All types of business and every organisation needs to display staff announcements, health and safety notices, information and direction signs, rules and regulations, office door signs, advertising notices and many other types of sign. Instead of outsourcing these there are significant cost savings to be made from producing such signs in-house using a regular office printer. All you need for a professional end result is the right changeable sign holder, notice board or poster frame.
Creating your signs
The traditional sign company approach to producing short-run signs, such a room door signs, is to use vinyl lettering stuck to a panel or sign substrate. This involves labour costs plus the cost of materials, as well as the sign company's overheads and delivery costs. In some cases the biggest problem is the time it takes to get the sign produced. You need a fast, low cost solution. Making your own signs in-house can certainly save you money!
Professional door signs produced in house on an office printer and inserted into a curved door sign holder
While vinyl cut lettering is a great way to produce shop fascia signs or to get your vehicle sign written, it is not the optimum solution for many everyday signage requirements. Instead great results can be achieved in-house using an office printer - either an inkjet or a laser printer. With basic word processing skills, or with the assistance of page layout software for more sophisticated projects, it is relatively easy to produce an effective design for the message you wish to convey.
Adhesive sign holders with magnetic front cover attached to a wall or a window
Even the most basic office printers can produce smaller signs up to A4 size (or Letter size if you are from USA or Canada). However a printed sheet taped to the wall looks rather amateurish and when posted outdoors it won't survive for long. Help is at hand in the form of our many affordable print display systems.
Displaying your signs
The notice board is widely used and well understood. The variants worth considering are whether it should be open fronted, have a hinged door, be lockable or waterproof. The back panel can be suitable for pins or hook-fasteners, with magnetic options also available.
Floor sign stands to display signs printed on A4 or A3 paper (with optional lamination for outdoors)
To display an individual printed sign there are again many options. Firstly decide if you want the notice displayed permanently. In practice this is rare as messages have to be kept up to date, people move offices, new policies come into force and so forth. This is why the changeable sign holder has become so popular. With some styles of sign holder the paper is simply slipped into the frame though a slot in the top edge. In other styles the poster frame opens from the front so a new page can be inserted quickly and easily.
Snap frame floor stand being used by a classic car enthusiast
The snap frame is a particularly effective type of a front-loading poster frame. The surround is made of aluminium, usually with a brushed finish called anodised, which has a matte silver appearance. Because the
snap frame itself looks smart and professional, so too does the finished sign. Smart presentation is important whatever your business.
Outdoor signs produced in-house
For printed signs to be displayed outdoors there are also plenty of options. There are
waterproof snap frames and
waterproof framed notice boards for displaying multiple sheets of paper simultaneously. For a large single poster a
hinged door poster frame offers a prestige look with the advantage of being waterproof as well.
Plastic frames are supplied in various colours to display laminated prints outdoors with several ways to fix them securely
Another practical approach is to run your print-out through a laminator to seal the paper in a plastic pouch, thus rendering it waterproof. However be sure to choose a
laminated size poster frame which will accommodate the extra border without needing to trim - which would destroy the water-proof properties.
Large format printing in-house
If you have access to a large format printer or colour plotter you can scale up to large posters and banners. For example why not print party banners or celebrate special occasions with vibrant custom graphics suspended from the ceiling using
poster hanging rails?
With a large format printer or plotter in the office you can make your own banners for events and suspend them easily with the right hardware
- We hope this post gives you a few ideas to set you on the road of producing great temporary signage in house using changeable poster display systems - which is our speciality!
