Identia Survey: Architectural-Sign Companies Routinely Combat Poor Specs

Identia Signs (Needham, MA), a division of Whitney Veigas Architectural Products that develops web-based applications that help fabricators, designers and facility managers produce modular architectural-sign and wayfinding systems, has released results from its survey of more than 140 respondents. Among the respondents, 109 mostly perform architectural-sign work, submit bids, interact with architects and receive specs.

Among these 109, 60 (or 55%) acknowledge receiving inadequate sign specifications 50% or more of the time. Only four respondents said they encountered lacking specs 10% or less of the time. When asked who will most likely be responsible for untangling insufficient sign requirements, 94 respondents said the sign company would bear the burden (presumably, they speak from experience).

Further, Identia’s survey report states, “We know that signage for thousands of U.S. building projects are governed by poorly crafted specifications and construction documents. It’s safe to assume that poor specifications result in poor implementations. While there are certainly examples of architectural-sign companies dutifully fleshing out poor specifications, we also believe there are an equal, if not greater, number of cases where this isn’t done.”

It continues, “Many sign specifications focus only on code-compliant signs, or include such vague statements as, ‘Put a sign on every door.’ These specs omit the many important functional and wayfinding signs that are critical to a building’s operational characteristics, but go beyond what is required by codes.”
 

The report notes that signage falls under the jurisdiction of numerous national, state and code regulations, and, without a sign specialist assisting with the sign-design process, code-compliance errors or omissions become increasingly likely.

For the full report, visit www.identiasigns.com/main/2010surveyresults.html
 

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