More than just a conference, this year, Signs Express was celebrating their 25th birthday and so the convention was very much a celebration. Welcoming franchisees from their 70 centres across the UK and Ireland, the convention was a huge success, celebrating past achievements and looking towards the future, a notion supported by their futuristic space themed evening event. The blind vote for the sign awards took place at lunchtime on the day of the convention with the entries displayed on boards lining one of the walls at the conference. A special category created especially for this year's celebrations, the Outer Space award called for entries which were that little bit different from the norm. Signs Express (Basildon) wowed conference goers with their Turkish Airlines project, which can be seen at Heathrow airport. A large globe structure made from 16 individual pieces was suspended by a 7.5t steel plinth, with a massive 6.5m diameter. Working in partnership with Fab Media, who organised all of the ground works, the Basildon team applied graphics to each piece, signifying the longitude and latitude points of the World. Each piece of the globe is literally the size of a house and so the scale of the graphics was something the centre had never undertaken before. The result is a stunning structure which will wow visitors to Heathrow airport for years to come. Not ones to shy away from a difficult and exciting job, the Basildon team also took second place in the Best Vehicle Graphic category for their Disney themed fire truck. The project was assigned to a promotions company by Saatchi and Saatchi, whose client was Disney. The globally loved company was launching the new Planes 2 film named Fire and Rescue. For promotion in the UK, they wanted to drive a fire engine wrapped in full colour printed graphics of the animation characters around to various different locations, Signs Express (Basildon) were delighted to help. Signs Express managing director Craig Brown commented: 'With this year's theme, it was great to see Basildon win awards for their work, much of which really was out of this world. A well-deserved triumph!' Signs Express (Basildon), which originally opened its doors in 2002, will soon be moving to new premises to allow for more space and to expand on their customer offering. Franchisees Tony and Tina Surface and their highly skilled team offer a full range of signs and graphics solutions to Basildon and the surrounding area.