Show Stopping Theater Displays!
When the directors of the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie, NY, needed to print, fabricate and install a series of historical and informational displays for the public areas of the theater, they came to us. The Bardavon Opera House is on the national register of historic places as the oldest continuously operated theater in New York State. The conceptual design and planning of the displays was developed by Carla Rozman of Carla Rozman Graphic Design.
Rich with images from the past, the displays take the visitor on a visual journey through the history of the theater. It is engagingly presented by highlighting the Bardavon’s original beginnings as Collingwood Opera House, through its transformation into a movie palace in the 1920’s, the near demolition in 1976, and onward to the present day with informational panels about performers like the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Bardavon membership, capital campaign donors and ongoing fundraising projects.
All of the displays were fabricated using full color solvent-based print technology, laminated using a durable low-glare protective surface and mounted to ½” thick Sintra Composite panels for long-term durability.
Click Here to visit our project portfolio page for more images.
Consistency is the key to brand awareness.
Probably the single most important aspect of operating a successful business is brand awareness. The public likes to invest their money in companies and products that they recognize and trust. Your customers associate your brand with a few things, including your logo and signage. When these are drastically different there can be a disconnection in the minds of your customers about the identity of your brand. It is vital to create a unified identity across all of your different marketing platforms.
If you have multiple signs, it is important that they all have the same look and feel. When you have multiple signs that look completely different, you create confusion. The same goes with the use of colors. If you use different colors for your signs, logos, and other promotional materials, there would be no way that your customer can recognize you amongst everyone else, or know what you fully represent.
For example, you are walking through a mall to get a birthday present for a friend. You walk up to a store that has bright yellow sign with black letters shaped like a gift tag. Then you walk inside and are surrounded by yellow and blue interior signage shaped like gift tags, the employees are wearing tan slacks with blue polo shirts, and the carpeting and tiles all have the yellow and blue accents. Where are you? That’s right. Best Buy. And each and every Best Buy store looks exactly the same from Boston to San Francisco. That’s what we call Brand Consistency! You can know where you are and why you are there, just by looking around.
By having consistent messaging across all mediums, you show credibility and reliability to your customers. If you are having issues with the consistency of your sign in conjunction with your other marketing materials, it may be time to make some changes.
Feel free to browse our portfolio galleries to see what other clients have done to master the art of brand awareness and consistency.
As always, we’re always here to help if you have questions.
Sign Silliness for a Tuesday
Being in the sign industry we like to pay attention the signs around us, and take notice of the good, the bad, and the interesting. Did you know that there are a few websites that let people submit funny and so called “sign fails” from all over the world? The Huffington Post had a great article the other day that was pretty great from SignSpotting.com! I’ve posted a few favorites below!
Campaign for Excellence!
Nathan Littauer Hospital
Donor Recognition and Historical Display
When Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville, New York began their Capital Campaign in 2007, they contacted Timely Signs to help with planning a recognition panel to acknowledge donors. After a site visit, we found that this organization had a rich and interesting history dating back to 1894.
In their main lobby were statues of their founders Nathan and Lucious Littauer, but the way they were presented left much to be desired. Since the main lobby was where the planned recognition panel was to reside, we naturally felt that presenting the capital campaign in the context of the history of the hospital would be both fitting and visually compelling.
We took our cue from the existing oak pedestals for the statues and created a design using oak trim and backer panels. We suggested suitable paint colors and provided instructions to the hospital facilities department who handled the wallpaper removal and painting which helped reduce cost. The recessed wall areas where the statues rest were painted an accent color to highlight their importance. Etched stainless plaques were installed on the oak bases with the founders’ names as well as decorative lettering on the wall. Between the two sculptures is a panel that outlines the story surrounding the formation of the hospital. To the right is a collage of historical images and to the left is the capital campaign donor panel. Along the bottom of the display is a timeline of key events in the hospital’s history that ties the entire wall together.
Sue Kiernan, Vice President of Development
Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home
Gloversville, NY
See Below for Additional Photos or visit our Portfolio page.
Before:
Brand Awareness through Vehicle Graphics
In order of importance for your company, what comes after increasing your customer base? Gaining visibility!
Increased exposure often leads to more customers, and vehicle graphics are a great approach. Wrapping a car, truck, or any large vehicle, with vehicle graphics will get seen by thousands of eyes per day – and leave distinct impressions on just as many possible customers.
Just how effective are vehicle graphics for your business? 91 percent of people notice words and images on vehicles and coupled with distinct lettering and images, your vehicle graphics will make your brand memorable to these important consumers.
Vehicle wraps have been dramatically growing in popularity for one reason…they work. In fact, vehicle wraps represent your best advertising value. Companies can spend thousands of dollars each and every month on billboard advertising. With a vehicle wrap, your car, truck, or large vehicle will achieve year round exposure without the high monthly costs of traditional billboards. Essentially, it’s your own moving billboard.
Here are some great tips on how to make your vehicle wrap most effective:
First off, and most important, be clear and direct with your message.
- Images are great, but if there is no mention of what goods or services you provide or you don’t have enough brand awareness, you won’t make that instant connection with a person. Make sure your design conveys exactly what you do.
Use the 5-second rule.
- A motorist has 3 to 6 seconds to read your signage, otherwise known as the 5-second rule of advertising. Designs should control where people look first — and leave a lasting impression. Because of the limited time span a person has to view your truck or car graphic, you need to be direct and clear with your message. Essentially, you only have 5 seconds to catch a persons attention as they drive by to convey an understanding of your goods/services and, ultimately, a call to action such as visiting your website.
Utilize the Back of the Vehicle
- The back of your vehicle is where traffic behind you will spend longer amounts of time than drivers passing by the sides. Use the sides of the vehicle to brand your company’s logo, phone number, web address and/or imagery. Use the back of the vehicle to spell out your complex messaging to the people that will have the time to absorb it. Look at every traffic jam as a marketing opportunity.
Ultimately, one of the hardest parts of vehicle graphics is maintaining a balance between an aesthetic appeal and the need for a sense of minimalism. One cannot just throw a bunch of information up on a car because it simply is impractical. There has to be a definitive cut-off in terms of what is necessary information you should have on a truck, car or vehicle fleet.
Click here for our full image gallery of vehicle wraps.
Here are some examples of some funny wraps that we found…
Sometimes, a good sense of humor can attract the attention of a prospective customer, particularly if you’re in an overcrowded services industry.
This is an interesting approach to a funeral service….
A bus wrap for National Geographic. This particular bus is very hungry…
Welcome to the New Timely Signs Website
We understand that the signage and donor recognition industry is very visual medium, and what better way to present our work than with a brand new website.
Aside from its new and updated look, the new website features a powerful way to view our portfolio of projects, making it easier for you to better understand our wide range of services and capabilities here at Timely Signs. You can now look through individual project portfolios (Interior & Exterior Signage or Donor Recognition) or delve deeper into galleries specific to certain types of signage (Carved Signs, Dimensional Lettering, Interior & Wayfinding Signs, Window & Glass Graphics, Vehicle Graphic, Banners, and more…).
In addition, we’ve added a news section in order to bring you fresh content such as featured projects, industry related information, updates about new and exciting things happening at Timely Signs and the fun things we’re up to as a company.
Sheila Gilday, website designer, said “When I initially met with Paul and Joe Beichert to go over the project, I could see their passion for having a website that not only showcased their work, but highlighted their client’s success and achievements. This pride shines through with their new portfolio section that documents some of their larger scale projects from start to finish, rich with images to give you the full project experience. The website also has a robust analytic implementation that will gage traffic and visitor patterns, search engine activity, server performance, and content effectiveness all to better provide the best experience for the customer. Along with an improved user experience, photo heavy product galleries, I’m ecstatic with the final result.”
We think you’ll love the new site and the improved navigation, clean design and helpful resources it has to offer. We’re very excited about this new way of communicating with you and we hope that you enjoy it.
