Quail Forest and The Cove Routed Monument Custom Sign

This entrance monument custom routed sign was created for the Quail Forest and The Cove communities in Tampa, FL. We were contacted to remove their existing, older sign, and create a new one from scratch. The end result was amazing…
This was a complex project, as it encompassed multiple phases: sign ordinance and county requirements evaluation, quote and design cycles with customer sign-off, permit application and approval, custom sign fabrication, pre-installation inspection approval, gate and sign installation, stones and painting, final inspection documentation, and landscaping…

Phase 1: Sign Ordinance for Pinellas County

Each municipality around Tampa, Florida, has its own sign regulations and requirements. In essence, based on the location of the sign (address), you have to abide to certain standards related to maximum size (square footage and height), positioning/distance in relation to the nearest right-of-way and/or easement, and other aspects. Also, these requirements change with time, so you may end up replacing an older sign that has a much larger size than the new approved one based on current city codes.
For Quail Forest, once we defined what could be installed at their location, we could move to the next stage.

Phase 2: Pricing and Design

After we met with the customer and understood to which design direction they wanted to go, we started to create our initial drawings.
First, we provided a few different options and related ballpark prices, so they could have a better understanding of what could be created based on their available budget.
Then, once we received the OK to move forward, we went through a few cycles of design changes until they were completely happy with end result (the sign needed to be approved by their HOA management team and discussions took place during community meetings).
Based on the approved design, we were able to create a final quote for this outdoor custom sign and receive our initial deposit.

Phase 3: Permit Application

Before we started to fabricate the sign, we applied for permitting. Permitting documentation can be complex, as it required engineering approved drawings, site survey drawings, and a multitude of related paperwork.
Also, proposed location for the sign needs to be marked and approved by the county for this process. We had many conversations with their team as signs cannot be placed under Oak Tree drip lines to avoid damaging they roots, but we were able to have this sign location grandfathered in due to the old sign positioning.

Phase 4: Manufacturing

The gate was custom built, welded, and powder coated. Column structures were added to the edges. Both black and gold plaques were routed and painted. Once we were only a few days from installation, the old sign was removed.

Phase 5: Installation

The county requires that we dig the holes in advance where the concrete will be poured for the columns, so they can inspect before we fill. Only after their approval, we could position the gate and complete the holes with concrete at perfect level.
After the concrete dried, we attached the routed plaques to the gate and added stones to the finish the columns.

Phase 6: Final Touches and Inspection

With everything set in place, we finished painting the columns and added our final touches. The county came back for final inspection and approval, then landscaping was done.
The final result is a gorgeous sign and an even happier community!

Call us at Sign Insight for a free consultation on your custom sign needs: 813-523-3128

Project Overview

Customer acquired new franchise for R9 Ronaldo Academy (soccer school) to open in Tampa, FL. During the on-boarding process they reached out to Signs Insight for assistance on their custom signs. Inauguration date was planned for July 22^nd 2017.
Our design team requested their franchisor the documentation for their branding requirements and image gallery, and started to work on the project.
Once the customer had settled for a location, we visited the place with them and discussed their sign needs. The project consisted in entrance signs (rigid and banners), court and building banners (16 total), routed 3D signs for their office space and indoors court, and paper posters for indoor use. We also performed the installation for all their materials.

The design process

We followed their branding manual for creating all the necessary signage. Branding requirements relate to things such as which colors can be used, logo application, sign design and elements positioning, shared imagery, fonts etc.
We designed all their signs and submitted for approval. Once the franchisor gave us the OK for all the materials, we moved them into our in-house production.

Rigid Signs

For certain locations with great exposure, we chose to manufacture higher-quality rigid signs. Materials used were Latex-printed 3M IJ35 vinyl with 3M Luster overlaminate, applied over Dibond (MaxMetal). Dibond is a compound made out of PVC inside and aluminum outside. We also mounted the entrance rigid sign with stand-off mounts on an existing wooden frame that we painted black. We also used the same materials for a sign we installed on the roof and on the main building wall.

Routed Signs

We chose to create custom routed signs in their main office and indoors courts, so it would give their logo a 3D effect. Due to budget constraints, we opted for a thick foam core material and applied the same latex-printed 3M vinyl with luster ovelaminate on top. Letters were painted white with an oil-based paint.

Flexible Banners

We produced 16 custom banners in multiple sizes, from 6’ x 18’ all the way down to 3’ x 8’. The larger banners were installed on their main building walls, and the others around both courts (fences and metal structures).

The banners were also Latex-printed on high-quality 13 Oz gloss material, stitched edges and grommets applied every 24” for best installation.

Paper Posters

Paper Posters were used to decorate the main event room and to cover certain graphics temporarily that were not approved for all audiences (liquor advertisement etc). They varied in size (some also being fairly large), and applied to the walls and windows with double-sided tape.

Installation

The installation process took around 10 hours due to the installation height of certain banners and signs. We were able to complete the process successfully and on time for their open house.

Total project timeline

From the initial design process to manufacturing and installation, total time for this project was about 10 business days. We had a lot of fun working on their materials and we are pleased with the end results.
We at Signs Insight offer free consultation for your signage needs. Please feel free to contact us to discuss your next project: 813-523-3128

The Benefits of Custom Outdoor and Exterior Signs

As anyone else would tell you, the most important thing for a business is not the profit, nor does the business model optimization, nor the workflow process. All of those will only happen if you receive the much needed recognition after you have raised awareness of your brands. While online marketing has grown quite a lot over the past decade, a huge amount of the promotion and advertising is still done on a physical level.
You would want to use the marketing expenses efficiently to raise your brand’s awareness, and the only way to do so is through an innovative and custom advertisement. One of the best possible solutions to that would be the utilization of custom outdoor signs. Simply buying a billboard in a vital location, where a lot of traffic passes on a daily basis is not enough, the message put there must be comprehensible and catchy. Therefore, we have decided to create a list of the benefits of custom outdoor signs and what you should do with them.

The Type of Outdoor Sign

The process starts when a person chooses which type of outdoor sign he would want to take advantage of. There are those which are put high up in the air. There are those which are mounted on the ground or mounted on a building. Each of them has a different purpose and lead to different results.

Choose the Right Location

Choosing the right location to put your custom outdoor sign is essential to make it work. Obviously putting a cigarette billboard next to a school yard should not only be forbidden but even if it’s allowed it will hold no particular results and will have the negative effect of bad public image.
Focus on a location with a good amount of traffic where people would look at your custom outdoor sign. That will raise your conversion level by quite a lot. When you compare this approach to the online or electronic media, the outdoor ads actually tend to capture and hold the attention of a person for much longer. People stuck in traffic don’t have much to do, and whether it’s out of curiosity or out of boredom, they will generally read anything around them to kill the time.

Build Your Brand Awareness

Choosing the message and the sign is essential to how the public will perceive you. There is a reason to opt into the utilization of custom outdoor signs as you could design it in any way you wish. You certainly don’t want to experience brand fails such as the recent ones with Pepsi and Kendall Jenner. Custom outdoor signs allow you to perfectly tailor it per your desires and reach the exact audience which you are going for as efficiently as possible.
Remember that advertising is the silent sales person of the company. Be sure to properly manage him, and you will, without a doubt, reap great results.
Contact us at Signs Insight for a free consultation: 813-523-3128

Different Types of Outdoor Signs for Tampa FL Businesses

GRIT and Tampa Gunfights in Tampa FL utilizes several outdoor signs to advertise their business. They showcase the right way of using the custom signs to bring in customers. However, choosing the right signs can be hard for the uninitiated. To help you understand, below is an overview of the different exterior signs available to businesses.

Lighted Monument Signs

Lighted monuments signs are often seen at the entrance going into the driveway of a building or the parking lot. They are installed in the ground, and their sizes vary based on the frontage of the building.
Monument weather-resistant signs feature one or multiple tenants. They are also known as entrance signs. They can be lighted internally or externally and can be made out of brick, concrete, wood, and other materials.
Monument signs should not be confused with directional signs. The latter have arrows that point toward the business, and often smaller than a monument sign. Monument signs are also not pole or pylon signs. Pylon signs are tall signs that are mounted on poles. Their goal is to be seen by traffic even from afar.

A-Frame Signs

GRIT in Tampa FL also uses A-Frame signs to attract foot traffic. It is one of the best ways to advertise one’s business. They are noticed by consumers as they walk along the pavement. It is one of the custom signs that can help establish the location of the business, and what it has to offer.

Back-Lit Exterior Signs

Back-lit signs are expensive, but they provide a lot of benefits. It can advertise the business day and night. With the right design, you can easily see the make the sign stand out from the crowd. It will be able to lure in consumers as long as the location is right.

Building Signs

Another type of exterior water-resistant signs is the building signs. They come in different forms that include cabinet signs, metal letters, channel letters, foam letters, and neon signs. Channel letters are lit individually. The type of building sign you use depends on the landlord’s guidelines and your preferences.

LED Signs

LED signs have become a popular type of outdoor signs. They allow the business to advertise all throughout the day and night and can customise the scrolling messages whenever it is needed to be changed. This type of sign is animated and bright, which will definitely help attract customers.

Billboards

Billboards are traditional road side signs that have been used for decades. They are big and effective. They can be placed on the side of major roads and on buildings. And with the help of technology, digital billboards show sharper and brighter images.
These are the outdoor signs that you can use to advertise your Tampa FL business. They can help in bringing in new customers, and help people know where the business is located.
Call us at Signs Insight for a free consultation: 813-523-3128

Vehicle Graphics for Mosquito Hunters

There are quite a lot of different marketing strategies that you might want to deploy if you are to expand the overall reach of your enterprise. While it’s true that digital marketing has most definitely taken over throughout the last few years, conventional custom signs are still amongst the most prominent ways to gather attention and to direct it to your enterprise. With this in mind, there is one particularly convenient and incredibly powerful advertising strategy that you might use to get to more people locally than with anything else – vehicle graphics for Mosquito Hunters Tampa.

How Does It Work?

You’ve most definitely noticed the vehicle wraps around a lot of different public transport buses, company vehicles and more. They promote a range of different things – local cable providers, certain products on the market, even upcoming TV shows and movies, companies and services offered etc. The reason for which this is actually popular throughout Tampa, FL is that it works.
This is a constant traveling advertisement which is going to reach thousands of people on a regular daily basis. Mosquito Hunters are contracted by quite a lot of people and as such all of them are going to be subjected to the influence of the vehicle wraps that their trucks and vans are covered in. With our splendid and particularly impactful custom graphics, the effect is going to be far more powerful.

Why Use It?

The main reason for which you should most definitely consider taking advantage of our custom graphic vehicle wraps in Tampa, FL is because it works. This is going to raise a tremendous amount of awareness of your brand, and it’s going to make you a recognizable name on the market. If you need to popularize whatever it is that you are doing, this is amongst the most effective ways of doing so.
Conventional marketing means are not to be underestimated. Keep in mind that digital marketing is powerful but when it comes to it, people are yet reluctant, and they firmly believe and are affected by the things they see on the streets. That’s why custom signs in Tampa, FL have a tremendously powerful impact on their consumer’s decision-making process and to reinforce your brand. That’s something that you need to take into account when it comes to it if you want to be successful at marketing a service or a product.
And, if you decide to go for it, you should most definitely give us a call. With years of experience in the production of custom signs in Tampa, FL, we are the most reliable service provider that you can trust. We have hundreds of customers to show for it.
Call Signs Insight at 813-523-3128 or email us at sales@signsinsight.com

Routed Sign for the Beach House

This week we have produced and installed a new outdoor office sign for the Beach House (www.beachhousewiregrass.com, an Assisted Living and Memory Care community in a full-service, resort-like setting) community in Wesley Chapel (Tampa), FL. This 3’ x 5’ sign was made out of 1.5” HDU (High Density Urethane) and carved on our CNC (Computer Numeric Control) Router.
The process was similar to what we have done before: we work on a layout with the customer until they are completely happy. We do this by following the guidelines provided by their HOA, then we submit to the community’s management office for approval.
Once approved, we move it to manufacturing, where we carve the sign in our office, paint it black, then add the gold accents to it. The end result is an upscale looking sign, with materials perfect for outdoor use. High Density Urethane will not bend or warp in Florida’s hot and humid weather ad will stay looking great for many years.

Our installation process is done in a way where the sign can be easily removed if the customer decides to relocate, with minimal damage to the wall behind the sign.

Routed Signs vs. Sandblasted

Routed signs are done by computer-driven machines, called CNC Routers. Our machine allows us to create signs with with high precision and consistency. We can control precisely how deep we want the carving to be and how thick each element in the sign should be.
High-quality routed signs have been replacing sandblasted signs in the past few years.
Sandblasting is a more traditional process, where masks are applied to the material, then the background is manually carved by sandblasting with a high-pressure pellet jet. These signs have a more rustic look with background texture and less sharp edges on some elements, where routed signs are sharper and more precise. If necessary, we can also apply background textures to a routed sign, but on signs such as the one for the Beach House it was not needed.

Timelines

For the first phase, we will provide our customers with an initial layout idea in a two days. Revision cycles are done as soon as we received feedback. Paperwork and renderings are provided to the HOA a day after the customer approved its layout.
Once the HOA approves the documentation (timelines depend on how fast their internal process is), we start carving the sign next day. Paint takes two days due to the paint drying process and multiple coats applied.
Overall, we have been able to deliver the signs, installed, in about two weeks from the initial contact. This is much faster than average industry standards, and our prices are very competitive.

Contacting us

Call Signs Insight for a free consultation on your signs needs. Reach us at 813-523-3128 or email sales@signsinsight.com. We are specialized in custom signs and graphics, servicing the Tampa Bay are and beyond.
Signs Insight is part of Signworld’s nationwide network, and we can help you anywhere in North America.

Exterior Routed Signs for Your Business

At Signs Insight, we have been having fun by doing a great amount of work for office spaces that require exterior wall signs following HOA standards. Those signs are normally routed (or sandblasted), and painted with with basic background color plus gold.
We carve these signs out of a material called HDU (High Density Urethane), or what some refer to as “sign foam.” This is a specialty expanded material, great for outdoor use (not deforming or bending with temperature and humidity changes). It comes in different thicknesses, but the most commonly used is 1.5”.

Our Initial Design Process

First, we ask for our customers to provide us with their logo and additional information required to be added to the sign. Then, we design the sign based on specific HOA requirements. Typically, these sign are 3’ x 5’ in size with a curved top, painted black and gold (although we have seen some in blue and gold or green and gold).
After the design is approved by the customer, we submit it to the HOA (or property management) for their committee approval. Once we receive their OK, we more forward with production.

The Production Process

Using a special software for our CNC Router, we generate the routing file from the approved vector file. With this software, we determine the depth of the all the cuts in 3D and which tool will be used for each. For example, we use a large flat bit for carving out the background, then a small bit for carving all the details.

After the above completed, we use a cutting bit for the external shape cut. Details are set per tool, such as cut speeds, overlapping for each pass, sequence of all cuts etc.
In certain cases, we may add some hand carving to the plaque to give it a different character. Then, we clean the custom sign with air pressure and get it ready for painting.

Painting the Material

Based on the paint type required, we start by adding primer with a paint gun to the HDU’s entire background.  Over the primer. we then use a matt paint to create the base color, with a few paint gun coats. Once the paint is dry, we add gold over the logo and lettering, making it “pop.” The sign is then ready for the install.

Sign Installation Process

The installation process is simple. We mark the plaque’s position onto the wall, attach one corner and level the sign with the ground. Then, we mark the other corners and center hole, and drill them, finally attaching the sign. By using this process, we avoid the use of glue, so the sign can be easily removed if needed without damaging the wall.
Give us a call for a free consultation and to find out more about our capabilities. Let us know how we can assist you. At Signs Insight we are specialized in custom signs and graphics, servicing Tampa Bay and beyond. Reach us at 813-523-3128.