How to order a sign for first time buyers.

If you’ve never ordered a sign before it can be a daunting task. There are different materials to consider, sizes, and if needed stands. We can help you navigate through this process, but if you want to do some ‘prep work’ before ordering, here’s two things you can do:

 

  1. Sample Photos / Naming the event.

The best thing to know right away is what the sign is for. A celebration? A trade show event? Outdoor advertisement or permanent building signage? This will help us hone down the possibilities as well as know how sturdy you need your signage. If you find any sample photos, please share them with us! You might even find something similar to what you’re looking for in our sample galleries here: https://www.nextdaysignscols.com/products-photos/

 

  1. Colors and Fonts

Once we’ve squared away the size of your sign and material, we’ll ask what goes on it. We can print a large variety of colors known as Pantone colors. If you have a specific number, great! If not, it helps to have a general idea of two colors you like. When it comes to font you can describe the style as: ‘I want something blocky/script/old style’

 

And that’s it! From there we can help you figure out if you need a foamcore sign with an easel stand for display, a sidewalk A-frame with interchangeable panels, or a trade show wall display.

 

Winter is the best time to get that vehicle wrapped

For most businesses, winter is the time when things slow down a little. The months grow cold and the daylight short. However, there’s still plenty of traveling going on outside. People are visiting their friends and families for the holidays or festive parties. There’s shopping to be done and gift exchanging.

Regardless of the time of year, graphics or lettering on your vehicle is the best way to advertise locally. Winter is the best time of year to get that work done, when demand for the vehicle isn’t as high. At Next Day Signs we can do as simple as the business name and number on the doors, or a larger wrap. One of our customers, Dave Fox, has slowly been getting their name across their vehicles. Now it seems hard to drive around Dublin, or Worthington, without seeing them.

Personal Banners & Yard Signs

Festive banners can be a wonderful gesture for someone to share their celebration with the community. Or an extra flare for social distancing, yard gatherings, or congratulatory drive-by’s.

We can work with you to design a banner to match the theme of any celebration, OR you can do-it-yourself through our intuitive banner design templates online. You can personalize your banner with a variety of colors, fonts, graphics, or your very own photos. The banners are waterproof against and come with reinforced grommets. Allowing you to hang your banner anywhere, or you can purchase our pole kit to skip the hassle.

Our turn-around time for custom banners or yard signs is only 1-2 business days. We are a locally owned business here in Columbus, OH, with staff available to help you through any questions. Feel free to reach out to us!

Wall Wraps Sprucing-Up Offices

Whenever we receive new print materials at Next Day Signs we test the material personally before recommending it to other customers. After one year of testing Phototex, we took the leap and decorated our entire lobby wall with it. It has been four years since then and I have to say I’m still pleased with how our wall looks. The color hasn’t faded, nor have the panels pealed at all, and I love the reaction we get from new customers who see it for the first time.

Even more so, I love some of the creations our customers have thought up as they’ve purchased it for their own businesses. It brings a real pizazz versus a blank painted wall, and the plus side is how hassle-free it is to work with the material. I have personally applied a panel to a painted wall and five years later went to remove it; it left no adhesive residue, it didn’t remove the paint and I was able to reapply it with no issue. Making the material perfect for rented offices or even personal decorations such as an apartment.

Cheryl’s Thoughts on SGIA

Author:  Cheryl –

Conferences are a mixed bag – at their best they offer great ideas for new development, an opportunity to network, and the chance to see/touch/feel products that interest you.  The other side is hours of standing, sometimes pushy sales people, and then the pressure of decisions to purchase – go small, go big, or not at all.

This last week I attended the SGIA conference, one of the largest sign conferences in the world.  We saw printers that could create banners to cover the side of a building, machinery that would need a new building to house it.  But we also saw many products and machinery suited for smaller businesses like ours that will help us to be more productive and increase the offerings to our clients that we can produce right in house.

Now it’s time for the follow-up – review the literature, check the samples, and makes some decisions about what steps forward to take our business.  Are you thinking about taking some steps forward this year with your business?  Let us help you market your new ideas or products with sign solutions.  Stop by with your ideas, notepad scratches or full designs and we’ll work with you to take it to great results in signs, banners, decals, displays, flags, or printing that will take your business to the next level.

Many Hats Indeed

Author: Amanda

There are two things that I really love about working at Next Day Signs LLC. The first is that each day is different, rarely do we come across two days in the week that we’re working on the same sign orders (unless it is a rather large project.) The second is that the owner, Cheryl, is not the kind of person to just sit behind her desk and leave production work to everyone else.

Today was an adventure, Aaron had to take half the day off and our part time help wasn’t scheduled for the day, leaving just Cheryl and I in the store. Normally on a Monday this isn’t much of an issue, but we’ve been keeping busy and still had many jobs in production to do. One of the jobs consisted of 15 routed red 3mm PVC signs. Usually we leave these jobs to Aaron who has carpentry skills, but since he would be out Cheryl caught him in time to teach her in five minutes or less how to use the hand-held router.

Occasionally I would peek over from my work to see how my boss was managing. She was covered in red flecks of PVC, as was the counter and the floor, it was an image akin to an explosion of Valentine’s day confetti. However, she was not hindered by the sign debris, and swiftly completed the 15 signs needed. “Chief, Cook and Bottle Washer,” she proclaimed as she finished dusting off the specks, being an owner of not only a store but many ‘hats’.

Signs Point to Growing Economy

Author: Amanda

Today I have joined the exclusive designer club, as my computer was updated with the design software used by both Cheryl and Aaron (our designers). Now, I am not design artist, so I won’t be able to help with all the designs needed, but this will help speed up production as I will be able to design many of the signs we work with daily; magnets, yard signs, banners. And in the future, should we hire another employee with design experience, they shall be able to use the computer as well.

I’m happy to see the progress Next Day Signs LLC has been making. As many of us know, 2009 was a very hard year for all of us economically, and being in a sign business makes it easier for us to notice the swings in economy. Both by watching the amount of personal signs purchased and the types of business signs people buy: be it ‘liquidation sale’, ‘closing sale’, ‘coming soon’, ‘now hiring,’ and ‘now open’ signs.

It’s nice to see that three years later, not only are we catching up to where we use to be, but exceeding years prior. More new customers, more personal orders, and for the first time in a long time, ‘now hiring’ signs. Here’s to hoping we see more of these good signs.

The Trip Abroad

Author: Amanda

Dear Readers, Grandmother, I have returned from my trip abroad in which I traveled much of Germany and spent a few days in Austria. The trip was certainly an eye opener to the way our cultures differ, giving me a new perspective on my own. One of the things I loved in Germany was how common it was to take your dog with you wherever you went. Dogs could follow their owner into the train station, the mall, even restaurants, and the well behaved and trained dogs, as many of them were, didn’t require a leash. It made me miss our dog Casey very much who gets to come to work with us.

Another interesting aspect was how they handled their signage. In many of the villages trying to maintain their rustic appeal, banners were made out of a hemp material with their lettering dyed in. In other areas where they had old buildings, (200 or 500 years old) they used a sort of wallpaper material they would paste on the wall.  Regular banners or large scale advertisements were reserved for the train stations or more modern built sides of town.

Of course there are special occasions that would be exceptions to this. During my travels I happened to stumble across an open air concert held in Konigsplatz, Munich. Which is an open ground area between three roman looking buildings that date back to early 1800’s. The concert was brimming with people, but the grass was never disturbed as black tarp mats were set across the grounds first. Scaffold stages were erected on the steps of each building to help put on an amazing light show without blocking the view of the architecture of the building, and banners were hung along it’s sides. It was an amazing display of modern and ancient brought together, and by the end of the next day everything was restored to how it had looked before the show.

Framing outside the photo

Author: Amanda

We all get a little lazy with our homes and make lists for things we’ll set aside to do later. On either the holidays or a rainy weekend, some excuse to keep us from doing it at the present moment. As for myself, I have gone living in my apartment for nine months without hanging anything on my walls. My excuse was that I wasn’t sure if I would move out at the end of the year or not, but regardless, I started to put a few things up this weekend.

The white blank walls of my Spartan living conditions had never bothered me before, but it was nice to give it a bit of color. Of course I lacked the foresight to see my coming mistake. My few pictures look incredibly small on my large white wall, now I need more.

I think I’ll use the digital photos on my computer and make a nice collage to print out at work. Thanks to our 5′ wide Mimaki printer, I could make the final design any reasonable living room size I desire. I can have my print be with either the glossy photo finish, or a matte finish to help keep off light glares. Now this service isn’t just reserved to employees, you can get this too if you wanted.

Of course, it’ll have to wait for some holiday or rainy weekend till I get around to it. I’m taking a trip to Europe this week, so there will be no blog updates from me for the next two Mondays. We’ll see if someone else from the store will give this a try. If they do you have my apology in advance 😉

QR Scan Codes Taking the Scene

Author: Amanda

Has everyone heard of the new recent fad of QR Scan codes? It looks like a pixilated box of white and black blocks, and acts a little similar to a UPC code that you can find on any store bought item. The difference is at a store when the register scans a UPC code it tells the computer what the item is and how much it costs. While, when the QR Scan code is ‘scanned’, by either a scanner or photographed by a smart phone, the QR Scan can either give you a list of information, photograph, or link you directly to a website.

QR Scan code was invented in 1994, in Japan by the Toyoto subsidiary company Denso Wave. The reason for its original invention, was to help the industrial company track manufactured cars. However, with more people using smart phones, the ability to scan a QR Scan code increased to the general population as rarely anyone goes anywhere with their phone. Thus the QR Scan code is increasingly seen being used in advertisement. On banners, real estate signs, magnets, magazines, posters and even highway billboards. (Although I don’t suggest trying to use your phone to take a picture while driving, leave that up to the navigator riding shot gun)

The perks of this is that it’s convenient for the person scanning, they can be linked directly to the information they seek and have it stored on their phone. As for the company using the QR Scan code, they can have a record of how many people scanned their codes, and using the phones GPS be able to track where they were when they scanned the code. Giving back precise measurements on which methods and areas targeted the most consumers. It is certainly a device that should be taken into consideration when ordering your next business sign.