Rejuvenating a 50 Year Old Sign | Sign Media

Founded in Vancouver in 1998, athletic apparel retailer Lululemon has established itself as one of the city’s most recognizable brands, with annual global sales exceeding $2.5 billion. The company’s first store opened near the corner of Arbutus and West 4th Streets and was situated beside a Midas Auto Service Centre.

When the opportunity to purchase the Midas location arose, it was an easy decision for the team at Lululemon to buy the site and expand its original store to add a new women’s section, while the men’s section remained in the original location.

Keeping history alive

When planning the build, Lululemon wanted to pay homage to the area surrounding the site, as well as to the long-standing Midas Auto Service Centre itself.

The company contacted local specialty sign manufacturer TDH Experiential Fabricators to discuss the feasibility of repurposing the store’s existing pylon sign, which had been installed in 1971, into a Lululemon branded sign, with the goal of keeping enough of the original sign’s shape and structure to ensure it would be recognizable to the local residents. Lululemon had already established a working relationship with TDH through previously completed specialty projects and knew the shop had experience in restorations, replicas, and aged signs.

The Return of Vintage Neon Signs | Novo Magazine

A blonde in a green bathing suit leaps from a motel sign in Mesa, Arizona, splashing down into electric blue water. She’s been diving, over and over, for about 57 years—minus a blip in 2010 when a storm shattered the neon tubes that made her so mesmerizing and her community raised $120,000 (U.S.) to have her glory restored.

The fabrication process behind a neon sign like Mesa’s Diving Lady isn’t intuitive. At first glance, it’s easy to assume such signs are the work of machines—complicated ones sprouting reams of fluorescent glass noodles in some sort of massive, radiant factory somewhere. In fact, neon signs are hand-wrought, the product of patience, artistry, and skill. Each blinking beacon vying for your attention was carefully created by a neon bender who curved fragile, heated glass tubing until it was ready to shine.

If softening glass to optimal pliability over a 900ºC open flame without so much as gloves on sounds difficult and dangerous, it is. Andrew Hibbs, owner of Endeavour Neon, has been accidentally cutting and burning himself in the process for decades. Andrew and his older brother, Troy Hibbs, who runs a signage company called TDH Experiential Fabricators (the siblings often collaborate), began bending neon in their mid-teens. Their father, a bender by trade, had a workshop in the family’s backyard, where the boys would go before school to practise making signs.

City of Vancouver unveils new neon text artwork in False Creek | The Georgia Straight

The City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program and Sustainability Group has just unveiled a new piece of public art at the south edge of False Creek, and it’s both eye-catching and thought-provoking.

Should I Be Worried? is a neon text artwork installed on a disused industrial wooden beam structure produced by local artist Justin Langlois, as part of the City’s first Artist-in-Residence program.

Recreating Sai Woo's Neon Rooster | Sign Media Canada

Story: Peter Saunders, Sign Media Canada
Cover Photo: Ocean Peak Studios

TDH Experiential Fabricators of Surrey, B.C., has recreated the iconic neon rooster sign for Sai Woo, a restaurant in Vancouver’s Chinatown. It joins other historic landmarks that have returned to East Pender.

Salli Paterman, Sai Woo’s owner, launched a KickStarter campaign called ‘Bright Lights, Van City’ to raise the $18,712 necessary to replace the sign. She teamed up with Troy Hibbs, managing partner for TDH, and his brother Andrew, Vancouver’s youngest neon bender, to recreate the design based on a single video frame from footage shot in 1959.