Hand-finished carved HDU, cedar, and sandblasted signs for Jacksonville businesses, neighborhoods, churches, and schools — built in our Orange Park shop and installed by our own crew.
A carved sign communicates something a vinyl banner or a flat printed panel never can — that the business behind it cares enough to invest in real craftsmanship. For Jacksonville businesses where image matters — restaurants, professional offices, neighborhood entries, churches, breweries, and historic-district storefronts — a carved HDU or cedar sign is the upgrade that everything else gets compared to.
Custom Graphics & Sign Designs has been carving signs for Jacksonville and Northeast Florida since 1987. Every carved sign we build is CNC-routed, hand-finished, and painted in our Orange Park shop. There's no outsourcing, no drop-shipping, and no surprises about who actually built your sign.
Carved signage is one of the most specialized things a sign company does — and it's one of the easiest places to tell a serious sign shop from a broker. A carved sign isn't just a piece of HDU run through a router. It's a designed, engineered, and finished object that has to look good from across a parking lot and from arm's length, in bright Florida sun and at dusk, on day one and ten years later. That kind of work takes a real shop — designers, CNC operators, painters, and installers — all working under one roof. That's what we are, and we've been doing it in this market since 1987.
We've carved signs for Jacksonville restaurants, breweries, professional offices, residential subdivisions, master-planned communities, churches, private schools, historic landmarks, and one-off custom installations from Mayport to Macclenny. Every one of those projects came through our design table, our CNC router, our paint booth, and out the door on one of our trucks. The accountability that comes from owning every step is the difference between a sign that looks great in the photo we take on installation day and a sign that still looks great when we drive past it five years later.
Our experience with the local permitting process matters too. The City of Jacksonville, Clay County, St. Johns County, and Nassau County all have different sign codes, different setback requirements, and different tolerances for what a "carved sign" can and can't do at a given location. We've been through this process hundreds of times. We know which jurisdictions require engineered drawings, which want a structural calc on a post-mounted sign, and which allow a simple over-the-counter approval. We handle the permit application, the site plan, and the inspections, so the only thing the customer has to do is approve the design and write a check.
The right carved sign in the right place reads as expensive even when it isn't. Here are the Jacksonville projects we get called for most often.
Subdivision and master-planned community entry signs — usually paired with a stacked-stone or brick monument base. The single most common carved sign project in Jacksonville's residential market.
Carved signs are the default for hospitality concepts that lean rustic, craft, farm-to-table, or coastal. Multi-prismatic carving with hand-painted detail reads as warm and intentional in a way that flat printed panels can't match.
Permanence, dignity, and a budget-friendly long-term cost — carved HDU signs are ideal for churches, private schools, and ministry campuses. Pairs naturally with brick, stucco, and traditional architecture.
Law firms, medical practices, financial advisors, and real estate offices — anywhere a brand needs to convey trust and longevity. A small carved HDU panel by the door says more than a printed banner ever will.
Sign codes in historic districts often require dimensional, hand-finished signage. We've worked with property owners and design review boards across Jacksonville's historic neighborhoods to deliver signage that meets the standards.
Latitude Margaritaville, Ponte Vedra resorts, beach-town storefronts — we've built carved HDU signage for some of the largest coastal hospitality brands in the Southeast. Engineered to handle salt air and direct sun without flinching.
A sample of carved HDU, cedar, and sandblasted projects completed for clients across Jacksonville and Northeast Florida.
Our fabrication shop is at 99 Industrial Loop North in Orange Park, FL — a short drive from downtown Jacksonville and central to the Jacksonville metro. Every carved HDU and cedar sign we build is designed, routed, painted, and assembled at this facility, and we install across the entire Jacksonville and Northeast Florida market.
Most exterior carved signs in the City of Jacksonville and Clay County require a sign permit if they are mounted on a building, monument structure, or post. We handle the entire permit application — site plans, engineering letters when required, and coordination with the building department. Smaller wall-mounted carved signs and interior carved signs may not require a permit, depending on the location and dimensions.
HDU itself is impervious to moisture, salt air, and Florida humidity — it does not rot, swell, warp, or crack. The variable is the paint finish. With a properly applied two-part urethane or 100% acrylic enamel finish, a carved HDU sign in the Jacksonville climate will routinely look great for 10 to 15 years before it needs a refresh, and a repaint can extend that indefinitely.
Absolutely — these are some of our favorite projects. We build carved entry signs, monument signs, and post-mounted signs for HOAs, neighborhoods, churches, schools, and historic districts throughout Jacksonville, Orange Park, Ponte Vedra, Fleming Island, and the surrounding area. We can match existing brick or stone, replicate historic logos, and engineer the structural mount to fit the location.
Pricing depends on size, complexity of artwork, the number of paint colors, the carving levels (single-level vs. multi-prismatic), and any special finishes like gold leaf or distressing. Most small entry signs and storefront panels for Jacksonville businesses fall in the $600 to $2,500 range fabricated; monument-mounted carved signs with structural posts or masonry bases run higher. We provide free, itemized quotes — call (904) 264-7667 to get one.
Jacksonville · Orange Park · Fleming Island · Middleburg · Ponte Vedra Beach · St. Augustine · Fernandina Beach · Yulee · Green Cove Springs · Macclenny
Free quote, in-house design, and a finished sign that fits the Jacksonville market — start to finish from one team.
