These are so much better than the first attempt, @Kaegro!
I like the second one better than the first one though, because the text and the arrow have a better harmony in the second. If they insistent on the “Monday - Friday Walk-Ins Welcome When Available”, I’d still keep the arrow on it’s own color block. It’s nice and simple that way.
And to repeat what someone wrote above already: “Monday - Friday Walk-Ins Welcome When Available” is actually not a great way to put it, and I think “Walk-Ins Welcome” would suffice. I mean, when the joint is full it’s full, just like in my barber shop. And “Monday - Friday” is only necessary if they are also open on the weekends.
Aside from comments others have made, this is probably more to do with my juvenile, barrel-scraping, schoolboy sense of humour, but the whole ‘healthy guts’ and ‘parking in the rear’ makes for a bit of a snigger-worthy association. No? Probably just me then.
As it its a parking sign it might be printed on dibond (dont know if mentioned haven’t read the thread)
Keep that in mind that more colour could be more costly. Some places print directly onto the substrate. Others print paper and glue and laminate to the substrate.
I would find out what way and any cost factors in production first.
Most parking signs are single colour blue with white text. Or a white background with black text.
I’ve definitely done fancy parking signs before. Most important thing is the location of the parking. As people driving by looking for parking expect to see a parking sign.
DiBond is $$$. There are some knockoff brands about half the price, but you are still talking about 6x the cost of coroplast (at least here in the US) Plus the OP hasn’t really told us how this sign is standing. Usually a parking sign for an establishment is done on something far more durable than crappy coroplast which is meant for temporary signage only. Maybe this is just temp signage.
-shrug-
Either way, printing direct on the coroplast would be cheaper than printing on vinyl and sticking it to coroplast. The price for the inks would still be the same (and might even be done on the same machine.) Where multiple colors would get expensive is if this were being done in cut vinyl and applied. Where the OP said they were printing on coroplast, my guess is it’s actually direct on the coroplast. Can’t get any cheaper than that kind of outdoor print. But it has a limited life expectancy, and if used on step stakes in that config will bend over/crease in the wind. That’s why most of that kind of signage is landscape-oriented.
I’d have expected it to be a permanent sign that’s why I mentioned dibond.
Of course, plenty of options. It could be a swinging cafe sign for all we know.
It might be a poster in the window.
It might be an outdoor poster holder with a plastic front.
Questions well worth asking before proceeding.
Plus printing directly onto dibond isn’t as durable as mounting and laminating it.
All the OP said was printing on Coroplast.
Which surprised me as I expected it to be permanent too, in which case I’d have said, die cut vinyl on an aluminum sign blank rather than a print. Cost is relative. How many times do you want to pay to replace it.
Printing directly on dibond, the longevity depends on the inkset. but generally 3-5 years. Printing on vinyl with a lam then adhering it to the dibond all depends on the inkset AND the vinyl/lam combo used. Most UV inks for direct printing to dibond or equal are good for about 3 years outside. Add a lam you get to 5. Printed premium vinyls with a good UV-stable lam ~ 5-7 years max before you see noticeable fading. The cut vinyls, some of the premium ones are rated for 9 years, but I have a cut vinyl on aluminum sign on the outside of my building that I put there in 2005 and it’s only now about due for replacement. It’s been in the shade most of its life, so not a lot of sun exposure. Still, it didn’t peel or crack either.
At a previous job, we had a good-sized government natural resources client that needed lots of one-off signs similar to what we’re talking about here — signs for parks, wildlife refuges and various traffic/people management sorts of things.
We usually chose the substrate that the fabricator recommended. Coroplast was usually recommended only for temporary outdoor signs. For temporary or out-of-the-reach-of-passersby indoor use, FoamCore or Gator Board was sometimes used. DiBond was chosen for certain smaller signs — kiosks, interpretive panels and that sort of thing.
For most any medium-sized to larger sign, the solution was almost always printed on vinyl and glued to aluminum. For the really permanent signs exposed to the elements in rural area and subject to being riddled with bullet holes (a western U.S. thing), we typically went with an appropriate gauge aluminum with screen printing directly onto the aluminum. Screen printing on signs seems to be getting hard to come by, but it lasts much longer than the glued-on digitally printed vinyl that fades and can sometimes start to peel off after a few short years (or less) when exposed to weather and direct sunlight.
What always surprised me about any of these kinds of signs was the relatively inexpensive cost. For a one-off parking sign, I’m not sure the price of the substrate should be the deciding factor. Durability, if it were up to me, would be the reason one was chosen over the other. Then again, most of my experience in any of this comes from working with government agencies that have contracts with large sign shops and state prisons, so perhaps the rates I’m used to don’t reflect the true retail costs.
National Parks are an entity unto their own. State parks too. They have their own suppliers and sometimes impossible to follow sign specs. Someone once wanted me to cut a thin line map out of engineering grade reflective material. That wasn’t even going to come close to happening (it’s thick and metallized, really tough stuff that you can’t cut intricate shapes with any hope of weeding it.)
We just did a bunch of silk screen on powder coated aluminum wayfinding signs for a state park. This is one of those things that designers don’t spec cuz they don’t know about it, and custom one-off silk screen can be expensive at a traditional silk screen supplier. We’re not exactly inexpensive, but our business doesn’t rely on multiples and certainly not on silk screening alone. Plus we’re set up to do small one offs.
They also had a bunch of real porcelain graphics panels made, which are probably the toughest things out there as far as weatherability, BUT because porcelain is basically glass, they don’t stand up to intentional abuse. Nothing does. People suck.
The facings of DiBond are thin sheets of aluminum, but it’s a composite material where the facings sandwich a core of polyethylene. I think the main reason we used it had to do with it being a fraction of the weight of solid aluminum, which made transport and installation by park managers, technicians and wildlife biologists a lot easier.
Dibond is the brand name of the best of the lot of stuff that people call dibond. Actually here the off brands are called ePanel, with is also a dibond but can mean MaxMetal or any number of other products. It’s all about the thickness of the aluminum faces. Dibond Dibond has the thickest, but we’re talking the difference of mils (thousandths.) I actually prefer Maxmetal for direct printing because the face is more matte. It isn’t as bright white a product, but life is full of tradeoffs.
There’s also the matter of being fire-rated for indoor use. Sometimes you need a Class 1 or Class A panel and some of the off brands are not. Dibond is, as well as Dibond ePanel.
Porcelain would have definitely failed the bullet-impact specs we needed to meet.
There’s a suburban botanical garden a few miles from where I live where many of the smaller signs are porcelain. The visual branding is beautiful and the porcelain looks incredibly nice. Setting aside possible vandalism and accidents, they should last for many decades. I’d love to work on a project like that.
Anything will fail a bullet impact test as far as imaged graphics are concerned. With the possible exception of DirectEmbed or Alto aluminum panels, but even those will have holes. They won’t shatter like porcelain or phenolic. Those are images that have been transfered into the clear anodizing layer of aluminum. Nice stuff. Hmmm… I wonder if they have bullet tests on those…
Porcelain is, in theory, considered a 40 year product but no one will write a warranty for that. The base panel is steel and if not sealed completely or damaged, can be a problem.
Several years ago, one of the signs we designed for a very remote location made a pretty good target for shooters. It was a heavier-gauge aluminum that tended to dimple rather than let most bullets penetrate it.
There was one idiot in a group of jackrabbit hunters who got frustrated that his bullets weren’t going through the sign, so he got closer thinking that would make a difference. The last bullet he fired bounced back and hit him squarely in the forehead. Some people really are stupid.
Ah yeah, I guess it would have been good to mention it’s coroplast inserted into an A-Frame. I haven’t seen the exact location it’s planned to go, but my best understanding is that it’s going to be set on or near the sidewalk turn. I’m not the person selling the signs, I get handed job requests and told to make em look good, so I don’t know if the product choice is a budget concern or reusability or some other concerns.
And no worries about the comment chain, it’s actually really neat to read all the comments and hear about the different materials. I’m still only a couple years deep in professional sign work, and it’s always neat to learn more about other things.
As far as the design goes, I haven’t gotten official feedback on it yet, but the sales rep make it sound like the client doesn’t think it’s “popping” enough, so I’m expecting to get told to jazz it up somehow. Gotta wait till I actually get the notes, though.
Wait so you get the client’s notes through your sales rep??
My preemptive thoughts to jazz it up:
Maybe it needs something as simple as change the arrow to a strong, pure, happy yellow. And be sure it won’t print like stomach bile color…
Can you add the logo of the associated clinic? (If that were to make sense to their clients of course)
I prefer the layout of #2 but it feels more rigid than #1. I think that is because its so symmetrical. So in that sense I would consider putting Parking In Rear at the top, then the large arrow below that, then in one bottom section with dark background (the clinic logo,) Healthy Gut Solutions and Walks-Ins Welcome. This would shift some of that symmetry especially by having now smaller text in the bottom compared to Parking In Rear.
