A branded goalpost is one of those items the client sees as "a simple frame with a logo" and the fabricator sees as a structural, installation and visual problem all at once. At an 8,000 mm clear span each of those three pulls in a different direction. This post shows how we lined them up on the Farizon project.
The brief
Farizon needed a vehicle display frame that would also act as a strong brand marker on the forecourt. The requirements were easy to write down and hard to reconcile:
- 8,000 mm clear span between the legs so a car can drive in and be positioned freely,
- one uniform, clean silhouette: a single beam, two legs, no visible joints,
- a logo badge, ACM build-up letters, an illuminated orange underline and blue lightlines on the face,
- a scene that reads equally well in daylight and after dark.
Where it gets difficult
At that span a beam will always deflect under self-weight and wind load. The question is not "whether" but "how much" and "will it show". Ten or fifteen millimetres of sag over eight metres is nothing structurally, but against a straight roof edge the human eye picks up a curve mercilessly.
The second problem is asymmetry. The logo badge is wider than the rest of the beam, and the left leg carries more load and has to be heavier. If you simply "add material" where it is needed, the outline stops being uniform and the whole clean-form effect is gone.
How we solved it
The key decision: the load-bearing structure and the visual shell are two separate layers. A rigid steel frame does all the structural work and is fully hidden behind the cladding. The cladding, in turn, has one continuous outline that is independent of what happens inside.
As a result:
- The steel beam section was sized so that deflection stays within what cannot be seen from the display distance, not merely within code limits.
- The left leg received a heavier structural section, but from the outside both legs share an identical shell width.
- The badge zone is visually wider, yet the frame underneath follows the same line as the rest of the beam.
The lighting elements were designed as sub-assemblies fixed to the shell, not to the frame: the badge, ACM letters, underline and lightlines have their own channels and service access, so replacing LEDs does not require stripping the cladding.
Documentation
The package covered a general arrangement with main dimensions, the steel frame drawing, the cladding broken down into sub-assemblies, and day, night and dusk renders. The renders were not decoration: that is where the client signed off the underline proportions and the lightline colour before anyone ordered material.
What carries over to other projects
- Separate the structural function from the visual one. A uniform outline is easy when the shell does not have to carry anything.
- Size deflection for visibility, not just for code. "Not visible from 15 metres" is often a stricter criterion than L/200.
- Design lighting as serviceable modules from the first sketch, because there is no room to squeeze them in later.
The full case study with the render and drawing gallery is in the portfolio.
