Storm Saving Tips for Signs

Author: Amanda

I hope everyone is faring well after that rough storm that rolled by on Friday. Aaron spent his morning at work traveling to locations to fix and repair signs that were damaged by the high winds. We do have power here at the shop for all who are wondering and will be maintaining our regular work hours for the week except for being closed on Wednesday for the 4th of July.

It looks like we may be having a few more summer storms this week, here are a few tips to help keep your signs safe: If you have a banner, you can cut upside down crescent moon shapes into the fabric to help allow wind to flow through. Or, place your sign against a building wall out of the direction of the wind. If you have a yard sign that is coroplast, corrugated plastic, it’s very possible that the wire stake holding the sign might get bent. You’re always welcome to try bending it back into shape later, but if not, the wire stakes are very inexpensive and we are able to sell them separately here at the shop.

Enjoy the holiday and remember to stay safe. Happy Birthday America!

Casey

Author: Amanda

One of the perks of running a family owned business is the ability to bring your pets to work. For those that have stopped by our lobby, chances are you’ve seen our ‘shop dog’, a golden lab named Casey. My mother, and owner of Next Day Signs, almost every day loads Casey up into the car and brings her to work. She started coming to the shop a year and a half ago when our older dog passed away, With Casey being such a social individual, it didn’t seem right to leave her at home alone.

Since then she has made friends with many of our vendor delivery people, our postal workers, UPS deliverer, and even our business neighbors who come out to see her on her quick afternoon walk. She knows the work rules about where she can be during the day and when she can go “visit” with customers.  I have seen many a patron light up upon seeing her. And she’s helped us here at work, there are few quicker bad day relievers than a game of tug with a dog.

So many work environments are filled with stress.  We enjoy having our stress-reliever here with us and hope she brings a bright spot to many others each day as well.

The Wave of May

Author: Amanda

I must first apologize to any readers out there for my lack of blogs. May is always the busiest time of the year for us at the shop. It’s the ‘Grad Banner Season’ mixed in with; everyone seeing that the weather is getting nicer outside and perhaps it’s time to buy that outdoor sign they’ve been tinkering about during the winter months season. This May in particular was incredibly busy and one of our best months ever! Woohoo!

We were glad to see that many people liked our online ordering system for graduation banners. We are hoping to touch up the system a little more before the next year and would love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve. If you have any suggestions or ideas please feel free to leave a comment below.

Now that May is over I’m preparing for the Combined Chambers Business Expo that will be held June 14th at the Bridgewater Conference Center from 4:30 to 7pm. Admission is free to all chamber members and area business people. Please come by and see me at my booth, we’ll have samples of our work, materials, and of course, a trade show display cleverly hidden as our booth.

The Importance of Being Enthralling, The Sequel

Author: Amanda

In continuation of the last blog of The Importance of Being Enthralling, I wanted to also bring to attention the importance of a good, inviting, user friendly website. Our website was created with the combined efforts of Site Motif, Evidia and the staff of Next Day Signs.

Site Motif was the company that helped create our new logo in 2007, and when we decided to upgrade our website they were one of the first people we thought to contact. They created a layout design to give our website a nice professional feel while keeping in mind other factors such as; which design would be best for our customers to navigate through, which layout would be the easiest for us to work with for updating our gallery or text and give us an edge over our competitors.

Evidia helped with the expansion of the website, creating for us a unique online ordering system. Our customers now could not only place orders for graduation banners, general banners and real estate riders, but they could also design it themselves.  An expansion that proved successful in increasing our sales and saving time. Evidia also helped us to create this wonderful blog, which I know you and my grandmother wait ever so patiently for me to update every Monday. She’s awesome like that, hi grandma.

If you are interested in the creation of a website for your business or the expansion of an existing one, I strongly recommend these two fine companies:

SiteMotif.com

Evidia.com

 

The Importance of Being Enthralling

Author: Amanda

I found out today that one of the restaurants I enjoy eating at is undergoing financial problems, due to a lack of customers. I know what you’re thinking, not much of a surprise with this economy. Well, it wasn’t that much of a surprise to me either, but it wasn’t in relation to the economy. The restaurant is great, and absolutely stunning inside, the menu prices are more than reasonable for the large food portion you get, and the service is good and quick. Still, it wasn’t a surprise to me, because the outside of the building did not reflect the status of the inside of the restaurant.

The restaurant was originally built for another nationality of food than the one it serves now, and when it was bought by the new owners they did little to change the exterior. They removed the old restaurants dimensional lettering from the wall, but did not repair the wall. When they ordered a new outdoor acrylic lit panel, all they had was their restaurant name in a black font. There was nothing to express the quality of the restaurant to enthrall customers to give it a try. Especially when the outside demeanor would remind them of a different nationality of food than what was being served.

We’re told never to judge a book by its cover, but most often when it comes to money and food (in this day) we’re less willing to take a risk. Especially when we’re bringing along a date, significant other or our families. There’s an importance to setting an impression that shouldn’t be underestimated. Not saying that we should all go flashing neon lights, but a certain personality and style shouldn’t be absent from our outdoor advertisements.

The Looming Grad Season

Author: Amanda

A graduation banner is always a nice touch for anyone graduating from High School or College. It adds to the celebration, it can be a surprise, and as an added bonus, it helps people find the location for your party. On a graduation banner you can have; the graduates name, their school mascot, graduating year, a personal message and then your choice of another image or for a small additional cost you can have a photo of the person placed on the banner.

As normally all High school students, and a large majority of college students graduate in late May or early June, right now is the best time to consider whether or not you want to get a graduation banner. The best deals are available and the turn-around time is quick. As the graduation date looms closer the turn-around time for a banner can sometimes be pushed back due to a large increase in orders.

The best deal we currently have on graduation banners is through our online ordering:  https://www.ndscols.com/graduation-banner.php

With this ordering system you can design the banner you would like whenever it is convenient for you. The prices are also discounted 15% from if you were to order them in person or over the phone. And that is one deal that stays year round. If you prefer to order in person though, you’ll have a 10% discount if you order before May 10th. So make sure you figure out what you want to do!

Green in the city

Author: Amanda

While I’ve worked in Columbus for the past few years, it was only within the last six months that I started to live inside of Columbus. It was then I realized how hard it was to recycle in Columbus, and I’m still trying to find closer locations of recycling bins to where I live, I just can’t make myself throw it all away to sit in a landfill when I know they can become something else, first hand, because many of the products I work with are Green products that have been recycled.

The number one thing being coroplast, corrugated plastic, that’s the material most used for yard signs. I’m sure you’ve seen them on the side of the street with a little wire stake in it to hold it up, you’ve certainly seen them during the heavy months of political elections. Coroplast isn’t always used for yard signs, sometimes it’s used to make bigger signs, the sheets come as large a 4′ x 8′ and in a variety of color. The next biggest recycled material we use is scooterboard, it’s like wood, a tough durable material used as inserts in real estate frames.

Now, if you’ve spent any time looking through our gallery of finished works, I’m sure you’ll see that yard signs and real estate signs are a good portion of our sales. And they’re not our only Green products; we also have items like bamboo pop up stands for trade shows and High Density Polyethylene used for routed signs. So really, I just can’t make myself stop recycling, it would be bad for business.

City Permits – Better to plan ahead

Author: Amanda

For new business owners or those looking to buy a new business, it’s important to keep in mind that to place up a new permanent business sign or to update a pre-existing one, you need to have a city permit. City permits, their rules and regulations vary from city to city. For example, Dublin may have very strict rules on permanent signs going to be placed on the downtown street because they are aiming to keep a certain historic district feel. If you have a sign placed without having a city permit the city can request for your sign to be taken down and on certain occasions fines can be charged.

The process of waiting for an approval on an application can take weeks, and there is no way to expedite the process. To save yourself headaches and the struggle of making sure your new business has a sign on its grand opening day, take the time to research and apply for a permit in your area.  Below is a link for the City of Worthington’s website and their applications for sign permits:

http://www.worthington.org/index.aspx?NID=468

‘Yuengling Medflight’

Author: Amanda

For the last weekend of the ski season at Mad River Mountain, there was a cardboard sled-building event. All entry creations could only be made with cardboard, paint, zip ties, and duct tape, with the exception of sled decorations. With the Yuengling brewing company as a sponsor, there were chances of a few cash prizes to be won. So the team of ‘Yuengling Medflight’ (comprised with members of the Mad River Mountain Ski Patrol, and a few of our staff as well) decided to go the extra mile and place decal lettering on their ‘vehicle’.

While the Yuenling Medflight didn’t win any prizes in the race, the team agrees it was extremely fun to build. View a picture of the creation on our Facebook page at:  http://www.facebook.com/NextDaySignsColumbus

The Sign Line

Author: Amanda

Our first American amendment right, freedom of speech, can sometimes open a can of worms when a person’s opinion can be very offensive. And when the subject of opinion is under the scrutiny of society, tensions can raise pretty quickly depending on what you think. Being a sign company of both personal and professional signs, we’ve had an array of people who wanted their opinion or cause written in big bold letters for everyone to see. Some of the signs we were able to make without a second thought; sport enthusiasts using puns to cheer on their favored team, support signs for a cause and political signs have never caused much of a stirring inside the store. However, with a variety of different movements and protests often covered by the news, we did wonder, where would we draw the line with sign making? Would there be a line?

After consideration we all agreed that a line would be made. We would continue to remain a business with no political or religious affiliation, and produce any type of personal sign, provided that the sign did not deprecate a particular group of people. And while we’ve never needed to enforce this particular ruling, I felt better for the decision. The way the subject had been approached and discussed made me really appreciate the company and people I work with.