Don't you love it when a great customer brings you a project you can get really wrapped up in? Something you can grab hold of and really sew up tight? A project that is unique and creative and uses all of your skills and resources is really what makes this business interesting – and keeps it challenging (dare I say, even fun?)

That’s how I felt when Corporate Sign Systems got a request for pricing the signs for Building 6 at Google’s Tech Corners buildings in Sunnyvale, California. As I pored over the plans to count up signs for the takeoff, I came across a picture illustrating a type of sign I had never seen before. Reading the description, I could see that they wanted something unusual; the Google logo created with string mounted directly on the wall. This would be a rare opportunity to make a piece of sculptural sign art.

Even more amazing was that this project had serendipitously landed on my desk. Not only have I been making signs since 1983, but I am also a fiber artist, creating hand-embroidered interpretations of well-known artworks, album covers and original compositions since 1988. (You can see all of my work at www.mardeenart.com, or find my Embroidistry page on Facebook). There may not be another sign maker anywhere with that particular skill set, and I just happen to be the estimator working on this bid for Corporate Sign Systems.

So we set to work figuring out how these Google string logos would be made. There would be two of them mounted overhead on either side of the breezeway on the ground floor of Building 6, one blue and one red. They would be about 4 feet by 13 feet, with the string arranged in a grid pattern around the Google letters, creating the logo in negative space. The architect had provided photos of floor level numbers that had been created in a similar fashion, and looking closely at them I could tell that they had actually been done with embroidery floss. Now, that is something that I am intimately familiar with.

First, we had to come up with an estimate of the time required to design and develop the concept, the materials involved, and the labor to produce them. Since none of us at Corporate Signs had ever created anything like this before, it took some brainstorming to figure out options that would be feasible and within budget.

It would be much more efficient to fabricate the signs in our shop, where we could use the router to drill all of the holes into material that we knew would be stable enough to hold the pegs against the tension of the strings. However, it was clear that the design was intended to appear as an integral part of the walls, with no visible edge to the panel. Somehow, the finished pieces would have to be inset into the wall and match the color and texture perfectly, so that the seam could be filled and painted to blend in.

It was also difficult to imagine how the grid lines surrounding the negative space of the letters could be kept perfectly straight and even. It would be much easier to create the grid pattern on one level, and then create the letters in front of it with white string to match the wall. This clearly was not what the designer had in mind, but it must be considered as an alternative.

Finally, we settled on a proposal offering a range of options from the two-level design or the negative space design fabricated in our shop to the negative space design installed entirely on site. We submitted the proposal along with the rest of the building signage, and waited for the response. We were very happy when the contractor and architect's representatives asked to set up a meeting to view a prototype of our proposed design.

That first prototype showed how the two level design would look on clear acrylic.  

If the concept was acceptable, it would be the simplest (and least costly) solution to produce. Everyone liked the look of it, but finally agreed that it wasn't true to the vision that they had in mind. They really wanted the logo created in negative space directly on the wall. We tossed around some ideas of creating very thin aluminum panels with beveled edges to minimize the visibility of the border, or panels inset into the wall with an intentional reveal, but these were ultimately rejected as well.

It also became clear that the strings needed to be thicker than embroidery floss, since they would be viewed from at least ten feet away. So we went back to the drawing board to figure out how to mount thousands of pegs precisely straight and string hundreds of yards of yarn while standing on a lift twelve feet in the air.

The peg challenge was solved by choosing 8-32 x 1.25” stainless steel socket cap screws and threaded  inserts to receive them. The inserts needed material denser than drywall to hold them securely, so the contractor agreed to place MDO board in the sign areas. The string needed to be thicker than floss but still thin enough to knot easily and wrap around the pegs without getting too bulky, and it must be available in a wide range of colors. Wool yarn turned out to be the best choice, since it would not stretch and sag like synthetic yarn.

I used the pattern created for the first prototype and placed pegs at each point where the grid intersected the letter forms. The yarn would have to be a continuous strand to avoid tying thousands of knots, so it would create an outline around the letters and a border line across the top and bottom of the background. The path of the yarn would have to be carefully planned, so that no lines would be double strands. The second prototype gave us a pretty good idea how long it would take it create the finished signs.

(Caption: The second prototype stayed true to the designer’s vision, creating the letters in negative space, with the yarn strung on pegs installed directly in the wall.)

The sample was approved with minor modifications, and we were ready to start production. The steps involved went as follows:

1. The entire grid pattern was laid out with pegs placed at every intersection point. I numbered and marked the beginning and end point of each strand, with arrows indicating the direction of the yarn.
2. We created two paper patterns of the holes only (almost 1,000 per sign), and two paper patterns with the yarn path printed in color.
3. We ordered two thousand pegs and inserts, and 300 yards each of four colors of yarn.
4. When the walls were ready, I taped the hole pattern in place and drilled pilot holes, using a small level to guide the drill bit in straight and true. This took eight hours per sign.
5. Each hole was then widened to accept the inserts. This took another eight hours per sign.  I discovered that using a bit slightly smaller than the recommended size made a tighter, stronger fit for the inserts.
6. I used a hex head drill bit to put the inserts in just below the wall surface.
7. The painters had to patch and repaint the wall because tape had damaged the paint in a couple of spots when the pattern was removed.
8. I used another hex head drill bit to insert the pegs, and a socket turned out to be the perfect gauge to set all of them to the same depth.
9. The yarn pattern, with the letters cut out, was taped in place around the pegs. We knew that we would have to remove it from behind the yarn, and it would be not be easy.
10. Starting with the darker color, the yarn was strung from top left to bottom right, pulled tight and looped once around each peg before proceeding to the next. It was important to keep the yarn on the left side of each peg to keep the grid lines parallel. This took another eight hours per sign.
11. The paper pattern was removed by tearing it in strategic places, rolling up the pieces between the letters, and sliding the strips out carefully from the left and right ends.
12. Finally, every knot was secured with a dab of clear Crazy Glue to ensure that they would not loosen up over time.

The entire project took two weeks on site, with one person (me) working solo for the first week, and with one helper for the second week. Everything went very smoothly, due in large part to careful planning and the detailed patterns that we created. From the comments that we received during and after the process, it seems that the string signs turned out just as unique and unusual as they were intended to be. They are a beautiful synthesis of sign craft and fiber art, and capture the project’s creative spirit perfectly.