We manufacture and install illuminated signage: cut letters, illuminated trays, lit shopfront bands and entrance markers. This page is written as a sequence of decisions, in the order they should be taken, and it pays particular attention to the two situations that matter here: a sign on an old building in the historic core, and a sign that has to be found after dark on a quiet street.
Illuminated signage in Križevci — manufacturing, installation, quote
Croatia · 279 km from our plant in Győr
Križevci wears its history on its street frontages. The neo-Gothic Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Trinity is the seat of an eparchy, the Church of the Holy Cross carries Gothic fabric under Baroque decoration, and Saint Anne's has stood as a parish church since the seventeenth century; the older commercial buildings around Trg Josipa Jurja Strossmayera sit in that company. In a town where the same few hundred people walk the same frontages every day, a sign is not competing for attention with a hundred others, and it does not have to shout to be found. What it does have to do is look as though it belongs on the building it is fixed to, because it will be looked at daily for fifteen years.
Choose the sign type before you choose the size
Backlit letters, face-lit letters, or a single illuminated tray
Settle the construction first, because it drives everything else. Letters that throw their light onto the wall behind them are the discreet option and the one that sits properly on an older elevation; at night the wall glows and the letters read as shapes. Letters lit through an acrylic face are brighter and hold their legibility further away, which suits a business that has to be found from the far side of a street. A one-piece illuminated tray is the cheapest and much the easiest to change when a tenant leaves, and it belongs on a modern unit rather than on a historic frontage.
Test the letter height against the walk, not the drawing
Print it, hold it up, stand where the customer stands
Before approving artwork, print the proposed letter at full size, hold it against the elevation and walk to the point from which the sign has to work. Most oversized signs on small-town frontages exist because the decision was taken looking at a scaled drawing on a screen. In a pedestrian street, where the reader is ten to fifteen metres away, a surprisingly modest letter does the job and looks composed. The exercise costs a sheet of paper and half an hour, and it has saved several of our clients from ordering something they would have disliked for a decade.
Fix into structure, and plan the removal at the same time
Stand-offs into masonry, sealed penetrations, a reversible detail
Signs are carried on stand-off brackets anchored into the structure, not into render, insulation or a decorative moulding, with the penetrations sealed against water. On an older building it is worth agreeing the fixing positions with whoever is responsible for the fabric before anything is drilled. Design for removal at the same time: businesses change and elevations do not, and a sign that can be taken off and the fixings made good without breaking the face of the building is a considerably easier proposition for a landlord to approve.
Set the night-time output for a quiet street
Dim it, time it, and keep the flats above on your side
The brightness that makes sense on a lit main road makes no sense in a street where the ambient level is low. A sign that overpowers its surroundings looks cheap, irritates residents on the upper floors and wastes energy. Specify the output for the actual location, fit a photocell or a timer, drop the level late in the evening and switch off at an agreed hour. Running dimmed for part of every night also keeps the drivers cooler, and drivers running cool are the reason a sign is still working in year eight.
Put the drivers where a person can reach them
The repair you will need in year five, decided in year one
In almost every illuminated sign, the first thing to fail is a driver rather than an LED. Where the drivers sit is therefore a maintenance decision taken at design stage, and it is worth thinking about for five minutes. Behind an access panel inside the premises, or in a housing reachable from a ladder, a replacement is an hour's work. Buried inside a sealed tray four metres up a facade, the same replacement means hiring an access platform and closing part of the pavement. The cost difference over the life of the sign is not small.
Combine the survey with the neighbouring work
279 kilometres, one visit to measure, one to install
We survey before quoting, because the make-up of the wall, the route for the supply and the access for installation cannot be read from a photograph. At 279 kilometres the visit is a straightforward day, and we group it with other work in Koprivnica-Križevci County wherever the calendar allows so that the travel element stays proportionate to the job. Manufacture happens at the workshop and the letters or tray arrive assembled and tested. On a cross-border job the mileage and any access equipment are itemised in the offer, and the warranty is one or two years according to the build.
