My name is Mike, and ever since I was small, I have loved making celebratory signs. I was always the kid with the 'welcome home' or 'happy birthday' sign at my house, and as soon as my parents bought our first computer, I started making signs using software programming. I followed that path later in life and have helped many friends design their signs. I love special occasion signs in particular. If you own a business, are planning a party, or have a special event coming up, please explore this space. It has everything you ever wanted to know about signs and hopefully more!
A good sign draws attention to your business, helps customers remember your name, and leaves a pleasing impression on the eye. But a great sign can surpass all of those requirements and become a lasting work of art. Some of the world's most famous advertising signs have even survived beyond the things they originally advertised to become landmarks in their own right.
The Hollywood sign
Standing on the slopes of Mount Lee over the Los Angeles suburb of Hollywood, the Hollywood sign is one of the most famous symbols of America's west coast. For people around the world, it's a symbol of the glitz and glamour of America's movie industry. Erected in the 1920s, the sign was intended to advertise a real estate development. It originally read "Hollywoodland," but the last four letters were removed in 1949 when the city of Hollywood took over maintenance of the sign. Today, the sign is a symbol of the city while the original housing development is no more than a footnote.
The Moulin Rouge windmill
Founded in 1889, Paris' famous Moulin Rouge cabaret is marked out by the tall red windmill that stands above its entrance ("Moulin Rouge" is French for "red mill"). As famous for the Bohemian crowd who frequented it in the 19th and early 20th centuries as for its dance venues, the theatre is now a cultural landmark, with its famous mill an indispensable part of the Paris skyline.
Las Vegas
Nevada's Sin City is famous for its garish, energy-guzzling advertising displays, which make the desert city's nights nearly as bright as day. But the most famous of all its signs is a charmingly retro sign reading "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada." Designed in 1959, it perfectly represents the style of postwar America. The sign proved so popular that replicas have been erected closer to the Las Vegas strip itself so that more tourists can enjoy its design.
The Coke sign
The Coca-Cola billboard in Sydney's Kings Cross district, usually just called "the Coke sign," was an ordinary lit billboard that somehow became a community landmark and symbol of civic pride. When the sign was closed down in 2015 to be replaced by a new, more energy-efficient sign, the pieces were auctioned off, raising more than $100,000 for charity. The new LED sign, opened in 2016, lacks the original's history but has taken its own place in the record books as the largest controllable LED sign in the Southern Hemisphere.
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