The Plan

After a number of excitable discussions, HNS Signs were initially tasked with two hand-painted ‘chalk board’ style signs and a traditional pub sign for Ted Baker’s Bicester village. When HNS Signs arrived on site armed with their sable brushes, their craftmanship skills, and their pre-manufactured pub sign – the quality of their work outshone the stores’ original signage, so three more signs were ordered instantly.

The original plan was to use a vinyl stencil, and water down signwriters paint for the chalkboard menus, to give a worn chalkboard look, but after discovering that masking tape was taking the wall back to plaster, we had to use a trace. It took almost five hours to mark each board with a further seven to signwrite and finish as some of the text was just 2mm high! Accuracy and attention to detail was a must and called upon HNS Signs expert skills and techniques using 15 different sable brushes and fitches to apply black paint to get the exact look Ted Baker wanted.

Manufacturing

The pub signs were made using ply for the board and a pine frame.

The Sock and lobster sign was sign painted and designed to look a little worn. To add a little extra character and luxury we finished the board with 22 karat gold leaf.

Life is a stitch sign was also sign painted and designed to look antique, therefore we stained the face with spraypaint and varnish to complete the vintage look.

Post Office and Blooming marvellous had raised letters which were CNC cut from MDF and wet sprayed to colour. The back ground detail was sign painted. The letters were bonded with wood glue.

“Why haven’t we found you sooner” were the exact words by the lead interior design team at Ted Baker when they saw the finished look.

“We never realised such crafts existed until we stumbled across HNS Signs”, it was only natural Ted Baker’s interior design team asked HNS Signs to work on their second store in the programme of works.

The Oxford Store

The Oxford store needed some luxurious finishes for their changing rooms, and after viewing Bicester and work done for Budweiser, the design team asked HNS Signs to work on their changing rooms and the main wall space in the store.

Working with the Ted Baker’s own store fit out suppliers, our approach was staggered with two days on site one week and a long day the following.

The main store wall, the focal point of the store had a textured and rough finish and needed a different approach. We couldn’t pounce or paper trace this, so we had to gut out the letters of the plan and use a stencil. The textured surface also ruled out the use of sable brushes, and we had to use finches and apply our skillset for hand finishing even more so.

To give the wall a touch of sparkle, we applied silver leaf to the ‘baby’ and dotted silver leaf sparingly to the white swirls to create a glitzy finish – which took an entire day, but worth it.

The Solution

To support the designer’s store refresh and roll out programme, we offered a couple of cost-saving options for Up Shirt Creek by using a vinyl stencil. The Disabled Changing Room was sign painted using OneShot paint and used masonry paint for the background colour to add the distressing look.

The design team at Ted Baker are thrilled with both Oxford and Bicester and are now looking at their store programme to discuss other projects with HNS Signs.

“We were absolutely thrilled to be asked by Ted Baker’s interior design team to work on these two projects,” says Michelle Henry, Managing Director, HNS Signs.

“It’s quite flattering when clients find you based on the award-winning work we have delivered and even more so when they are Ted Baker! I am incredibly pleased with the finished outcome at both stores – even if my arm did feel like it was about to fall off after hand painting the 2mm text at Bicester myself!”