As London Fashion Week takes control of our capital once again, thousands of style hungry (and possibly just plain hungry) fashion followers have descended on our shores, all intent on unearthing the latest big trend before it hits the shops. The fashion industry is entirely preoccupied with the newest popular styles; yet it doesn’t hold the monopoly on trends. Fashions occur in all walks of life, and the sign industry is no exception. 

Like the timeless little black dress, sign letters are an essential, a basic that will always be in demand. Variations on the theme, however, will always be cropping up, with new developments in technology providing opportunities for increasingly interesting designs.

Lighting the way

As with any emerging fashion, new sign styles need to be eye-catching and impressive, so it comes as no surprise that one of the fastest developing areas is illuminated lettering. Indeed, talking to trade suppliers of these products, a further correlation between the fashion and sign industry is revealed. The innovations in LED technology that are changing the face of the sector are being driven by the demand for increasingly slimmer, lighter and all together sleeker letters. 

Graeme Hoole, production manager at The Sign Group, explains how his firm are reacting to this desire for increasingly waif-like lettering: “Over the past few years light sheet has been available for POS and illuminated posters frames, and has been doing a fine job. Yet listening to our customers and becoming aware of the need for slim 3D illuminated letters, we decide to take a close look into this potentially lucrative and large market.”

He continues: “When considering the LED lighting available, there were a lot of issues that arose when putting them into slim letters. Spotting and dark areas were a particular problem, so our development team had a look for alternative solutions. Looking closely at light sheets, we considered the opportunity of using it out of its current straight edged format and cutting it into shapes.

“With help from one of our LED suppliers, we found a LED product that would bend within tight areas. From this point all we had to do was spend a great deal of time and effort making the idea work. Consequently we have arrived at SG Lightshapes, which can be illuminated in almost any shape to suit customer need.”

This increasing demand for slim, illuminated letters is echoed by SignFab’s marketing and business development manager, Simon Berry.

He comments: “In recent times, LED illuminated letters have been at the forefront of customers’ choice when looking for competitively priced illuminated signage. We have many constructions and specifications that we are able to offer our customers, basically to suit any colour format, combination and budget.

“Now we are increasingly looking at producing thinner letters that can be illuminated using our new LUMAIRE panel, which will easily fit behind much thinner panels, thus reducing weight and saving on installation costs, as well as upfront sign costs. The LUMAIRE panel has been specifically designed and priced for the sign industry market and we see this area as a huge development for us.”

Preferring a more understated approach, Gdi Trade Signs points to ‘modest’ developments in the sign lettering sector, agreeing that these have mostly involved LED illumination.

Colin Pestel, managing director at the company, continues: “The TRAX system, which illuminates built up letters that are fixed to glass without the need of a drill, is an important development, as are LED light sheets that reduce the need for overly deep sign trays and letters.”

Gdi’s TRAX system is a new way of delivering power to individual LED illuminated built-up letters. It uses a rod system to feed the power to the letters, which eliminates the need for a cable between the letters, and allows users to fix them to glazing without the need to drill the glass.

Open new doors

Quite clearly, the development of new technology facilitates the development of new products, which can in turn widen your service offering to clients.

Pestel from Gdi continues: “The most obvious effect and benefit of new technology is a broadening of the market place. If a sign-maker can offer a wider range of services it has to increase his potential market. With so many trade suppliers out there, the opportunity for the sign-maker to buy in the expertise without having to make the investment is one that shouldn't be ignored.”
 

This idea is built on by Hoole from The Sign Group, who classes the expertise his company can offer as one its main selling points.

He continues: “Our willingness to help smaller sign companies supply their potential clients with products that would not normally be available to them, gives them the opportunity to extend their business into areas which before they may not entertain with confidence.”

Hoole goes on to describe the ways in which the company is going the extra mile to help smaller sign-makers: “When we are asked to produce roll-outs for specific signage, which involves us following specific manufacturing methods, we have to set ourselves up to make sure we are manufacturing the spec required. A lot of the time these new processes aren’t available to smaller sign companies, or within their budget. After spending the time and money setting up the large roll-out jobs, it enables us to be able offer a similar product to our smaller customers, without the set-up costs being included in the price.”

SignFab is another company that is working on improving the manufacturing process, to the benefit of the industry as a whole.

Simon Berry explains: “For the last five years or so, there has been a number of letter bending machines introduced to the market place. We have tested and considered all option as they have arose, but each and everyone has fallen short of offering a true alternative to the traditional hand fabricating methods.

“After lengthy developments, we are convinced that we have now helped develop the best solution in the sign industry. Our latest acquisition enables very small serifs and characters to be built up with ease, and also allows us to use brushed and mirror polished stainless steel, both these points being shortfalls in all other alternatives.”

He continues: “We have also vastly improved the bonding methods of our letters. We have developed solutions that enable us to weld, solder or use adhesives on all our aluminium and stainless letters. Combined with the latest fabricating technology, the bonding methods we can now adopt enables us to become more efficient in our manufacturing processes and also achieve high quality finishes on our products.

“In a very cost sensitive industry, this enables us to pass on cost savings to the customers we service. It does mean that, as materials have been steadily increasing in price over the years, we are striving to actually bring prices down at every opportunity. Our clients are obviously the ones who benefit the most from this.”

Indeed, SignFab has also recently introduced its National Installation Service, where it will also fit the signs it supplies, if so desired by the customer. Berry continues: “If our customers would prefer to just project manage certain jobs, then we can now manufacture and fit the finished product for them. This embraces our ethos of providing a fuller service to our customers who need more time to be able to sell to their clients.”

Style as well as substance

Whilst developments in technology and manufacturing processes do dictate style to a certain extent, there is no doubt that ours is still a fashion driven market. Vintage has been a feature on the catwalks for many seasons now, and the trend has filtered down to the sign industry, as The Sign Group’s Hoole, explains:

“The sign industry is driven by designers who dictate what is fashionable,” he asserts, “and currently there seems to be two areas of interest: the rough, shabby look with aged, rusty effects, and the fairground look with bright colours and flashing lights.”

He goes on to demonstrate how customers will pay a premium in order to remain on-trend: “People seem happy to spend a little more money on the more retro looking signs, dating back decades. The strange thing is that, even with the massive improvement in technologies and manufacturing methods, the older style signs tend to be similar prices (with inflation) as they would have been 30 or 40 years ago, but that isn’t putting people off.”

Whilst the vintage look has been a firm favourite in many design spheres for a while, trends always move on—often reacting against the last style and going the opposite way. Hoole feels the ‘clean look’ will be next—slim letters with a stainless steel return and a simple font style.

Other suppliers are already seeing this trend emerge; Gdi is experiencing greatest demand for rimless letters, while SignFab asserts that higher quality products, such as mirror polished or satin polished stainless steel letters, are selling well.

Berry from SignFab adds: “Increasingly, the very bespoke bevelled stainless letters have become popular again. This is a product that only a very select few fabricators can produce, and is something we are very proud to be able to offer the industry, without the premium on price.”

Look into your crystal ball

Predicting the future of fashion could prove to be a very lucrative skill, but is something that very few people (if any) can do. SignFab’s Berry, however, does see a positive future for the sign lettering sector.

“Simply because they are now a very cost effective method of producing a high quality and durable sign construction, more people are going to purchase them,” He enthuses, adding: “In the past, the price forced people to look at considering cheaper and less effective construction methods. At SignFab, we can offer a built-up letter solution that is able to suit any purse and will represent a high quality product.

“As designers and customers become more creative and environmentally considerate, we are ready to provide all the variations that they can conceive. Low power consumption through LED lighting is already becoming a strong trend, and is set to develop further.”

Hoole at The Sign Group also sees efficiency playing a big part in the future of sign letters , which he too predicts to be bright.

“Efficiency plays a big part in 50 percent of jobs, and the other 50 percent is purely about the aesthetics. I don’t think this will ever change, but the efficient options will get more efficient, and the ‘pretty’ signs will get prettier, as materials and techniques develop.

“Having said all that” he concludes: “who really knows what will come next in our industry, but The Sign Group will be there to supply whatever it is!"