Editor's Note

Your Voice Inspires Our Reporting on Small Sign Companies

We rely on – and are grateful for – the invaluable feedback provided by our Brain Squad members.

Published

3 years ago

August 9, 2021

Mark Kissling Signs of the Times August 2021 Issue

HERE’S THE THING about asking for feedback: You get it. For years prior to this, I’d written many articles and a regular column. I could count on one hand — heck, two fingers — the number of emails I received from readers.

This year that’s changed. We introduced our Brain Squad survey group and have been publishing their contributions since our redesigned April issue. Brain Squad members supply us with not only tips, anecdotes, to-do items and Benchmarks projects, but also questions and “letters to the editor” — all submitted though our monthly surveys.

If you haven’t noticed already, look all over this issue for contributions from your colleagues. And you can join them by signing up at signsofthetimes.com/brainsquad.

Some questions or “letters” we’ve received from Brain Squad members ask us to feature more projects within the range of smaller sign companies. Sure, we all love and are impressed — hopefully inspired, too — by multimillion-dollar sign projects, such those featured in our July cover story. But what about projects for “mere mortal” signshops?

Well, we’ve got some for you this month. And I don’t mean to disparage these projects as “mere” by any stretch. Every kind of sign demands top-notch design, fabrication and installation to fulfill the sign’s intention. Of course, these are easier with some signs than others, but there’s nothing “mere” about the monument signs featured this month or the “mortal-made” projects any month.

Ever since I started on this magazine, I’ve strived to be the voice of realism, checking the impulse of favoring spectaculars and the like with great projects from the other 7/8ths of the sign world — the equivalent of an iceberg’s mass below the surface.

So, please understand that Signs of the Times knows you’re there and we all respect the hell out of what you do.

5 Smart Tips from This Issue

Keep in mind the myriad options of sign blanks. (Tech Products)
Diversify your product offerings with a laser engraver. (Things Remembered)
Target a gross profit of 70% or greater. (Maggie Harlow)
Choose new customers and new projects carefully. (Dale Salamacha)
Eliminate hot spots and other problems from reverse channel letters. (Mars Bravo)

Introducing the Sign Industry Podcast

The Sign Industry Podcast is a platform for every sign person out there — from the old-timers who bent neon and hand-lettered boats to those venturing into new technologies — we want to get their stories out for everyone to hear. Come join us and listen to stories, learn tricks or techniques, and get insights of what’s to come. We are the world’s second oldest profession. The folks who started the world’s oldest profession needed a sign.