Signage design and artwork
Most sign companies can make what you send them. We are a design agency that manufactures, so we can originate the artwork, apply a brand across a whole scheme, or redraw a logo that has been lost.
The part that decides whether a sign works
A sign is a piece of design before it is a piece of aluminium. Letter spacing at three metres behaves nothing like it does on a business card, a logo that reads beautifully on screen can fall apart at distance, and a colour that looks right on a monitor can be unattainable in powder coat.
Because the studio that designs the artwork is the one that fabricates and installs it, those decisions get made once, by people who know what the material will do. There is no handing a file to a sign shop and hoping.
Artwork we can and cannot use
Vector artwork scales to any size and is what we need. A logo lifted from a website will not survive being enlarged to three metres, and neither will a JPEG from an old brochure. If the original has been lost we will redraw it, which is usually a couple of hours rather than a project.
Related services
What the design stage covers
Brand application
Taking an existing identity and working out how it behaves as a sign: proportions, spacing, minimum sizes and how it sits on the building.
Visuals
Proposals set against photographs of your own building rather than a generic mock up, so you can see the actual result.
Artwork preparation
Files prepared to the finished size, colour converted, bleed and cut paths set, checked before anything runs.
Redraw and vectorisation
Rebuilding a logo as clean vector artwork where the original has been lost.
Scheme design
A full wayfinding or signage family: one material palette, one type hierarchy, one set of rules.
Colour matching
RAL, Pantone and brand colour matched across powder coat, vinyl and print so a scheme stays consistent.
Common questions
Can you design the signage as well as make it?
Yes. Smiths 1972 is a full design agency as well as a signage manufacturer, so the artwork, the fabrication and the installation sit with one company.
What file format do you need?
Vector artwork, ideally AI, EPS or PDF. A logo taken from a website will not enlarge. If the original has been lost we can redraw it as vector, usually within a couple of hours.
Can you match our brand colours exactly?
We match to RAL for powder coat and Pantone for print and vinyl. Perfect matches across different materials are not always possible, and where they are not we will tell you before manufacture rather than after.
Do you charge for design?
Design is quoted alongside the manufacture. On straightforward jobs where usable artwork already exists it is often minimal.
Need artwork as well as signs?
Send whatever you have, even if it is only a photograph or an old letterhead. We will tell you what is usable and what needs redrawing.
Middle Barn, Fairclough Hall Farm, Halls Green, Weston, Hitchin, Hertfordshire SG4 7DP
Ten minutes from Stevenage. Visitors welcome.