Signs that Mean Business

Below is a guest post from HFE Signs Ltd, a UK-based company specializing in banners, signs, and digital printing. Click here to see a previous post from HFE on the history of magnetic signs.

When considering a sign to advertise your store or business, there are many options, from fascias attached to the building itself, to shop signs that can be placed in a window or on a wall or board, to pavement signs. You may wish to purchase a combination of these, but before you make your choice, there are some points to consider.

Pavement signs, for instance, can be either the A board type, with legs, or swing signs, suspended from a frame. Both are vulnerable to being blown over by strong winds, but it is possible get pavement signs that are filled with water for greater stability. Some offer magnetic fittings, which will fix the poster to the board more effectively. If you are not sure exactly where to site your swing sign, you can get one on castors to try out different spots easily.

When it comes to signs attached to a building, your business name needs to stand out, especially if there are similar shops or offices nearby. Many shop signs are PVC or acrylic panels, cheap and easy to fix in an aluminum frame and reasonably weatherproof. A more upmarket version are digitally printed shop signs, with vinyl graphics providing a more eye-catching effect. Or you could opt for 3D lettering in a variety of materials. If you want a 24-hour presence on the high street, this can be achieved with the addition of lighting.

Other types of sign might be more suitable for your particular needs, such as a customized wall plaque, a signpost directing potential clients towards your business, or even a temporary sign and display which you can take to exhibitions and trade fairs.

Clearly, choosing the right style for your all-important publicity sign is not for amateurs. We have all seen examples of ill-designed signage that looks home-made or clumsy (sometimes even misspelled) which gives a very bad impression. To avoid this, you need to take the advice of experienced professionals. Most of the companies offering shop signs online stock a range of styles with photos, but you also need to think about the graphic design. If you are uploading material that you have produced yourself, there are also many instructions to follow about uploading your design so that the company can print it effectively on the sign of your choice.

However, if you do not want to use your own design, some of the companies will help, not only with the design itself but they may offer a complete branding service, ranging from concept to logo and product design, as well as manufacture of the finished article(s). The personalized service can go as far as visiting your site and measuring up, ensuring the best possible sign for the location.

When you have decided on your particular needs, compare the online shop sign companies by looking at what they offer, their testimonials, and the companies they already work for. You will soon be able to work out which seems to offer the best deal, but don't assess them on price alone. A cheap-looking shop sign can be an expensive mistake!

A Short History of Magic Magnetic Signs

The following is a guest post, kindly provided by HFE Signs Ltd, a UK-based company specializing in banners, signs, and digital printing.

Whilst even the internet cannot put a precise date on the date of the invention of the first magnetic signs, there is a popular legend surrounding the discovery of magnets. Sometime around 4,000 years ago, a Cretan shepherd called Magnes was, perhaps unsurprisingly, herding his sheep in an area of what is now northern Greece when the nails in his shoes and the tip of his staff became firmly stuck to the large black rock on which he was standing. He dug up the earth around the rock and discovered a lodestone, which contained magnetite, a natural magnetic material.

Following on from a Greek shepherd, further investigation of magnets and magnetism was continued by the Greeks, by the Chinese (who developed the mariners compass) and Peter Peregrinus de Maricourt, a 13th century French scientist and scholar who wrote the first treatise describing the properties of magnets. However, significant progress was made only with the experiments of William Gilbert, an English physician, physicist and natural philosopher. In 1600, it was Gilbert who first realised that the Earth was a giant magnet and that magnets could be manufactured by beating wrought iron.

In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish physicist and chemist, discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields. Eventually, it was James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish mathematical physicist, who formulated a set of equations that describe electricity, magnetism and optics as manifestations of the same phenomenon, namely the electromagnetic field. Maxwell's achievements concerning electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics," after the first one realised by Isaac Newton. What is more remarkable is that Maxwell developed his ideas in 1862, more than thirty years before the discovery of the electron in 1897, a particle that is so fundamental to the current understanding of both electricity and magnetism. It was but a short jump from there to fridge magnets.

Fridge magnets are most undoubtedly magnetic signs at their most abundant. Whilst it feels like these little, usually whimsical, ornaments have been with us forever (well, as least since just after the invention of the refrigerator), it is reported that the first fridge magnet patent was obtained only in the 1970s by a William Zimmerman of St. Louis, Missouri. The largest collection of fridge magnets, according to the Guinness World of Records, is owned by a Louise J. Greenfarb and, as of January 2009, numbered some 40,000 items. As magnetic signs go, fridge magnets are the smallest but, still, that number must require some significant storage space. However innocuous the object, there is always someone, somewhere, who collects them. Just ask the lady who collects banana labels (13,552 and counting!).

The main purpose of a sign is to communicate, to convey information, and can be roughly divided into the following functions: information, direction, identification, safety, and regulatory. Magnetic signs are particularly useful where signs are not intended to be permanent and where they might be put up and taken down at regular intervals. They will adhere to anything with a steel surface, such as shelving or filing cabinets, but they really come into their own on the sides of vehicles such as lorries and taxis.