A seven metre aluminium composite fascia with lit acrylic letters, on a shop in a lane a lorry cannot enter, for a shop that could not close during the day.
The sign was designed around the access rather than the other way round. Five sections, each one under two metres so it could be carried by two men from the end of the lane, with the joins falling between letters so that no seam crosses anything the eye follows. The frame went up first on one night, the panels the next, and the letters and lighting on the third.
The lighting was the detail worth the money. Light strips on removable trays rather than fixed inside the box, with the driver in a small housing at the end of the fascia and a switch behind the counter. When a strip fails in four years, somebody opens a tray on a ladder instead of taking the fascia down.
Three nights, finished by half past three each morning, and the shop opened on time every day. The old sign came down with it and went to the shop's store rather than into a skip, because the owner asked.