A brand wall for a ski lodge

Not every project we take on has a map in it. In September 2025, the marketing manager at Baldface Lodge got in touch. The lodge was putting up some branding and wanted a set of logos laser-engraved for a wall. Did we do custom work like that, and how big could we go?

MDF or maple?

The first idea was to cut the logos out of MDF. Before quoting, we suggested a different approach.

Cutting right through every part of a logo, every letter and every gap, would have meant a complicated, messy job with a thousand tiny pieces. Instead we suggested engraving the black areas of each logo, then cutting a single clean path around the outside, so each logo comes out of the sheet as one piece.

We also suggested a different material. We had good maple cabinet plywood, 1/4 inch thick, which looks a lot nicer than MDF and cuts very cleanly. They liked both ideas: "Engraving black of the logos and then having a vector path around the outside of each logo sounds perfect."

They had the artwork as vectors, and decided on individual square tiles, 15 by 15 inches each, rather than fitting everything onto one big panel. Thirteen tiles in all.

One sample first

Before committing to all thirteen, they asked for a sample. We engraved one tile and timed it.

It took about 70 minutes on the laser, much longer than we'd guessed. We'd been picturing the tiles smaller than they were, and we told them straight away that the estimate had to change. We offered a way to bring it down too: shrink the tiles to 12 inches and they'd take less laser time and fit more to a sheet.

They kept the 15 inch tiles. Their reply to the photos of the sample: "Dude this looks epic, exactly what i had in mind."

When we asked about timing, they said to bring them as soon as we could: "We are always racing snow!"

On the laser

Thirteen tiles at around 70 minutes each is a lot of laser time for a small studio, and more than our stock of maple sheets would cover. We worked through them over the next couple of weeks. Two more panels were added along the way, and we redid one of the earlier tiles so its edges were as clean as the rest. Then we dropped the last of them off at the Baldface office.

The finished room

The room was still being built when we delivered. At the end of December they sent a photo of the finished room and asked for one more logo to match the others. "We are stoked how the room turned out."

So were we. It's a good reminder that the same things that make a map board work, clean line work, a good piece of maple and patience on the laser, carry over to other kinds of design.

What we'd suggest for signage

• Engrave, then cut the outline. It's cleaner and far simpler than cutting through every shape.

• Ask for a sample. One timed tile gives you a real number instead of a guess.

• Send vectors. Clean vector artwork makes for clean edges.

If you're working on a sign, a wall or a set of panels for a business, get in touch and tell us what you have in mind.