Signology

Brush up on sign technology for your shop

By Karen Meyer

The signage you use both inside and outside your shop is much more than just an informational tool listing sizes, flavors and prices. It can also be a powerful marketing device that conveys the image you want your shop to project. Today’s signage industry uses the latest technology to deliver new takes on the art of advertising.

Traditional neon technology
Ever since it was introduced in the early 1900s, neon lighting has been an eye-catching means of advertising. Neon lights work by running a small electric current through a vacuum discharge tube containing neon gas, creating a characteristic reddish-orange glow. Many other gases can be used to produce different colors of lights, although these lights are still referred to generically as “neon.”

Judging by the large range of neon signs designed specifically for coffee shops that are available today, this traditional technology is still popular with retailers for both indoor and outdoor use.

Fire House Neon of Stockbridge, Mich., offers more than 45 coffee-themed neon sign designs, advertising such concepts as gourmet coffee, latte, espresso, drive-thrus, bakeries and Internet cafés. This last has become especially popular recently, according to owner, Matt Severson.

“We’re definitely seeing an upswing in Internet café neon signs,” Severson says. “Coffee shop owners are realizing that offering Internet access is a good way to entice customers to sit down for a while and drink more coffee while they catch up on their e-mail.”

Another coffee shop trend that the neon industry is picking up on is live music. “Offering live musical entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays is becoming a popular draw in some coffee shops,” says Lauri Legere, marketing manager of Jantec Neon in Mount Airy, N.C. “We’ve added Live Music signs to our line to help coffee retailers advertise this attraction.”

Photo courtesy of The Howard Company, Inc.

Jantec Neon provides a wide range of stock coffee-related neon signs as well as custom neon templates and various transformers to allow for flashing, dimming and animation effects.

Cutting-edge technology
New cutting-edge proficiencies have been gaining ground on neon. Severson suggests that coffee retailers might want to consider investing in the newer technology of light-emitting diode (LED) scrolling message signs, which can be used both indoors and on windows.

LEDs are tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But, instead of a filament that will burn out, they are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material.

“This technology is more expensive than neon, but it all depends on where you want to put your advertising dollars,” Severson says. “If you don’t advertise, people won’t know you’re there. Research has shown that scrolling LED signs can increase sales a good 30 percent for indoors and up to 50 percent outdoors.”

Another advanced technology, liquid crystal display (LCD), is being used by The Howard Company of Brookfield, Wis., to improve on their indoor, modular, back-lit menu boards, which were first introduced by The Howard Company in 1986 with its Mainstreet Menu Systems brand.

Photo courtesy of The Howard Company, Inc.

A liquid crystal display is a thin, flat display device made up of two sheets of polarizing material with a liquid crystal solution between them. An electric current passed through the liquid causes the crystals to align so that light cannot pass through them, forming words or images. The Howard Company now offers built-in LCD screens in both their illuminated and non-illuminated menu boards, which display digital content using VisionQuest technology.

“Our VisionQuest LCD technology, which runs off a memory stick built into the menu boards and also from a PC-based system, allows for quick automatic product updates,” says Dawn Pankow, marketing manager for The Howard Company. “It also uses your real estate more efficiently because you can show more pictures on the menu board in the same amount of space. That’s important, because all of the research tells us that what you show more of visually is what you sell.”

Other signage options offered by The Howard Company include an edge-lit light box, in which the graphics appear to be floating in the air for a contemporary, high-end look, and larger-sized menu board panels that allow more prices on the same line. “Most coffee shops offer at least three cup sizes,” says Pankow. “If you want to add more sizes, you need a wider space to list them. Our larger panels allow you to do that.”

Another industry innovation—the vehicle wrap—can allow coffee retailers to use their private or company vehicles as traveling signage.

Photo courtesy of Jantec Sign Group

Signs Now Northwest, with locations in Oregon and Washington, offers a full range of signs, banners, light boxes and window graphics, but also specializes in vehicle wraps. Five-foot vinyl sheets are printed with customized decals using large-format digital printing. They are molded onto a vehicle to turn it into a moving billboard that can deliver an advertising message to thousands of prospective customers on a daily basis.

“Using your vehicle as signage is now a fairly familiar idea, but the trend is shifting from using only small decals on the door to using the whole vehicle,” says Kristin Trevino, marketing manager for Signs Now Northwest. “Vehicle wraps give your car the look of a custom paint job without the commitment of paint, with the added advantage of advertising your business every time you take it out for a drive. Our company has four vehicles that are wrapped including some personal ones, and they generate a lot of attention. We are constantly handing out cards and brochures for our business to people who have seen the cars.”

Back to basics
For coffee retailers who, either for economic reasons or because it fits in with their shop’s image, prefer traditional, basic signage, there are still plenty of alternatives available.

The old-fashioned chalkboard is still a popular and inexpensive indoor signage method, if a bit labor-intensive. This very basic approach to signage is gradually giving way to the flexibility and convenience of magnetic menu boards.

Photo courtesy of The Howard Company, Inc.

The concept of the magnetic menu board was invented in 1995 by Jim Miller, owner of Kiwi Design in Minneapolis, Minn., who developed a process to print full-color graphics directly onto magnetic material using solid-color thermal transfer.

“Thermal transfer is a much more durable process when working with magnetic material than ink-jet printing, which tends to bleed underneath the lamination,” Miller says. “Retailers should always ask for samples so they can compare the many different technologies and materials being used in the magnetic menu board industry.”

Miller’s latest innovation is a frameless version of his all-magnetic, all-changeable indoor menu boards. “We offer several different varieties of aluminum and wood frames, but if a retailer needs to economize, they can save up to 20 to 25 percent by going with our frameless designs,” he says. “We have a wide selection of border designs, some of them coffee-themed, to add style to frameless boards.”

Kiwi Design can also convert regular chalkboard menus and back-lit systems to magnetic changeable menu boards with new retrofit magnetic panels that accept Kiwi Design’s graphics and menu strips. “Many people have unique chalkboards or other systems that they don’t want to lose, and this process allows them to convert to the convenience of magnetic content without losing the distinctiveness of the structure,” Miller says.

For outdoor drive-thru use, Kiwi Design can also print a non-changeable menu board onto five-year, weather-proof vinyl, which does not require enclosure and can be attached to the building. Color-matched vinyl stickers can be supplied to update prices and other variable content.

billyBoards of Carpentersville, Ill., combines options by specializing in traditional chalkboards with elegant frames, as well as changeable magnetic systems using special wet erase markers that wipe off easily with detergent.

“Our Menuflex System magnetic menu boards allow you to write your menu on magnetic strips with a special marker that washes off with detergent,” says Bill Hardek, owner of billyBoards. “You can then change a single strip to re-organize your menu without risking damage to the rest of the board, which can happen with conventional chalkboards. This system gives you the warm, homespun feel of a chalkboard, but is much easier to manage.”

Other low-cost indoor signage options include window graphics. In addition to its traditional line of neon signs, Jantec Neon also provides window signs printed in vinyl ink on a clear static-cling background that will not fade, crack or peel.

Photo courtesy of The Howard Company, Inc.

“We recognize the need for economical signage for retailers who are on a budget,” says Legere. “Our static-cling window graphics look like professionally installed vinyl, but usually range between $20 to $30 each and can easily be removed and used again.”

For outdoor use, banners, sidewalk signs and easels can be an economical, yet stylish alternative.

Jantec Neon offers heavy-duty vinyl banners with brass grommets as well as two-sided sidewalk signs with a heavy base and swinging message board that can stand up to windy weather, letter and symbol kits for changeable messages, and a free industry-specific header.

billyBoards has two varieties of outdoor easels, with or without decorative awnings, that feature weather-resistant steel writing boards and special wet-erase markers that won’t wash off in rain. “The white marker on the black background really pops for good visibility,” says Hardek, “and the awnings add a unique touch that can fit in aesthetically with the décor of shops that are using awnings.”

The trend toward full-color imaging in printing means that even low-cost signage methods such as these can give a quality, professional image to your shop.

“Full-color imaging can be used to create an over-all effect,” says Trevino of Signs Now Northwest. “You can have full-color sidewalk sandwich boards that grab people’s attention as they’re driving by, and when they pull up to your shop they can see point-of-purchase stickers in the windows with full-color pictures of your product. When they walk in, they can be greeted by a full wall mural, which creates almost a gallery-type atmosphere that makes them want to stay a while. The whole signage industry is changing toward bright, dramatic, eye-catching, full-color imaging, which can set your shop apart from others.”