Sign Design

Production File Formats

We need orig­i­nal art­work in a spe­cif­ic for­mat to pro­duce your sign in 3D. This could be a file in either .EPS, .PDF or .AI for­mat with vec­tors. You should be able to get this from the per­son who designed your logo.

We pre­fer Adobe Illus­tra­tor (V3, V.8, V.10, CS, CS2, CS3, CS4). How­ev­er, we also accept art­work cre­at­ed by any oth­er vec­tor based pro­gram (ie: Corel­Draw & Auto­CAD). If you’re work­ing with pho­to­shop, be sure to use work paths and save using File > Export > Paths to Illustrator.

Check List for Adobe Illustrator

  • Con­vert all your fonts to outlines.
  • Save all art­work at a 1:1 scale.
  • Check to see if all lines are connected.
  • Check for and remove all dou­ble lines and dupli­cates of your artwork.
  • Leave a 12″ space between all graph­ics and their enclos­ing materials.
  • Keep all your graph­ics on one Layer.

Check List for AutoCAD

  • Con­vert all lines to poly­lines. ( Type ped­it”, press enter, select the line(s) that you’d like to con­vert to poly­lines and press enter again).
  • You can use the join com­mand with­in ped­it to make addi­tion­al polylines.
  • Your art­work should be in mod­el­space and in actu­al size 1:1.

Sign Mockup

Digital Proof and Installed Metal sign

Dig­i­tal Proof (left) with Installed Met­al Wall Sign (right)

It’s usu­al­ly eas­i­est to gauge the size of your sign visu­al­ly as opposed to try­ing to guess each indi­vid­ual let­ter height and width. You may think you know the right height for the let­ters in your sign, but when your sign is scaled pro­por­tion­al­ly, it might end up much larg­er than you expect­ed based on that let­ter height.

Deter­min­ing Let­ter Height and Sign Size

The size of your sign is best deter­mined by con­sid­er­ing the size of the wall it’s being mount­ed on. If you pro­vide us with the mea­sure­ments of the wall, both length and height, as well as a pic­ture of the wall tak­en straight on, we can usu­al­ly deter­mine a good size for your sign. 

Using the pic­ture of the wall and mea­sure­ment we can also pre­pare a visu­al mock­up or pho­to ren­der­ing of how your sign will look. Even if get­ting a pic­ture of the wall isn’t pos­si­ble we can still pro­vide a mock­up show­ing your sign on the same size wall that you have next to a 6ft sil­hou­ette for pro­por­tions. If you pro­vide a pho­to of the wall, we can scale the pho­to of the wall pro­por­tion­al­ly and super­im­pose your logo pro­por­tion­al­ly onto the wall. 

At that point you can see whether or not the size of the sign works well with the wall in the giv­en space or if it should be adjusted. 

Sub­mit a wall pic­ture for mockup

Sub­mit a pho­to of your wall and we will design a pro­por­tion­al mock­up to give you a bet­ter idea of how your sign will appear on your wall. 

Please also include the orig­i­nal art­work for your logo. This could be a file in either .EPS or .AI for­mat with vec­tors. You should be able to get this from the per­son who designed your logo.

Completed Sign Proofs

Metal Sign on Installation Template Guide

Met­al sign proof pic­tures on instal­la­tion tem­plate and guide

Sign Design Solutions

We now offer a wide range of design solu­tions from basic logo design to full rebrands. Please call our design depart­ment for details on our new design services:

  • Logo Design
  • Cus­tom Graph­ic Design
  • Mag­a­zine Layout
  • Newslet­ter Layout
  • Pho­to Manipulation
  • Pho­to Restoration
  • Post­cards
  • Poster Design
  • Ad Design
  • Annu­al Reports
  • Design & Layout
  • Ban­ner Design
  • Book Cov­er Design
  • Book Lay­out
  • Brochure Design
  • Busi­ness Systems
  • Cat­a­log Layout
  • Fly­er Layout
  • Illus­tra­tion
  • Invi­ta­tions


Sign Design Tips

Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing key points when design­ing your sign:

  • Sign Size
  • Con­trast with wall
  • Sign Shape
  • Font Use
  • Mate­ri­als
  • Word­ing
  • Kern­ing / Let­ter Spacing
  • Use of Graphics
  • Place­ment on wall / Opti­cal Center
  • Avail­able space / Neg­a­tive space
  • Being con­sis­tent with exist­ing brand standards