I probably should have mentioned that the workmanship is fantastic, instead of being completely negative! My apologies.
To answer Craig's question, the typography is boring because Futura (along with Gill Sans and others) are far too overused for this type of thing. Using three different types of capitalization in the same font, without even a difference in stroke weight, does not give the typography enough contrast, which is what makes it look bland. That, together with the underline makes it look lazy, because the designer couldn't be bothered to complement it with a second font. Either that, or the customer spec'd the font and the designer was too lazy to argue. The heron looks like a cheap stock image and very dated, and overall the whole design looks like the customer asked for a heron and some text, and they were given the absolute minimum acceptable design, completely cookie-cutter with no creativity and as little thought put into it as possible.
It's still an impressive sign in regards to workmanship; I just have equally high standards for design because design is equally, if not more important than workmanship in the sign business. At best I would say the design is amateur, but not impressive at all.
