"I have an old ford focus; I usually fold the driver side backseat forward and sleep with my legs in the trunk. It's really comfortable with a closed cell camping pad, especially if you've been awake for 2 days!"

"To add another perspective: If this is a city requirement (getting into politics of sign installation and permitting), the tenant that owns this business would have to have these pipes marked and would probably go directly to a sign shop and thus deal with the designer or a rep for the shop—NOT a design firm. I really have no idea who would be responsible for that sign though. I'm guessing since they're all different, there's no standardization."

""But the designer of this ground-floor business somehow convinced the client to go for more, and spend on individual letters that would be adhered to the surface of the building, adding that little bit of visual punch." How do we know this?  I would say it's the client's (gasp) fault for even humoring the designer. The sign company I work for would never let this happen for this very reason and we'd do everything in our power to persuade the client against having routered white letters in this location. Vinyl is obviously suspect to vandalism. At our shop, we probably would have made a shallow cabinet type panel (about 1/2" to 1" deep) as Rich Eng was describing—all aluminum, with routered sintra (expanded pvc) letters stud mounted via 10-24 studs to the panel, anchored with 10-24 nuts on the backside of the cabinet. The cabinet would be attached with 1" angle aluminum and companion clips for ease of removal for cleaning, etc. Entire thing painted to match lower portion of storefront, so it'd basically look like it was embossed. Also, having the grey would show slightly less dirt. Less muck, no glue or silicone involved. All aluminum, no rust stains. But that's all expensive!"