As a sign company, I am very familiar with event signs. I print them every day. The Graphic Edge printed over 8000 sports signs for the NFL when the Super Bowl came to town, but that is another blog post. Most of our clients need event signs for corporate parties, gallery openings, sporting events or trade shows. When it came time to create signs for my daughters bat mitzvah, I knew exactly where to start. I built a sign campaign from the outside in. I enlisted the creative skills of my business partner for the design. He happens to be my husband and the bat mitzvah girl’s dad, so that helped. Signs are used to give direction, create an environment or communicate a message. I needed a sign to accomplish each of these.
I began with directional signs. A simple clean, easy to read sign is the best option for outdoor communication, especially when the audience is in a vehicle. It is important to get the message across quickly and clearly. My directional signs were used to let people know where to park, but they also were intended to convey the theme of my party. Four signs were put in parking areas with the slogan of the party. We used black coroplast with white cut vinyl lettering for the parking signs and metal H stakes to put them in the ground. Our event was in a crowded urban downtown area, and I was worried my guests wouldn’t find parking. No one complained about finding a parking spot as they were all clearly marked.
Working my way into the party, I wanted to communicate the location of our event. As mentioned, we were in a crowded downtown area and the building didn’t face a major street, and so we decided to put a banner outside the main entrance. A retractable banner stand was the perfect solution to avoid hanging anything on the building. The message was the same as the parking signs but offered a little more space for creativity while keeping the same basic personality of our parking signs. We added a color but kept the type treatment clean and simple. Retractable Banner Stands are easy to use and affordable. Especially for me because I own the sign shop!
Retractable II with Poly Banner
Once our guests made it through the door, we needed to let them know to go up the elevator so we created a sign to place outside the door. We used black gatorboard and again the message and look were carried in from the parking lot signs. This time we designed a screened back “J” in the background to keep things interesting but added 4th floor to let everyone know to go on the elevator.
Directional Sign
Once upstairs, there was no more need for directional signs and no more messages to be conveyed, but at a Bat Mitzvah, the kids like to have a sign in board as a memento. All the guests leave messages on the board and you hope no one puts a mustache on your picture. Our sign in board was unique, and I haven’t seen it produced this way before. Carrying the black background theme from the parking signs, retractable banner stand and directional sign all the way to our sign in board was perfect. We tested metallic sharpies on the black gatorboard, and they created a pretty option for our guests to use to sign.
Sign In Board
The final sign we decided to print was a Step and Repeat Media Wall. We have been printing these a lot lately. Taking pictures in front of a sponsor wall has become very trendy for red carpet events, press releases, book signings and private parties. James created two logos for the party and we printed a white vinyl banner, 8′ x 8′, is the most common size. We purchased an adjustable banner frame, and the step and repeat banner looked great. This activity was popular and our photographer was kept very busy.
Step and Repeat Wall
We received many compliments on our signs and everyone said they came right to the place. I was concerned my guests would get lost but alas … I am a sign company.
I got this!
