Our Blog - A look into our world

Brain researchers have definitive proof that working together in teams and collaborating onprojects actually makes us smarter asa species. The very act of solving problems, coming up with newideas and facing challenges causes our brains to grow. What all this science means is we should seek out ways to partner with others because we are better working together than we are apart.

When it comes to getting the most out of your signage budget, all the steps in our guide are important. But perhaps the number one step you can take to maximize your budget, develop useful signs and build long term brand consistence is to develop a partnership with a reputable sign company. 

Too often, businesses look at their vendors as simply suppliers. You order a product. The vendor delivers it. Done. This may work for your office supplies, but leaves something to be desired for your signage. A partnership means you work together to achieve success. 

Let's explore how to get the most out of this valuable partnership. You can also see the ebook for more information or to start building a partnership with The Sign Center.

Trend Setters and Thought Leaders
A thought leaders is someone you turn to for the latest ideas in an industry. It's someone who keeps up with the latest news and ideas in a specific industry. The sign company you choose should be a thought leader in the sign industry. 

As you choose a partner, ask about the industry.

Work smarter, not harder goes the old saying. When you work smarter, your job gets easier, you work more effectively and you get more out of your signage budget. Creating a facility signage plan is key to making your job easier. Another way to make your job easier is to make inspections of your signage on a regular basis so you're ready when it comes time for regulatory agencies to inspect your facility signage. 

Inspections Matter
Many facility managers dread inspections. They feel intrusive, burdensome and unnecessary. However, inspections do matter. The key role of signage is to inform and to make use of your facilities easier for those who use them. 

To that end, they should be useful and intuitive. They must also meet local, state and federal guidelines and requirements. These requirements include:

• Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); 
• Proper notification regarding the storage of hazardous materials;
• Appropriate signage to remain in line with fire safety and evacuation procedures;
• And many, many more. 

Inspections help facility managers ensure they have the correct signage for the benefit and safety of all people who you use your facility. Great inspections work to build a partnership with buildings and facility managers rather than simply impose punitive damages.

Make Inspections Easier
Inspections do benefit your facility, but that doesn't make them any easier. You can make them easier, though by completing your own inspections, staying on top of current laws and regulations regarding signage, and working with a sign vendor who understands sign regulations. 

Completing your own regular inspections of your signs serves two purposes. First, it helps you regularly assess the quality and usefulness of your signs. You can inspect for damage, vandalism or obstructions that block your signs. Secondly, you can inspect your signs with a "cheat sheet" of sign regulations that inspectors will be on the lookout for and address issues before a formal inspection.

Staying on top of rules and regulations requires regular communication with regulatory bodies. You can do that by getting to know your inspectors, regularly check websites and other publications that govern signage, and creating a network of other facility managers. 

A key strategy to make inspections easier is by working with a vendor who understands regulations. These vendors can even do pre-inspections with you to evaluate your signs in relation to the regulations your local, state and federal impose on your facility.

This year, work smarter not harder by completing your own regular inspections before a formal inspection.

How do most people lose weight? They don't will it to happen and hope for the best. Successful weight loss comes after you develop and stick to a plan of diet and exercise. 

Getting the most out of your signage budget is similar. You have to develop and stick to a facility signage plan that takes into account all the aspects of great signage and helps eliminate the problems you most often encounter with your signs. 

To get started writing a plan, it's helpful to understand why you need a plan in the first place and the key questions to answer. 

Why a Master Plan?
A master plan might sound a little sinister, like something a criminal mastermind would cook up in the lab. But if you think about it, the master plan is what  helps the criminal mastermind achieve his ultimate aims.

With a plan in place, everyone knows what to do, what to expect and they will be less likely to cause problems and delays. It also helps when someone steps outside of the guidelines. You can look back at the plan, revisit the guidelines and make corrections. 

Without a plan, you will experience some of the classic problems with maintaining consistent facility signage — new management looking for a "change," a vendor who doesn't stick to guidelines, or urgent situations trumping the guidelines. 

Building the Plan
You can begin to build your master facility signage plan by connecting with your marketing or advertising departments. These departments often build corporate brand guidelines that govern things like letterhead, business cards and even email signatures. These guidelines should govern your signs as well.

Then, you want to ask some key questions. 

Have you ever seen a sign that needs a sign to explain it to a building's visitors? What about signs that serve no purpose or use to customers? Those signs aren't getting the job done for your facility if no one can understand what the sign indicates or knows why the sign is there in the first place. These signs also waste money in your sign budget.

All signs in a building or facility should be both useful and intuitive for customers, clients and visitors. If a sign doesn't achieve that basic mission, then don't waste your money on the sign. To make signs useful and intuitive, there are four key indicators to help you achieve this goal. 

1. Know Who Will See the Sign
Different audiences call for a different approach to signage. The signs customers and clients need to see vary greatly from those employees need to see. Carefully considering the sign's audience will help you understand what information the sign needs in order to be useful and intuitive to the viewer. This is also a good lens to view current signage in your facility to see if it needs updating. 

If you are unsure who sees what signs in your building, spend some time touring the facility. Spend time in different areas observing who visits that area, what signs already exist and how people react to and interpret signage. This "field data" can yield a lot of information to make signs more useful and intuitive for the people who see the sign regularly.

2. Make Signs Recognizable
Or in other words, make the sign visible. Intuitive and useful signs won't work if people can't see them. As you consider color, size and other sign attributes, keep in mind where the sign will eventually go in a building. Don't choose colors that will blend into the surrounding wall or sizes that are too small for a space. 

Once you have placed signs in your facility, ensure they don't get blocked by plants, doors, file cabinets or other obstructions. Signs no one can see are basically signs that aren't even there. 

3. Use Common Symbols
Creativity is great in some areas of business like marketing and advertising. Signage, though, is one place where you want to stick with what works. Intuitive and useful signs rely on common symbols and icons that customers, clients and visitors can easily recognize and interpret. These include common symbols for restrooms, stairs, disabled access, emergency exits and other commonly visited sites in and around facilities. 

4. Vary Signs for Audience
This "must" for useful and intuitive signs takes into account the different audiences who will visit your facility over the course of a business day. This includes:

Your company brand is one of your most potent assets as a business. If you leverage your brand asset well and execute your core mission with excellence, you will find success. Your signage is the visual manifestation of your brand and so, you should execute it with excellence so that it represents your brand to the outside world. 

Executing your brand strategy with excellence requires long-term consistency. Everything your company does should fit into your brand guidelines, even your signage. This is easier said than done, however, as companies run into several roadblocks in their efforts to maintain long-term brand consistency. Maintaining cohesive signage, though, is key to getting the most out of your signage budget.

In this step, we'll explore the common problems companies encounter in sticking to their brand guidelines and how to overcome those hurdles. 

Common Signage Hurdles
When it comes to executing your brand in your signage, companies encounter many of the same problems with maintaining consistency: outside influencers, unavoidable situations, and a lack of fidelity to guidelines. 

You have many outside influencers who want to have a say in your signage. These include facility managers who want to have their stamp on a building, vendors who think they know best and employees who act independently. 

Unavoidable situations also crop up regularly. Signs get damaged from weather or vandalism. A new city or county ordinance might require specific signage immediately. When these situations arise, urgency too often trumps brand guidelines. All of a sudden, fidelity to your branding strategy goes out the window. 

Putting Your Brand First
Despite these common hurdles, you can achieve long-term brand consistency in your signage by recognizing these problems and creating plans to address them before they happen. 

Start by identifying three key details for your signage:

• Brand color — Pick limited and specific colors your signs can include.
• Brand logos — Identify what versions of your brand's logos will go on signs.
• And measurements — Determine the specific size of an array of signage so replacement signs and new signs measure the same. 

After you have identified these key details, you need to communicate them to all the stakeholders — your sign vendor, employees and others like building managers. Knowledge is power after all and many lapses in brand guidelines occur because people weren't aware of the guidelines in the first place.

You should also keep the circle of people who can make final decisions on signage small. When fewer people have the authority to order new and replacement signs, the likelihood of errors will decrease.

Execute your brand with excellence and your brand will work for you. Cohesive signage will help you achieve long-term brand consistency, get the most out of your signage budget and leverage this most valuable corporate asset.

Since the first fire engine and the first police car, it has become increasingly important for emergency vehicles to bear graphics that distinguish them from vehicles around them. When it comes to police cars, this necessity is taken to a new level.

One of the daily challenges that a police officer faces is embodying a persona that reflects confidence and authority, and not just on the road. To be fair, the law of the road is to pull over to any sirens you hear behind you or approaching you from the front, but generally when you look in the rearview mirror, there is no mistaking a cop car for a fire engine.

In terms of representing authority, uniformity in quantity goes a long way, so to say that the graphics on a single police car become instrumental in weaving a picture of authority would be unfair. The same graphics repeated on the same make and model vehicle, however, do accomplish that.

Another reason that the graphics on a police car are so important is because police need to distinguish themselves for emergency reasons. Getting pulled over is one thing. Needing to locate a cop to file a report in an emergency situation is another. By their distinguishing qualities, the graphics on a police car provide a sense of comfort to the community by representing a presence of protection.

The presence of a police vehicle can be as comforting as it can be unnerving. Nobody likes to see a cop in the rearview mirror, but cops are on constant security detail, and special detail. Think back to the last time you saw a cop leading a funeral procession. Because of the graphics on the cruiser, the start of the procession was easily identifiable. More often than not, if there is a cop in the front of the procession, there is a cop in the back, signaling the end of the procession. In this regard, the presence of police vehicles lends a sense of comfort to those who might be searching for it.

Finally, the graphics on police vehicles, in their replication through different towns, identify one town’s police vehicle from another. Because they are easily distinguished from one another, jurisdiction issues are made clear, leaving more time for collaboration.

However you choose to view the graphics on police cars, it is important to note, ultimately, that what they represent is safety, protection and service.

The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care certifies ambulatory surgery centers in the United States. The AAAHC is always reviewing its standards and revising its standards, even adding new standards as they become required by the ever-changing health care field.

Whatever those standards are at any given time, your service center needs to meet them. Their surveyors include people from all walks of the health care field, including physicians, dentists, podiatrists, pharmacists, nurses and administrators. Based on how they decide, your institution is accredited for three years. However, if your center does not meet their standards, it will receive a deferral or denial of accreditation.

The AAAHC is all about meeting the highest-possible standards for patient care and safety. And so long as your organization meets the following criteria, it is ready for accreditation.

• Life is a journey, not a destination.
• So along the way, enjoy the best.
• At Fat Witch Bakery, we're not in a hurry.
• We bake in small batches and do what is known in the trade as "scratch baking." And we use natural ingredients.
• We create products where quality trumps quantity.
• We're not trying to bake everything for everybody.
• We're baking for people with good taste and that includes their taste buds.
• We don't add emulsifiers, gas flushes or other things you wouldn't add.
• We like to add a touch of whimsy and we hope you like our sense of humor.
• Life is too serious to be taken seriously.
• Thank you for visiting our website and enjoy the Witches because these are the best brownies EVER!