 Temporary or Promotional Signs
By using lower grade materials and less intensive production processes, costs to produce promotional signs can be kept to a minimum without reducing their impact or effectiveness. We use a lightweight extruded polypropylene sheet called coreflute as a substrate. This material has a characteristic fluted appearance, commonly seen in real estate signs. It is available in 3mm, 5mm and 8mm thicknesses, but we generally use 5mm for the majority of our signs. We print directly to the board using our flat bed printer, a method which eliminates the waste and labour of printing and applying a self adhesive film, saving time, money and the environment. All graphics, text, illustrations and photographs in bright, vibrant full colour can be produced using this method, without affecting the cost. The expected outdoor life of these promotional signs is 6 to 12 months of constant exposure, indoors they will last indefinitely.
Sizes Sign sizes are dictated by substrate sheet sizes, which are 1200mm x 2400mm. It makes economic sense and reduces waste to manufacture signs to sizes which fit evenly into these sheets, eg: 600mm x 800mm rather than A1 ( 594mm x 841mm), or 800mm x 1200mm rather than A0 (841mm x 1189mm). For larger signs, sheets can be mounted next to each other with the joins being barely noticeable.
Design Considerations The design can consist of photographic images, illustrative elements, text and logos, or a combination of all of these. Our design staff are well versed in producing professional sign designs which are guaranteed to impress you and your customers, either working from scratch or working with ideas you have already generated. We are also able to work with graphic files produced by third parties, and run all the latest graphic software, both in Mac and PC, to ensure that the production runs smoothly. If you are intending to work on your own design, please make sure you read and understand our Print Specifications first. |
Permanent Signs We use ACM, (Aluminium Composite Material) as a sign substrate. These sheets are manufactured by sandwiching a sheet of 4 mm polyethylene between two thin sheets of aluminium, which is sprayed in a white weatherproof coating. The panels are very rigid and flat, relatively lightweight and cost effective, and completely impervious to the weather; far superior to older sign substrates such as plywood.
All our flat sheet signage is manufactured by printing directly to the ACM using uv curable ink. For this purpose we have installed a state of the art flat bed printer, capable of printing directly to any substrate up to 50 mm thick, and up to 3 metres long by 1.5 metres wide.
While the ink used is waterproof and fade resistant, we nevertheless spray the signs with an automotive grade two pack clear coat and cure it in our spray bake oven. The resulting sign panel is a high gloss, super hard, scratch resistant and weather proof unit which cannot rot, delaminate or peel, and if it is attacked with graffiti, it can simply be wiped clean. For interior signs, we generally use a matte or satin clear, which generally gives a more pleasing look, but doesn't have the weathering properties of the exterior full gloss finish.
This method of manufacture has several advantages over more traditional methods.
- It results in a superior product which is anti graffiti coated as standard.
- It significantly reduces the labour required to make the sign and hence the cost.
- It substantially reduces waste, with no carrier films or harmful PVCs used in the process
Bulk Sign Production One of the big advantages of direct to substrate digital printing is that larger production runs of signs are now quick and cost effective, without the high set up costs of screen printing. Whether for temporary or permanent applications, runs of 5, 10, 20, 50 or more signs can be produced in full colour, with minimal set up costs and very quick turn around times.
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