Office. The project manager was looking for a sign company that could produce the entire logo and Sam Houston's silhouette from one pieceof acrylic, without any seams.

At the same time, the project manager was not happy with the sign vendors he had previously worked with on other projects. He was looking for a dependable sign company that could deliver the project on time and wouldn't hold him hostage once the project was awarded.

Solution

We understood the project manager's concern and worked with Pepper Lawson Construction and Kirksey to meet the project's timeline. Many details were missing in the initial drawings, like the exact sign types, installation heights, materials, thicknesses, finishes, quantities, etc., that we identified and resolved with the GC and the Architect to ensure the project was not on hold due to missing information.

Finally, after some weekend work and late shifts, the project was completed on time. The result was a beautiful sign project, as seen in the pictures. Please click here to learn more about our work with other educational brands.

Background

Gulf Pacific is one of our longstanding clients in the industrial sector. Over the years we have installed several exterior and interior signs for them and the quality of our work and customer service has brought them back to us every time they have a new signs project. Soon after we had installed three custom-designed signs on their rice mill with a highly visible highway (US 290) frontage Gulf Pacific called us with a new request.

Project Goals

To further promote its business Gulf Pacific wanted to implement a new, very large sign in addition to the existing three signs (Harris County allows a maximum of five signs per premise). Gulf Pacific wanted the sign to be:

• consistent with the brand (i.e., harmonious with the existing signs in terms of materials, color, design)
• clean, crisp, and borderless
• high-quality, durable, and cost-effective

Saifee Signs Approach

Based on the project goals, Saifee Signs presented Gulf Pacific with several options. After consultations we agreed on 30' by 20' sized pan sign with:

• attention to detail to ensure we did not use visible fasteners that would spoil the clean look
• thick (not standard grade) aluminum as the material of choice for its strength and ability to stand up to extreme weather

Next we were faced with installation that presented its own challenges. The sign was to be affixed on the side of the mill that has a railway line to carry the rice product. This side of the mill also happens to be on the windward side. Then, it being summer, we were faced with unpredictable weather with frequent rainstorms.

Owing to these conditions, we worked closely with the client to schedule the installation in sections so as to

• not disrupt the mill’s rail cart operations
• minimize wind pressure during installation
• avoid days with a high chance of weather development
• custom color matching to match the brand and existing signage