You’re an artist, draw it in whatever fashion you like and add dimensions (including thickness and profile). You’ll need that whether you cut it out of an aluminium blank or get someone to print it. Importing a hand drawn sketch (or Photoshop image) into CAD isn’t hard – getting the design right is the hard bit.
If you’re going to sand cast it PLA’s good as you can burn it out of the mold to leave the negative impression, although assuming the back is fairly flat there’s probably no point as it’s a simple shape. The other advantage of PLA is it’s quick and cheap – you can get something knocked up quickly, try it, change it and when you’re happy make it by whatever process you like.
From the photo the letters look painted, you’ll need to match the paint in any case regardless of material.