Maximize Your Storefront Foot Traffic
Premium Custom Blade Signs
Turn passing foot traffic into paying customers with high-quality, double-sided projecting blade signs tailored to your brand. From custom design and local permit coordination to expert structural installation across New Jersey.
Signage Strategy
What is a blade sign, and why does your storefront need one?
A blade sign is a double-sided sign mounted perpendicularly to your storefront walkway. Unlike flat building signs that face the street, blade signs catch the eye of pedestrians and drivers moving down the sidewalk from both directions. It is the single most effective physical marketing asset for increasing foot traffic and establishing a premium presence in high-density shopping districts.
What We Offer
Hand-Carved & Dimensional Signs
Classic, premium aesthetic crafted from durable High-Density Urethane (HDU) or authentic cedar to give your brand a high-end, timeless feel.
Modern Metal & Acrylic
Sleek, clean lines and minimalist materials perfect for contemporary retail brands, tech spaces, and modern offices.
Illuminated Blade Signs
Ensure your business stands out 24/7 with vibrant LED backlit, face-lit, or halo-lit projecting signs.
Products & Solutions
Projection, clearance and area decide approval
Three numbers govern whether a blade sign gets permitted, and they are set by the municipality rather than by taste. How far the sign may project from the facade over the sidewalk, how much clearance must remain between its lowest point and the pavement, and how its face area counts against your total permitted signage. Towns across Union, Morris and Essex counties set these differently, and a sign designed before they are checked is a sign designed twice.
What the facade can actually carry
A blade sign is a cantilever - all of its weight and every gust of wind load transfers into a bracket and then into the wall. Solid brick and masonry take a through-bolted mount readily. EIFS and stucco cannot carry the load in themselves and need the bracket carried back to structure behind. Aluminium storefront framing and glass curtain wall usually cannot take it at all, so the mount moves to the pier or the bulkhead. This gets assessed before the sign is designed, because the answer can change its size.
It has to read from both directions
A blade sign is not seen head-on, it is seen by someone walking toward it from one side or the other. Both faces need to work, which means artwork that reads at an angle rather than a layout composed flat. Long business names fail here - at a walking approach a pedestrian gets a couple of seconds, so a mark or a short name carries where a full legal entity name does not.
Sizing for the walking approach, not the drawing
These signs are read from perhaps fifteen to forty feet down the sidewalk, not from across the street. That viewing distance sets minimum character height, and it is why a blade sign that looks generously sized in a drawing can be too small on the street. It also sets how much detail a carved or illuminated face can carry before it turns to mush at distance.
Landlord approval is separate from the town
Most storefronts are leased, and the lease usually carries its own signage criteria - permitted materials, size, illumination and sometimes a required mounting position - enforced by the landlord independently of the municipality. Both approvals are needed and they are not the same process. We work to whichever is the stricter of the two so the sign is not built twice.
Our Work
We don't just manufacture signs—we build landmark branding for local storefronts. Here is why businesses across NJ have trusted The Sign Center for over two decades.
Complete Turnkey Service
We handle everything in-house. From initial graphic design and municipal permit navigation to engineering and final installation, you won't have to lift a finger.
Superior Material Selection
We build signs to withstand harsh Northeast winters and hot summers. By utilizing advanced HDU and premium sealants, your sign won't warp, crack, or rot.
Deep Local Expertise
Every town in NJ has complex zoning laws. Our 20+ years of experience mean we know exactly how to design a sign that gets approved quickly by local zoning boards.
Our Process
Facade survey & mounting assessment
We measure the storefront, identify the wall construction and confirm where the bracket can actually be anchored before anything is designed.
Design & storefront mockup
The sign is shown on a photograph of your own storefront at true size and projection, viewed from the sidewalk approach rather than straight on.
Permit drawings & filing
Drawings produced to the town ordinance and to any landlord criteria, filed on your behalf and tracked through approval.
Fabrication & bracket engineering
Sign and mounting bracket built to the approved drawings, with the bracket specified for the wall it is going into and the wind load it will take.
Structural installation
Anchored to solid structure at the permitted clearance and projection, then checked for level and load.