Starr Studios Sustainable Signmaking
USGBC Chapter Member: Inland Empire

We use only sustainable practices in our sign making while maintaining the highest standards of quality craftsmanship. We use low VOC paints that exceed the rigorous upcoming CALGreen regulations and offer a variety of sustainable sign substrates including no-formaldehyde wood composite panels as well as bamboo panels, traditional ply-woods and a variety of reclaimed wooden planks and windows.

We are in the process of eliminating PVC vinyl products from our services by January of 2011. The majority of our work is hand painted signs on wood using sustainable panels and low VOC paints. We work hard to minimize waste at each stage of our process and recycle where possible thus creating a fraction of the waste that other sign shops produce.

Our passion is in making hand-crafted artisan signs. We work closely with small business owners, graphic and interior designers and large corporations to meet their project needs. We constantly strive to provide you with the perfect mix of creativity, craftsmanship, and technology.

Our work has been featured on the Discovery Channel, NBC Television, The Food Network, the 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2009 International Tour of the band Gogol Bordello, as well as industry publications such as Digital Output Magazine and This Old House.

We are family owned and operated, bonded and insured and have been making custom signs for over 20 years. We ship our custom signs to our customers all over the United States from our studio located in beautiful Big Bear Lake, California.

Our Sustainable Sign Processes:

Our Low VOC hand painted signs offer versatility and a custom appearance that cannot be achieved with computer printed graphics. We can paint on to a variety of interior and exterior surfaces as well as glass, or manufacture a new wooden sign for your business. Whether it's a storefront window, or your company vehicle, hand painted lettering can capture attention while communicating your company's personality.

For over 2 decades we have worked with a large variety of paints and surfaces to create multiple custom painted effects. By restoring your existing signage, we can give your existing sign a new lease on life and keep it out of a landfill. We can also fix minor cracks and blemishes to restore your sign like new, as well as produce stunning murals, airbrushed graphics, faux finishes and hand painted pinstriping using our low VOC paints.

We use dozens of techniques and methods to create stunning effects that can transform a brand new sign project into a work of art that looks and feels authentically aged. We have developed and refined several proprietary processes that give consistent results that look genuine and realistically aged.

One of the most effective ways to communicate with people walking or driving past your storefront is with the use of well designed storefront graphics. Storefront Graphics allow you to set a mood for your building on the inside as well as the outside while communicating to potential customers about who you are and what you do. Using hand painting we can transform your space into something unique and special without the environmentally unfriendly waste of PVC vinyl based products.

Because the graphics are painted on the interior glass, they are protected from vandalism and although durable for many many years, painted graphics are removable. When your lease is up, we can return and remove them completely.

Draw new foot traffic into your store with an effective, custom designed wooden A-Board sign (aka Sandwich Board Signs). We have the ability to create something one of a kind and unique that will really set your storefront apart from the rest.

We provide a variety of gold and metal leafing and gilding techniques from 23 karat gold leaf to imitation gold leaf, silver leaf and copper leaf. We also offer the very rare process of Dynamite Gilding using a wide variety of mica powders that provide amazing results.

We can make period accurate, authentic sign reproductions from just about any source. Whether its a sign from an old movie or television series, or just something you have old photographs of, we can hand paint, gold leaf or create a custom shaped one of a kind showpiece to match.

Sustainable Graphic Design

We provide a variety of Sustainable Graphic Design services to our clients, and have been designing print and digital media for over 10 years. We also create electronic media, like PDF downloads, Digital Brochures and SEO (Search Engine Optimized) websites that allow our clients to communicate and market their businesses while limiting the amount of printed materials they use.

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What is Sustainable Design?

Sustainable design (also called environmental design, environmentally sustainable design, environmentally conscious design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and
ecological sustainability. The intention of sustainable design is to "eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design". Manifestations of sustainable design require no non-renewable resources, impact the environment minimally, and relate people with the natural environment. Applications of this philosophy range from the microcosm — small objects for everyday use, through to the macrocosm — buildings, cities, and the earth's physical surface. It is a philosophy that can be applied in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, urban planning, engineering, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, and fashion design.

Sustainable design is mostly a general reaction to global environmental crises, the rapid growth of economic activity and human population, depletion of natural resources, damage to ecosystems, and loss of biodiversity. The limits of sustainable design are reducing.

Whole earth impacts are beginning to be considered because growth in goods and services is consistently outpacing gains in efficiency. As a result, the net effect of sustainable design to date has been to simply improve the efficiency of rapidly increasing impacts.

Click Here to learn more about Sustainable Design on Wikipedia