Best Materials for Indoor Signage

AUGUST 5, 2019| SpeedPro

When you partner with SpeedPro on indoor signage, you’ll have a huge range of options available to you. We provide many different styles of indoor signage, from directional signage to wall murals to step-and-repeat banners. We also use a wide range of materials, from plastics to fabrics to metals, to create the perfect signage solutions for our clients.

Exterior signs are important for drawing customers to your business and increasing awareness of your brand, but indoor signs have a lot of potential value as well. Here are just a few of the uses of indoor signs:

• Provide information to visitors: These signs can provide important information for people who visit your building, including the name of your company and directions that show how to get around the interior of your facility. At an event, signage can help tell attendees about your company and products.
• Improve workplace culture: You can also use signs to improve the culture of your workplace. Displaying a sign with your company values on it can help employees remember those values as they go about their day. Aesthetically pleasing signage also makes for a more comfortable work environment, which can boost employee morale and productivity.
• Promote brand awareness: Like outdoor signage, indoor signs can help to promote brand awareness. Displaying your logo, company colors and other brand elements throughout your building will help people understand your brand and remember what your company is all about.
• Boost sales: In retail settings, indoor signage can help improve sales by providing information about exclusive sales or new products. In a store, signs showing someone using your products may encourage shoppers to buy them.
• Build credibility: High-quality signs can also help to make your business look more professional. A professional-looking sign with your company’s name on it will add to your credibility, and aesthetically pleasing elements throughout your building can improve the atmosphere within your establishment.

Indoor signage is useful in a variety of environments, including offices, manufacturing facilities and stores. All of these types of business can benefit from using signage in the ways described above. Indoor signage is also important at events such as trade shows, conferences, concerts and more. You can make this signage part of your display at a trade show, for instance, to help draw people to your booth and to convey information about your brand to event attendees. At a concert venue, indoor signage can provide directions to attendees and promote upcoming performances.

No matter what kind of organization you run, if you ever work indoors, you could likely benefit from indoor signage. Working with a professional large-format printing company like SpeedPro can help you ensure that you get the right signage solutions for your needs and that your signs and other display materials look professional.

Indoor Sign Materials

At SpeedPro, we can create indoor signage using a wide range of materials. We’ll help you find the perfect material for your applications and print your signs using world-class techniques and equipment. Learn about some of the materials we use and the benefits and drawbacks of each below.

1. Vinyl

Vinyl is an ideal material for many different kinds of indoor signage formats, including banners, decals and window graphics. Thin pieces of vinyl, a synthetic plastic material, serve as a flexible yet durable surface that’s useful for a variety of applications.

Various kinds of banners, including hanging banners, retractable banners, step-and-repeat banners and more use vinyl as their material. With some basic hardware, such as frames, poles and grommets, you can set banners up around your office, trade show, store or other location. We also use vinyl for decals, which you can apply to a variety of surfaces, including windows, walls and floors.

We use various types of vinyl for our signage, which helps make this material even more versatile. The kinds of vinyl available include:

• Matte
• Gloss
• Etched
• Cast
• Iridescent
• Frosted
• Diamond plate
• Reflective
• Comply
• Metallic
• Dusted
• Calendar
• Carbon fiber
• Fluorescent
• Controltac

Vinyl is a flexible yet durable material that’s extremely versatile and customizable. Sometimes, however, you may want your sign to have a more rigid look. In these cases, vinyl is not the right material to use. Vinyl is ideal if you want a graphic that’s long-lasting and professional-looking but that you can also easily remove or change out for another graphic.

2. Foamcore

Foamcore is the perfect material to use when you want a temporary but professional-looking sign or display. It consists of a polystyrene foam core, both sides of which are laminated with a coated-paper stock, and it’s used to make custom-shaped signs, easel signs, kiosks, point-of-purchase displays and more.

This rigid material is exceptionally lightweight and inexpensive. Because it’s made with foam and paper, however, it’s also easily damaged, which makes foamcore an ideal material for short-term or medium-term usage. It’s often used for conferences, trade shows, meetings, presentations and other events. Retailers may even employ it to promote sales or temporarily promote a new product. If you want a professional-looking but inexpensive material for temporary use, consider foamcore.

3. Acrylic

Acrylic is a rigid, transparent plastic material that can be used in a variety of ways, such as to create custom signs and displays or as a clear cover on other signage. We can apply color to acrylic and contour-cut it into custom shapes.

Acrylic is lightweight, durable and professional in appearance, and it’s perfect for adding a three-dimensional element to your signage. You might use it, for example, to create a sign with a 3D logo or 3D lettering. It resists cracking, chipping and fading and can be used both indoors and out.

4. Corrugated Plastic

Corrugated plastic, also called Coroplast or Coro, is a popular type of plastic used for signage. Coroplast is essentially plastic cardboard. It consists of a zig-zagged plastic interior between two sheets of plastic.

Coroplast is quick to produce, affordable and professional-looking. It’s not as durable as some other types of signage materials, however, so it’s typically used for short-term or medium-term applications. Coroplast is a popular material for yard signs, but you can also use it indoors as temporary directional signage, as part of a trade show booth or to promote a sale in a retail store.

If you’re looking for a temporary signage solution that’s slightly more durable than foamcore, corrugated plastic is an excellent option.

5. Photo Paper

Photo paper is a glossy paper material that’s perfect for printing photos, collages and other similar images. When you print these kinds of images on photo paper, they look bold and vivid. The flexibility and versatility of photo paper mean you can adhere it to a variety of surfaces — even ones with curves and corners — and the photos will still maintain their high-quality appearance. Photo paper is ideal for creating eye-catching wall murals.

6. Fabric

You can also use fabric materials to create eye-catching signage. This type of signage is especially common at trade shows and other events, as you can affix fabric graphic panels to a variety of exhibit elements such as counters, backwalls and kiosks.

Fabric graphics are great for events because they’re often part of a display that you can easily assemble and take apart as needed. You can also, however, use these types of displays in an office, store or other building. They’re lightweight and cost-effective while also allowing you to display eye-catching imagery. Adding a backlight to a fabric graphic panel can make it stand out even more.

7. Glass

Glass is another medium that’s great for indoor signage. In fact, you can turn the glass already in your building into eye-catching signage or decorative elements by adding graphic elements to it. These types of fixtures are called privacy glass, architectural glass, decorative windows, frosted glass and etched glass — you may even hear them called a variety of other names.

We can convert regular glass into eye-catching signage or decorative elements using various methods, including:

• Films: With glass films, you can place logos, lettering, geometric patterns and even complete images on your windows or glass partitions.
• Finishes: Glass finishes transform glass itself into a pattern. For example, you can add a coarse-grained finish in the shape of vertical lines, waves or other geometric patterns to incorporate a unique look into your building and help protect privacy.
• Murals and decals: You can cover sections of your windows with murals and decals printed with your logo, lettering, pictures and other design elements.
• Etching: This glass treatment process uses acids or other substances to create visual designs in glass surfaces. You can use it to create a frosted pattern on a clear pane of glass or add a translucent pattern to frosted or satin glass.
• Sandblasting: The sandblasting process uses coarse particles such as fine sand to create a texture on a glass surface. You can use sandblasting to create ridges, lines and waves in your glass or to smooth out parts of textured glass.

8. Metals

If you want an exceptionally durable, strong signage material, metal is a great choice. Aluminum is commonly used for signage, and copper, bronze and steel are popular as well. Metals are great for adding an industrial and highly professional look to your signage.

You can finish and polish metal in a multitude of different ways to give it a unique look. Metal is very rigid and strong even when it’s relatively thin, and it’s ideal if you want your sign to last for a long time.

9. Wood

Wood has been used to make signs for many years, and it continues to be a popular signage material today. You can cut it into nearly any shape and finish it in various ways to make it more durable and give it a unique appearance. Depending on how you finish a wooden sign, it may look rather rustic or have a polished surface to it. Wooden signs are perfect for adding a natural, outdoorsy feel to your signage.

10. Digital Signage

Digital signs, of course, aren’t made of just one material but instead use screens and electronic components to display images and text. These types of signs are increasing in popularity today. They provide various benefits, including the ability to change your message as often as you want to. Adding video to your signage can also help get people’s attention. You need electricity for your sign to work, but the amount of power required is not high.

How to Choose the Right Material

So how do you choose the right material for your sign? SpeedPro can help you figure out the indoor signage options that will best help you meet your goals, but here are some factors to consider when you’re making your decision:

• How long you’ll use the sign: If the sign is only temporary, foamcore and corrugated plastic are ideal because of their affordability. If the sign is intended to be permanent, choose a more durable material, such as a rigid plastic, glass, metal or wood. If you want your sign to change frequently, consider digital signage.
• Where you’ll use it: Where do you want your sign to be? If there’s a window or glass wall nearby, consider using a vinyl decal or glass finish. If you’re using the sign at a trade show, a vinyl banner or a foamcore sign will work better.
• The purpose of the sign: Also, consider your goals in putting your sign up in your facility. Is it to get people’s attention? If so, a digital sign with video will work well, as will a large, brightly colored photo paper wall mural. If your goal is to provide directions to help guests get around your building, consider using glass, metal, wood or plastic, as these materials are durable and provide displays that are easy to read. Signs made from these materials are also often smaller, and you typically won’t need much room for directional signage.
• The desired aesthetic result: You should also keep in mind how the sign will look aesthetically. It should match the design of your building’s interior and the personality of your brand. In an industrial plant or manufacturing company office, metal signs may work well, since they tend to look more industrial. A wooden sign may be perfect at a company that makes organic food or sells camping equipment. If you’re a photographer, consider using a photo paper wall mural to show off some of your work.

Indoor Signage From SpeedPro

When you work with SpeedPro on your next signage or trade show display project, you’ll get a partner who’s willing to work with you to understand your needs and suggest the best possible solution to help you meet your goals. We have the expertise to help you choose the right signage materials and print high-quality graphics to provide you with eye-catching, professional-looking signage. We offer a wide variety of formats for indoor signage, including banners, trade show booths, point-of-purchase displays, window graphics, wall murals, acrylic signage and much more.

To get started, explore the solutions we have to offer or contact your local SpeedPro studio.