Personalised Laser Engraving
We have put together a new page where you can build your own signs and have some fun trying out different fonts and borders. Have a little look here and play around with the different options. You don’t have to have your house name, it could be a garden or shed sign, personalised car parking or a plaque to commemorate a meaningful date. How did we get into this line of work? Read on MacDuff.
It was 2019 and Hugo had just been commissioned to create this stunning walnut and beech jewellery box for the wife of a good friend, commemorating her time at Mississippi State University. Hugo initially carved the University logo onto a piece of beech wood for the top but the embossed banner over the ‘M’ just wasn’t working. It needed to be crisp and legible. We found someone locally who could laser engrave the logo from a digital file. That was where the slippery slope of laser engraving started. We were hooked and wanted to know how much more this thing could do.
We bought one and started playing around with ideas. We made coasters with quotes on them but soon started running up against intellectual property laws. A lot of our favourite quotes and literary references come from contemporary films and literature and not much of it was public domain. Coasters are surprisingly time consuming to make, they require a lot of sanding and finishing and ultimately the profit margins were too low to make them a viable product at that stage. We still make these for our friends, so if you are reading this and know us, you might just be getting some for Christmas.
Hugo tested the laser out with a slate engraving somewhat reminiscent of the Bramley Hedge illustrations, one of my favourite childhood books and pretty much my go-to home decorating inspo. I have modelled our kitchen and dining room on the store stump, it is stuffed to the gunnels with preserving pans, jars of delicacies, drying herbs and garden produce. If you pop round you’ll likely be given a twist of sugared violets and a pea shooter for your birthday.
Next we explored working with original art, our own and that of friends. Some worked better than others of course. This drawing of a crab claw by our talented friend Jack worked really well. This is an avenue we are developing for our own pleasure and to have cool stuff for our home.
The thing people kept coming back to us for was welcome signs and house signs. These days taking delivery of a parcel seems to come down to whichever door on the street has the largest cat flap or has been left momentarily ajar. We started to experiment with hardwearing outdoor varnishes to find something that would withstand the persistent Cornish drizzle.
We decided that it would come down to offering a choice of fonts that covered most occasions without being overwhelming. We love a good font here at Langhouse. Hugo became wedged, like Pooh Bear, in a rabbit hole of researching the history of typefaces. I came to his rescue and suggested we should offer four, initially, but like monkey butlers, we would get more.
Similarly, I got very excited about thinking of famous addresses to use as examples and Hugo had to coax me back from the edge of obscurity to Toad Hall and some references that other people might actually get.
Three simple steps to build your sign.
1) Select the style options from the drop down menus. This will generate an example of the font.
2) Add it to your basket.
3) Tell us what you would like on your plaque.
We will design your sign and email you to check it’s all correct before we make it.
Have a go here