adampoland96: Microsoft's new logo is big business for one Seattle sign-maker (slide show)

BUSINESS JOURNAL | Karen Ducey

Kelly Garrett, account executive for Trade-Marx, with a company banner and signs. Trade-Marx is a small Seattle sign company that has been contracted by Microsoft to replace all its signs with new ones reflecting their new company logo.

Last year, Microsoft changed its logo. It ditched the old "waving flag" version of the Window and introduced a simpler four-block design. It was crisp, clean. Designers discussed it. Bloggers extrapolated what the design meant about the future of the company.

But one Seattle company jumped into high gear. Trade-Marx has been building high-end signs in Seattle since 1969 and, late last year, it won the contract to build 350 new signs for Microsoft's Redmond and Bellevue campuses.

The company, which builds the signs by hand in a warehouse in Seattle's Sodo neighborhood, actually built the first Microsoft sign 30 years ago, and has been the exclusive sign-maker for Boeing for 24 years. Founder Don Jarvis hand-painted the first Red Robin restaurant sign in 1969, and the company has done the signs for the Chihuly Garden and Glass, EMP Jumbotron, University of Washington tower and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This new contract for Microsoft, though, is the largest single contract Trade-Marx has ever had; the company has been working exclusively on the Microsoft contract since April. Recently, Trade-Marx installed the new signs on Microsoft's high-rise buildings in Bellevue.

"The economy has been slow, but now people are buying signs again," said Kelly Garrett, who was the Trade-Marx project manager for the Microsoft signs.

"It's a good sign Microsoft is doing this now," he added without a hint of irony.

So, what's next for Trade-Marx? Garrett and his team of 35 sign-makers will begin a project for the Pike Place Market replacing the current signage with 75 new signs which, he said, will help make it easier for visitors find their way around the market.

For more on Trade-Marx, see the story in the July 26 print edition of the Puget Sound Business Journal (subscription required for the first 30 days).