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FedEx Survey Finds Signage Powerful

Federal Express is both a well known brand and a highly successful company. So when it says there’s a solid and important connection between good signage and consumers’ decisions about whether or not to visit your store and make a purchase, it’s probably a good idea to listen. FedEx’s classic survey, called “What’s Your Sign?,” measured the power of signage to attract people and influence their buying behavior. Its results underline the potential for small businesses to find new customers and increase their sales and profitability by means of effective signs. According to the survey: More than half of consumers will hold back from giving a retail store a try when its signage doesn’t measure up, particularly if it contains

To most of us, beautiful designs just spring full blown from nowhere in particular. But in reality, the polished look of all the objects we see – complete with all the associations each one brings to mind and the various messages and feelings each one conveys – are the result of much hard work by a visually-gifted group of people who work as “designers”. Metro Sign and Awning is well staffed with a group of designers who routinely make clients’ visions come to life in three dimensions. One of these is Susan MacGregor, Senior Designer, who is responsible for creating the drawings that will later be turned into signs, as well as for the presentation visuals shown to clients for

As Shakespeare wrote (Act II, Scene 2, “Romeo and Juliet”): “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But Shakespeare never met a modern consumer, beset on all sides by a wide variety of choices and aggressively courted by all manner of tempting offers. In today’s economy, the right name can make all the difference between one type of flower that sits unappreciated on a shelf somewhere and another, very similar, type of flower that shows up in every suitor’s hand as he nervously rings the doorbell of his beloved. While Shakespeare had some reason to believe in those simpler times that names didn’t really matter much, the Bard of

Cabinet maker, sign maker, account manager. Mark Vella is a “hands-on” kind of guy who very much enjoys working with Metro Sign and Awning’s customers, finding out what each one needs in the way of signage, and helping to deliver it. After a varied career first working with wood, then later with signage materials, Mark found his way to Metro Sign and learned his true calling: making contact and working with contractors, architects, building owners, and just about anyone who has a message to communicate and needs Metro Sign to give it solidity and dimension. Mark keeps his ear to the ground, searching out potential projects via a wide variety of industry channels. He also actively develops relationships through which

Pretty much any sign you can think of, we can make for you. But that doesn’t mean you can get government approval to place that sign where you want it. In fact, the process of getting approval for business signage is a lot more complex than you probably imagine. It involves dealing with many different departments, agencies, and governments – depending on where you plan to place the sign – and it also involves meeting a myriad of specific limits, requirements, and standards that may or may not seem entirely sensible to you. In Boston, just to begin somewhere, the approval process requires that we submit an application to the Boston Redevelopment Authority for what they call their Comprehensive Sign

Anyone watching NECN, New England Cable News, on January 16, 2014, probably saw its featured story on the Boston metropolitan area’s future growth. Specifically, the cable news channel covered a Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) report on demographic and economic trends, which calculates the need for some 435,000 new housing units – including affordable apartments, single family homes, condos, townhouses, and even something called “micro units” – by 2040 if our region is going to sustain the record of strong economic and civic expansion we’ve establishing during the past couple of decades. Even if we fall short of “strong” economic growth, we’ll apparently still need some 300,000 additional housing units. Various experts and officials spoke about the need for additional

We’re all used to seeing cars and trucks – not just on the road, but in magazine and newspaper advertising and on TV commercials – with their plain-wrap “native”paint jobs. So it’s no surprise when any vehicle wrapped with vivid graphics and text advertising stands out and gets attention. The American Trucking Association, for example, claims that 90% of the people it has surveyed actively notice advertising wraps on vehicles they see, and 80% of them remember the products advertised on those vehicle wraps. That’s one of the big reasons wrapping your business vehicle(s) can produce very gratifying returns on your investment (ROI). Another reason is that advertising-wrapped vehicles regularly collect 600 to 1,000 impressions for each mile they travel.

Metro Sign and Awning recently added two new talented members to our Project Management Team: Adam Brodeur and Tom Rogers. Adam comes to Metro with a strong background in the service industry, having previously supported a customer service team with great success. We like Adam’s unswerving attention to detail, along with his ability to ‘get the job done.’ With Adam on board, we further increase our confidence that our customers will receive the extremely high level of support we insist on from our Sales Team. Tom comes to Metro Sign with several years’ experience in various aspects of the signage industry. Having worked in project management at both Sunshine Sign and Viewpoint Sign, Tom is already highly knowledgeable in both

What a great year! Despite all the turmoil and difficulties for Boston, the northeastern U.S., and the world at large, we at Metro Sign and Awning have enjoyed the opportunity to meet the year’s challenges, to grow, to serve, and to do our bit to make the world a better place. Some of our more exciting and successful 2013 projects include: The Forum Restaurant: After the horrific events of Marathon Monday and the destruction that took place outside one of our valued customers, we did our small part to help them rebuild. Working with Boston Nightlight Ventures and the Back Bay Architectural Commission we put together a plan to reinvigorate the remodeled restaurant that included new awnings and face lit

Although the products rolling out the big door are nearly always “one of a kind,” and often highly artistic or creative, at the base of it all, Metro Sign and Awning operates around a factory. Every day, artisans and support staff deal in actual, physical goods that have to be cut, bent, shaped, carved, welded, sanded, finished, painted, and more. Nothing happens until that material and the requisite supplies for the various manufacturing processes are procured. So in a real sense, Craig Wondrasch sits at the very heart of the Metro Sign and Awning complex. Pricing the Materials and Supplies – Putting It All Together “In my purchasing role,” explains Craig, “I look at a complete set of drawings for