Local firm Specialized Signs oversaw the entire illuminated sign project of Exchange Tower from design and manufacture, to installation and through to maintenance.

Despite having completed a number of high-profile projects such as the installation of cold cathode signage at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro arena, this particular installation was not plain sailing for the experienced team.

The company was set a brief to install two sections of three-dimensional illuminated cubes, one at the front reception area and one running up the staircase, and wrapping around the top of the 80ft building.

The “extremely labour-intensive” job took two-and-a-half years to complete and was made more challenging due to the installation schedule being cut from twelve to three weeks at short notice.

The special cube design also provided its own challenges, as Graham Sim, managing director of Specialized Signs explains: “There were hundreds of hours design time spent making sure every fixing, fitting, hole, everything lined up and was 100% spot on, because it was so bespoke.

“The cubes are about 4ft x 4ft at the reception area but then they stick out almost 2ft. At the staircase area, the majority of the cubes are L-shaped, so they wrap around the corner. They’re about 4ft x 5ft on one face; the other face is about 3.5ft x 5ft, but they protrude out from the building just over 1ft.”

The staircase cubes took six installers, a scissor lift and a cherry picker to install due to it wrapping around the corner of the building. It was this feature that posed a challenge when it came to illuminating the signage.

The illuminated signage was installed onto the 80ft Exchange Tower in Edinburgh

Sim explains: “Because they were corner cubes, lighting right into the corner proved an absolute nightmare and for three days we were trying different variations of the LED layout and could not get them to illuminate perfectly.

“We then ended up having to add in an extra aluminium plate to act as a divider to separate the two areas, so basically it turned the inside of the box into a left-hand side and a right-hand side instead of one piece. By adding the divider we managed to get the illumination perfect.”

Despite the tricky nature of the job, the company is “over the moon” with the results. “The manufacture was very time consuming, but it’s been an amazing project to be involved in and it’s one I’m very proud of,” adds Sim.

If you have any news, please email carys@linkpublishing.co.uk or join in with the conversation on Twitter and LinkedIn.