While we don’t have a handy Magic 8 ball able to reliably predict the future, it hasn’t stopped us from making some educated guesses about next year’s signage industry trends. They include:

• Minimalism in design. We’ll continue to see signs focused on clean, crisp images that evoke elegance.
• Improved sustainability. As more companies embrace ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies, they’re incorporating eco-friendly initiatives into their buildings, including
  

With vaccines readily available and the post-COVID landscape evolving, businesses will continue examining and creating policies to ensure the safety of their employees returning to in-person work — and the safety of customers and visitors, too. 

In many cases, companies have also recognized the value of offering their employees a hybrid approach: working part-time virtually and part-time in person. This strategy makes sense for companies who’ve incorporated virtual meetings as a complement to in-person meetings with clients and visitors. 

More than a year of remote work is challenging the way we view traditional work models. A Microsoft 2021 report found 73% respondents...

One of the easiest ways to get recognition is to put up a sign. We’ve all seen those iconic signs that garner instant attention: The Citgo Sign in Kenmore Square, Cask ‘n Flagon next to Fenway, McDonalds’ golden arches. Target’s bullseye.

A quick glance at these signs tells us immediately what store we’ve found. But these globally recognized icons—like any sign, really—needed serious planning and strategy to work effectively. 

Most people—even smart businesses who hire a company like Metro—don’t realize all the steps involved with designing, building, and installing signage. Adding signs requires more than simply hanging a sign on an interior wall or erecting a sign on a pole outside. Developing a signage strategy, from conceptualization through installation, often falls by the wayside at first, but to be most effective, signage planning should be...

Since the beginning of hunting and gathering, people have relied on signs for information. Very early sign markers, often just a pile of stones, helped guide people traveling through the wilderness to find game or communities.

The Scots used rock cairns—Gaelic for “heap of stones”—as signposts to mark trails across the grassy moors. People living in Mongolia and the Andes Mountains used similar rock cairns to mark routes between villages and food supplies. 

Gradually, signs expanded to include marks left by hunters and wayfarers on rocks and trees. It’s why hikers today still rely on blazes along the Appalachian and other trails. As populations have increased, communities have grown, and technology has evolved, signage has similarly transformed. 

Signs have evolved over the centuries...