8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Icon & Co (Wales) Ltd…

8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know about Icon & Co (Wales) Ltd…

…but wish you did?

Well that may depend on where you’re coming from, but if you have a connection to the retail profession in any of its variety; from small independent shop-keeping to major high street brand, or if you’re involved in the leisure industry, from making & selling films & TV programmes to making & selling beer, if you’ve got a product or service to sell, are involved in creative marketing & PR, & generally in catching peoples’ attention, you might find Icon & Co quite useful to know.

Maybe you’re looking for an extra special item to enhance that interior space, be it a shop window or home living room, or if you’re thinking about weddings in any capacity; as an organiser, prospective guest searching for a wedding gift or indeed the subject of the big day, then there are a number of ways in which we might be of interest to you.

& you might be surprised by the breadth & scale of activities that the designers, artists, carpenters & project managers in this small corner of South Wales involve themselves with, & the ways in which we might be of service to you.  So to begin:

1. High Quality Finishing.

I’m probably going to start with the more obvious Icon facts, but this is a detail that’s worth flagging up once in a while: we can produce the most bespoke-as-you-like, carpentry-made display items to an exceptionally high standard & specification as far as the finishing is concerned – all in-house.  Case in point, the highly-polished sweet shop interior pictured below.  After the carpenters have done their thing with the display props & furniture that they’ve expertly constructed in our carpentry & joinery workshop, its the turn of Chris in the spray shop to apply his magic (ok, its more likely a combination of paint & lacquer, and sometimes glitter, & there’s not much of the Harry Potter in the way he presents himself).  The finish we can achieve on items we’ve built or brought in, timber, metals or plastics, are second to none.

…one of seven floors in the Hamleys toy store on Regent’s Street, London was part of a major, multi-floor, interior re-furbishment that Icon & Co were principal partners in.  You can see showcased a good variety of materials, surfaces & finishes that found their way down the M4 from our Caerleon workshop

2.  We have a CNC machine & are not afraid to use it.

CNC cutting routering machines, like their laser-cutting cousins, are great for any number of things &, like much in life, are limited only by your (our) imagination.  Both are great for cutting sheet material to produce your everyday, mundane components for any number of  products that surround us, but we at Icon have a penchant for turning the two-dimensional into three dimensions to great & often theatrical effect.  The display gondola / London bus prop below exploits the attractive & unique properties of sheet plywood, with its exposed edges, to achieve a very distinctive look, & our wonderful machine (its called Trevor, by the way) can cut sheet material – MDF, ply, foam board, composite sheet, etc – at a maximum size of 2m x 3m

3.  We have a proud history of working with one of the biggest TV shows in the world.

Dr Who, to get straight to the point (also cult offerings ‘Torchwood’ & ‘Being Human’, & the BBC staple offering, ‘Casualty’).  This is something we like to shout about from time to time (well, wouldn’t you?), but we’ve been very fortunate – partly due to the serendipity of being based in very much the same part of the world (Newport is a mere click of a sonic screwdriver away from Cardiff, & the timelord plies his trade across much of the South Wales region & beyond), & partly due to being so good at what we do!

Icon & Co are also kept busy by a vibrant, regional, TV & film industry with props & services supplied with regularity to S4C & BBC productions in both Wales & Bristol, & we have experience in serving a burgeoning, Welsh-based movie-making infrastructure, epitomised by the recent setting up of Pinewood Studios Wales in Cardiff.  Below is a scale version of the Tardis, made for an episode – ‘Flatline‘ –  where the time-travelling ship shrinks; our version being about half full-size

4.  We can make one material look like another material, & often do!

This, of course, is the stock-in-trade of the prop-maker / scenic artist; ours is indeed a world full of illusion & fakery!  Very often the alchemists of the art department will be tasked with having to make one type of wood (most likely the cheap & versatile composite that is MDF) look like another type of wood (often to simulate a timber considerably more aged & character-full), & a regular remit is to create fake concrete or faux natural stone from sculpted polystyrene & added painted effects, such as the hand-painted blocks pictured below. These are great looking, sculptural items in their own right as display or theatrical props – & can take any form you can imagine – but as a paint treatment can enliven your bog standard mannequin bases, podiums or shop display risers, to great effect.  Its a bonkers, topsy-turvy world at Icon & Co, & no mistake

5.  We are all shopkeepers now…

You’ve always been able to ring us up / drop us an email & order up bespoke props, pieces of display furniture or any of the awesome services we provide from our South Wales base, but it is now possible to buy a range of ‘off-the-shelf’ items (you could probably buy the shelf-off-us too, if you so wish).  This is a relatively new innovation for us & is a logical reaction to the more frequent display prop-requests we receive in our Wales office.  Our main ‘shopping portal’ is of course here on this website, where you can buy, at a considerable saving from their bespoke & original versions; MDF display trees; fake, polystyrene, balustrades; & the essential stock-in-trade of the display artist & visual merchandiser, the display plinth; all professionally constructed from MDF to a high, art gallery / museum-ready, quality (as standard!), & with a variety of painted or overlaid finishes.

6.  Where bigger is better: We have a 5000 ft square capacity workshop facility.

This is not to be sniffed at, as it provides us ample space to incorporate all our carpentry & joinery capability, including the CNC cutter already mentioned, a professional paint spraying department (remember Chris?), & a printing & vinyl-cutting department which features a 1600mm wide, large format printer with a plotter to go.  This means we can print to a multitude of substrates as well as – using computer software – cut out what’s been printed, & also create vinyl decal lettering & signage.  We can design from scratch & make any of your existing artwork print-ready, all ‘in-house’.

Perhaps most importantly, as far as space is concerned in our line of work, is our ability to build full size film sets, or actual-size window display mock-ups, & build or sculpt giant props out of  polystyrene, timber, or any number of materials.  The photo below shows a full-size castle prop under construction, in what is just a fraction of our available floor-space  

7.  The boss is a Gypsy Punk rock star (& is available for hire)!

8.  2025 is our 30th anniversary!

Well happy Birthday us!  We should probably know what we’re doing by now…