Illuminated signage for premises in Split: shopfront lettering, backlit boxes, lit entrance portals and totem signs, designed for a coastal climate and, in the old town, for a heritage context. The page is arranged as the questions clients raise during a first site visit.
Illuminated signage in Split — manufacturing, installation, quote
A sign in Split has to satisfy two authorities at once: the conservation regime around a Roman palace, and the sea. Inside the historic core the question is what a facade may carry at all, and the answer is usually less than a brand manual imagines. A few hundred metres away, in the shopping centres and along the arterial roads, the question turns purely technical, namely how a lit housing survives a decade of salt, humidity and ultraviolet radiation without its finish chalking or its seals hardening into brittle strips.
What may an illuminated sign look like inside the old town?
A UNESCO protected setting
Diocletian's Palace and the streets around it are protected, and signage there is reviewed case by case by the competent office. We can describe what tends to be acceptable, meaning small, restrained, individually lit or externally lit lettering with minimal projection and no large illuminated faces, but we do not promise a permit and no honest supplier will. Our part is the submission package: elevation drawings, fixing details, material samples and light output data.
How does the sea change the construction?
Salt, humidity and ultraviolet
Three forces age a sign on the Dalmatian coast: chloride attack on metal, moisture that never entirely leaves the air, and strong ultraviolet radiation that yellows cheap acrylic within a few seasons. The answers are coated or anodised aluminium instead of steel wherever the load allows, stainless fasteners, drivers housed where they can be reached without breaking a seal, and a UV-stable face material. A piece built to inland specification will usually look tired here in half the time.
How bright should a sign be in a narrow stone street?
Contrast beats output
In the shaded lanes of the centre the surrounding surfaces are pale stone and the ambient level after dark is low, so a modest output reads perfectly while a strong one simply glares. The same lettering on an arterial road or above a car park needs several times the brightness to hold its own. We set the level during commissioning, with an evening step-down, rather than shipping everything at maximum and leaving the owner to live with the consequence.
How do shopping centre signs differ from street signs?
Landlord manuals and standard fascias
In a retail scheme such as Joker Centar or the larger malls on the edge of the city, the landlord issues a signage manual that fixes the fascia zone, the maximum depth, often the illumination type and sometimes the switching hours. That constrains the design but simplifies approval enormously, because the review happens inside the scheme. Street premises are the opposite: fewer standard rules, more individual assessment, and a longer lead time before anything is manufactured.
What documents do you prepare for an application?
The technical file
A dimensioned elevation with the sign shown in position, a section through the fixing, the loads transferred into the wall, the materials and finishes, the electrical data and the luminance figures. Where the building is protected we add photographic documentation of the existing facade and a description of how the fixings can be reversed. That package is what an office needs in order to decide; the decision itself, and its timing, are outside our control.
How often does a coastal sign need attention?
A yearly look, and what it costs
An annual inspection is realistic beside the sea: wash the face, check the seals and cable glands, look for corrosion at the fixings and confirm that the drivers run cool. Because the workshop lies 719 kilometres away, service visits are planned in advance and grouped with other work in Dalmatia so that travel costs are shared. Warranty covers one or two years depending on the construction, and we hold spare drivers and modules for the pieces we build.
