ARCHIVE: Category Archive for: Others

Enclosures and Canopies Serve Many Purposes

Did you know that Metro Sign and Awning works with many hotel and restaurant owners to create semi-temporary enclosures that add a degree of weather-proofing to their outdoor areas? Properly done, these enclosures extend the outdoor seating season and thereby add revenue for restaurants. They’re able to contain heaters placed in the enclosed area, as necessary, to allow the space to be used quite comfortably during the colder months, here in New England. We’ve also worked with hotels to create enclosures to block the wind and weather around pick up / drop off areas. This makes hotel ingress and egress for guests and visitors far more inviting and hospital. Material Choice Important For many of the enclosures we use “Weathertyte”

One of the most frequently asked questions from prospects and clients alike is fairly basic: “What information do you need in order to work up a reliable price quote on my next project?” Casting about for new blog topics, it occurred to us that answering that question in this open forum would make for a valuable blog post. It would not only educate avid readers about how to speed and simplify the process of obtaining a meaningful price quote, but it would also serve as reference material to which we could point newly interested people who need to know this answer. So let’s start at the very beginning: Step 1: You realize you want some kind of signage. Step 2:

It’s always exciting when one of our projects “makes the news.” This happened most recently on Thursday, January 9th, 2015, at 6 AM and again at Noon, when our recently installed electronic monument sign at Everett High School was featured as part of a story aired by WCVB (Channel 5, Boston) on the cold snap that enveloped Boston last week. The mention is particularly gratifying since WCVB-TV Channel 5 won seven National Headliner Awards last year, including two first-place finishes, in more categories than any other local television broadcaster in the country. Presented by the Press Club of Atlantic City, the annual National Headliner Awards recognize journalistic merit within the communications industry. Channel 5 was the only New England television

2015 is shaping up to be a year of growth and challenges for Metro Sign and Awning. One of our upcoming projects includes signage work for the very first licensed Massachusetts Casino! On this job, Metro is partnering with Penn National and their Las Vegas Vendor, Egads, to work on a sign and merchandising package due to be delivered in June, 2015. The package includes both interior and exterior signage, plus some very spiffy graphics. We’re very excited that Michael Randazzo of Penn Gaming selected Metro Sign and Awning as his preferred vendor in Massachusetts! We’re also working on a cost analysis for the MBTA Green Line Extension and for Boston Landing. We’re doing this work with the Sweden-based multinational

Today’s Signage Quiz (Number 2 in a Series)

How much do you really know about signs and signage? Avid readers of this Metro Sign and Awning blog are probably near-experts in signs and signage, with a detailed understanding of signage technology and an encyclopedic knowledge of signage history. To see how much you know, here’s a quick quiz based on previous posts in this blog. How many answers can you get right? All the answers should be known to you, provided you’ve been reading this blog: Question 1: The pylon sign is a single- or double-sided sign cabinet, illuminated, and supported above ground level on slim vertical support single or double poles. The shape of these supports may be: a) Plain and unembellished. b) Square. c) Round. d)

News From the World of Signage Vintage Neon Signs Convey An ‘Old-Time’ Feel From the early 1920s to the late 1960s, neon signs were – if not “the bee’s knees” – at least a high-tech expression of the signage industry’s latest and greatest. In the intervening years, new technologies (up to and including color LEDs) have made neon signs look dated, which is enough not only for designers to start re-using that technology to evoke an “old style” look, but for collectors to move in and devote themselves to acquiring, preserving, and displaying the neon arts. One such effort is a current exhibition at the Castle in downtown Appleton, WI. The exhibition, aptly titled: “Neon: Darkness Electrified,” opened last month

2014 was an exciting year for Metro Sign and Awning. Some of our very cool projects included Beverly and Salem Depots, Waterside Place, and The Crossings. Beverly Depot and Salem Depot are two exciting and innovative projects we worked on for the MBTA, with our participation being arranged through Suffolk and Consigli Construction. We installed a new “T” logo there and adding the all-important way-finding signs. Waterside Place was a Design/Build Project we did for The Drew Companies. As you may remember, it is a big part of the development of both luxury and affordable housing now moving forward in Boston and some of our surrounding suburbs. We were involved from the earliest stages, building both customer-facing and back-of-the-house interior

Adams Plaza, Quincy, MA Kimco Realty views Black Friday as an opportunity to refresh the aging pylon sign at Adams Plaza in Quincy, to improve visibility for their tenants, as well as to draw in extra curiosity and traffic! Here, on the right, is the “before” photo. Compare it to the new and improved “after” version, shown here on the left. A more modern look, more substantial-looking pylons, and improved interior elements give the Adams Plaza pylon sign — and the tenants it advertises — a whole new lease on life. Project completed on time, to specifications, on budget. Thanks for the opportunity to serve. Hadley Corner, Hadley, MA Tenants are now moving in at Hadley Corner! Metro

Drive or walk along a commercial thoroughfare and you’ll notice that most of the signs – mounted flush on the fronts of the buildings – are extremely difficult to see from anywhere but directly in front of each shop. That’s not good for business. To improve visibility in these situations, one of the best technologies the signage industry has developed is the so-called “blade” sign. The name describes any sign that extends directly out from the surface of a structure – usually perpendicular to a building’s wall – and thereby presents its full face to all the traffic moving along the side of the building (see accompanying photo). Under most conditions, blade signs can be two-sided, effectively attracting attention from

When you think about it, signage is not just a single specialty, like auto repair or dentistry. It’s a combination of several different functions and activities, including design, outdoor construction, marketing, fabrication with specialty materials, and more. In different situations, we put these skills together in various combinations to provide our customers with whatever type of signage meets their highly specific requirements. Such is the case with Interior Signage, which is one of our specialties that we haven’t mentioned often enough. Interior signage projects come in all levels of complexity, and depending on the project can require us to do everything from designing to building the various signs. Our fabrication team is expert at working will all types of materials, doing