I made a game room high score board for my wife last year for Christmas. My wife is pretty darn competitive. We took a math class together up at our local university, and she seemed genuinely upset if she didn't do better than me on an assignment and/or test. It was actually pretty eye opening, I had never really seen this side of her before, and it's only getting worse. It's now made its way from scholarly pursuits into stuff that really matters...video games.
I think it started when we got our first pinball machine. It didn't save our high scores, so she would keep a scrap of paper around that kept track of who was in the lead. Once she started tracking pinball scores, it was a natural transition into tracking video game scores. Lately, we've been picking a game or two, and then we play that for a while and see who can get the highest score.
This past Christmas, I knew I wanted to make something for her by hand, but I wasn't sure what until I came up with an idea for a high score board:
Here is the finished high score board proudly displaying who REALLY wasted their youth!I actually started out with a completely different high score sign in mind (we have a CNC machine so I was planning on cutting out everything in wood and painting it up all nice etc..., but I couldn't settle on a final design for my board). After talking to a friend of mine who owns a
sign shop in our town, I came up with this much simpler (and better in my opinion) high score board design that was relatively inexpensive and fun to put together.
The first thing I did was design the lettering. I wanted it to look like a classic video game high score screen, so I found a nice blocky (and free) font called
Arcade Classic. I used illustrator to layout the letters and then created outlines from the text so the person cutting the vinyl letters wouldn't have to worry about installing the font on his machine.
Click here for a PDF version of the lettering that can be used to cut letters exactly like the ones in our sign. Of course, you can choose any colors for the lettering, I thought white and red looked sufficiently old school enough though.
Plexi glass from lowesI knew I wanted to use plexi glass on a dark background, so I just went to lowes and bought a piece that looks large enough, and then kind of made the rest of the sign around that piece of plexi. The piece that I ended up buying was 18" x 24" and .220" thick. It was around $13 if I remember correctly.
Laying out the signThe black material I chose for the background is called Sintra. That's a trade name (like Kleenex is to tissues). It's PVC foam board that sign makers use quite a bit. It's pretty inexpensive, and most sign shops will even have scraps they'll sell for cheap (I was able to buy my piece from the sign shop for $10). We trimmed it to the thickness that we needed, used a heat strip to bend the bottom lip up (to hold the markers eventually), and then laid everything out on it to get an idea of where we wanted the lettering exactly.
Applying the vinyl letteringOnce we had the lettering in the place we wanted, my buddy tacked it down with masking tape, and then expertly applied it to the black board, he made it look easy, but I'm sure that was just his experience showing through. he measured and laid the lettering out where we wanted to apply it, put a strip of masking tape in the middle of the piece, peeled back one edge, stuck it down, and then worked towards the other side, he probably had the whole thing done in 5-10 minutes (would have been quicker I'm sure if I wasn't pestering him).
Vinyl lettering applied and board cut to sizeIt was starting to look like a real high score sign now. Another nice thing about the simpler design meant simpler lettering, only 2 colors and big blocky letters, he only charged me about $7 for cutting and installing the vinyl lettering.
Next I focused on the plexi glass, this part wasn't too bad since the sign was designed around it. I just got some edging from the sign shop to go around the edges (it was about $1.50 per foot), applied it with silicone caulk, and then drilled 4 holes in the corners for the mounting brackets.
These are the mounts I chose, if you squint you can kind of see how they work from the back of the packageThe mounting system I used was actually the most expensive part of this project. The sign shop had some of these
Pizazz Multi Mounts on hand, and I decided to use them. They are really nice, and made it very convenient, but they were also about $20 for the 4 of them (but I guess my wife is worth it). Apparently they come in many different styles and finishes, but he only had the gray ones on hand at his store, but that's ok by me, I think they look great.
All assembled waiting to be hung on the wallOnce I had the mounting hardware and the holes drilled in the plexi glass it was a simple matter of just screwing it all together. The way the mounting hardware works, it won't actually attach to the board, it screws through the black board into the wall and holds it up that way. But since this was a Christmas present for my wife, I used some bolts to hold it together so she could see the whole sign when I brought it out. I just hung it with a few screws on the wall, and it seems pretty rock solid.
These are the markers we useBecause the sign uses a black background, we got these
Expo Bright Sticks. They work really well, show up almost glowing, and will fluoresce under black light if you have one. They erase with a damp cloth and we have been really happy with them so far. Pretty much any wet erase marker will work though (restaurant supply stores will often carry them, I couldn't find them in town though, so I had to buy mine online).
Here are some more shots of the sign in "action" along with some closer detail shots:
Check out those high scores, I rule the board, feel free to leave a comment letting me know how awesome I am
Here's a close up of the mounting hardware, it really does work great
The lettering turned out really nice
Go #2! People would look at me strange when I would tell them I was making the sign for my wife, but she loves it and it's made some of the games funner to have a challenge up on the wall.All in all, the sign turned out great, couldn't have put it together without Daniel down at the
The Image Foundry. It was a fun project to put together, and it wasn't too expensive (probably around $50 when all is said and done).
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