Notes from the Expert - Archive

Signage - How and when to use Signs

Our Notes from the Expert this month come from Sharon Byrne of Vital Signs and Graphics. We asked her a couple of questions about signage to start the process off and then her expertise simply took over!  Our thanks go to Sharon for her usual open and honest approach and for sharing her knowledge and expertise with us.

How do signs make a difference in the promotion of a business?

Effective signage can improve any company’s image to a huge degree – it doesn’t always have to be the biggest spend that creates the best impression, although, as in life in general, you get what you’re willing to pay for. Consider a simple manufacturing unit, lost amongst hundreds of others on a not very well maintained industrial estate...... A clean, clear fascia sign can ‘lift’ this one unit and make it easier to find and identify, plus it says to its clients ‘we care about how we look to the outside world’. It’s a bit like having a freshly painted front door at your home: it tells the world you’re proud of what’s inside!

What types of signs are there?

I always say that signs should do one, or ideally several of these things: Advise or Instruct, Direct, Inform or Educate, Enhance and even occasionally Entertain

How do business owners decide what type of sign to have?

Leaving aside the purely advisory/instructional (such as road traffic and safety signs), practically every company will have a need to do at least one of the following

• direct its customers to its door,
• inform them of opening times, its products or services or even simply its name,
• educate them about technical details or special offers,
• enhance its image
• and occasionally take the opportunity to entertain.

A good sign maker should be able to offer you a means of doing all of the above, in style and within your specified budget.

The term ‘signage’ or ‘sign’ is a bit of a catch-all for anything which displays who you are, where you are, what you do, how to contact you etc. It could be a scrap of paper stuck to an office door, saying ‘Joe Smith Phone Systems Co.’, but this isn’t likely to inspire confidence in potential customers, now is it? So, you need a professionally designed and manufactured sign to do the job.

Let’s take this fictitious ‘phone systems’ company from ‘start-up’ to ‘well-established’.
Firstly, Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. starts up with a warehouse and will need a sign to identify itself on an industrial estate. This should be large enough to be seen from the nearest main road (or even motorway junction), wherever possible and positioned close to the building entrance, but away from goods deliveries areas. As it’s not likely to be often visited by customers, (it’s a warehouse after all) this building could be simply served by a non-illuminated single panel sign. This will direct delivery drivers and visitors to its doors without breaking the bank. This would probably be about 8’ x 2, 3 or 4 ft to do a good job on a typical small unit.

Materials to suit the sign and location
As to materials, it could be a framed (aluminium frame) foam pvc or acrylic (often referred to as ‘Perspex’ – a brand name) sign, or for a more robust sign, made from aluminium or aluminium laminate – which won’t need a frame.  Smaller signs may be needed to indicate specific areas: goods inwards and outwards areas, car parking areas, any safety instructions or trading hours.

Then Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. grows and needs to occupy an office to accommodate its sales force. This may be in the same building as the warehouse, but more likely in a nice office building in town. This calls for a more sophisticated approach to signage. Perhaps engraved signs at the entrance, simply stating the name of the company and its office hours. These could be aluminium, brass or at the top of the range, polished or brushed stainless steel.

Simple ‘line’ shapes can be engraved as well as text, so Joe Smith Co. could incorporate its logo here to define its brand. These types of signs are traditionally found at the offices of the ‘professionals’: accountants, doctors, dentists and so on, (think of John Street in Manchester, you’ll get the idea!) but can be equally well employed in many situations, especially where space is limited. Again, Joe Smith’s offices are unlikely to be visited at night, so illumination is not relevant. A more contemporary alternative may be clear acrylic panels, held away from the wall by what are known as ‘stand-off’ fixings. They do what they say, they make the sign stand-off from the wall. The result is very effective at a reasonable cost.

After some time, Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. decides to ‘go retail’ and takes an outlet on the high street. Now we can start doing something a lot more imaginative! A signmaker will usually refer to this as a ‘fascia’ sign (because it’s a sign and it’s on the shop fascia – we like to keep things simple!) and there can be many variants. The cheapest will likely be a wooden fascia, with painted graphics (by which I simply mean words and pictures), but you won’t see too many of these nowadays. The few skilled sign painters still around are fully employed working on traditional pub signs, for which they are highly in demand. Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. could be well advised to now consider an illuminated sign. The company needs to be identifiable ‘after hours’, (during the winter months that could mean anytime after 3pm!) in order to maintain its brand image on the high street.

Planning Permission
This brings up the thorny topic of PLANNING PERMISSION. My advice is always, ‘when in doubt, apply’. I’ve come across many cases where shop owners haven’t done so and have been ordered to remove offending signs for which they’ve paid thousands of pounds. Not a happy situation. The larger sign companies may be able to handle this application for you, but at the very least you should expect your signmaker to provide all the necessary specifications and scaled drawings to facilitate this process.

Design
Back to the exciting bit – the design. Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. has already used the services of a good graphic designer and so is able to supply the necessary logo artwork and colour references for the signmaker to work from. If he hadn’t, he’d have found that most signmakers can offer this design service either in-house or sub-contracted. The actual detail of this sign will depend on so many things: budget, personal preference, differentiation from the competition, physical constraints (not all buildings are suitable for all types of signs), time available, safety. Typically Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. might opt for a ‘lightbox’ which is basically an aluminium box containing fluorescent tubes with an acrylic face and translucent graphics. This allows the illumination to either affect the graphics or the background (the substrate).

Or if he wants to go a lot more up-market, he could go for ‘built-up’ (i.e. with a thickness, a return) stainless steel graphics, with LED lighting within the structure, giving a lovely ‘halo’ lighting effect.  There are many options and your signmaker should guide you through the options.

Vehicles
Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. now purchases a fleet of vehicles. Perfect for promoting the company and should never be wasted as an opportunity to confirm the brand image.  Day and night, these moving advertisements earn their keep many times over.  For Joe’s own car, (which he wants to use at weekends, devoid of company branding), magnetic signage is the answer.

So, now Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. is well established with his warehouse, his office and his chain of retail outlets.

Exhibitions!
Sooner or later he’ll need to exhibit at specialist trade shows. This calls for transportable displays: often referred to as ‘pop-ups’or ‘rollerbanners’ these are invaluable and can be used time and time again, so are a good investment. Joe Smith is also a keen golfer and supporter of his local junior football team – so regular banners are now also part of his sign portfolio. Incredibly cost effective, pvc banners are so much more sophisticated than the old ‘happy hour’ pub banners we used to see everywhere. With the advent of digital printing, full colour photographic work is now easily incorporated into something costing around £100 and which he’ll be able to use time after time, indoors and outdoors.

So, apart from the legislative requirements which it must comply with, we’ve taken Joe Smith Phone Systems Co. pretty much through its sign requirements as it grows.

Finally, to achieve effective, affordable signage, Joe Smith Phone Systems Co considered these points when selecting its signmaker.

• Ask for testimonials and referrals – he/she should be able to provide photos of something similar to what you have in mind
• State your budget – this will save lots of time for all concerned
• Be clear about what you want to achieve – is it long or short-term effectiveness you’re after?
• Look around you and make note of what you like – tell your signmaker about it.
• Don’t be afraid to show your ignorance about materials etc. Your signmaker knows signs, nothing else and shouldn’t expect you to know signs the way you know your business.
• When purchasing a ‘permanent’ sign, like the ‘fascia’ sign described earlier, a reputable signmaker will not quote until he has carried out a site visit. There are too many variables and safety issues to consider. Give him the opportunity to do this.
• Make sure you give reasonable lead times. Any signmaker can ditch his current clients to chase a new, profitable job, but a reputable one won’t.

What does networking mean to you and what are your views about networking for women?
I know networking works...I've been doing it for years on a formalised basis and it's helped me to grow my business in the way that I want it to. I'm convinced that women are the best networkers, not because we want to beat men at their game, but because it's our game too, the rules are a bit different that's all.

What makes you come to ALIQUANTUM?
For a start, it makes a nice change to be one of many! As a member of more than one other networking organisation, how pleasant it is at ALIQUANTUM meetings to be able to make idle chat for 5 mins, with someone from the same planet...and then to move swiftly on to the serious business of creating more business.

After half an hour or so everyone has introduced themselves to everyone else, so it's impossible to feel at all left out. Even if you can't possibly remember all the names, at least you can make a mental note to speak again to the lady in the red jacket because she might be useful to you and vice-versa.

 
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