Commercial Signage Explained: What It Covers and Where to Start
7 min readThe short answer: commercial signage is every sign a business puts up to help people find it, get inside, move around and remember it. That means the fascia over the door, the post sign at the car park entrance, the lettering in reception, the room plates on the corridor and the safety notices on the fire doors. It is not one product. It is a set of jobs.
Thinking of it as a set of jobs is the quickest way to plan a budget, because it tells you which signs you cannot do without and which can wait.
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The four jobs a business sign does
- Be found: roadside, building and shopfront signs that tell a driver or a pedestrian they have arrived.
- Get people in: entrance signs, door vinyl, opening hours, and anything that makes the way in obvious.
- Help people move: directional, room and floor signs inside the building.
- Be remembered: reception logos, wall graphics and window displays that leave an impression after the visit.
Legal notices sit across all four. Fire exit, first aid and hazard signs are required by law in most workplaces, whatever the budget.
Exterior commercial signs
Exterior work usually carries the largest share of any budget because it has to survive weather, be read from a distance and, often, be lit. Typical options are fascia panels, built-up or flat-cut letters on the building, projecting signs, lightboxes, totems and post-and-panel signs at site entrances.
Illuminated exterior signs, and some large non-illuminated ones, normally need advertisement consent from the local council. Allow for that in the timetable before anything is ordered.
Interior commercial signs
Inside, the brief changes. Signs are read at arm's length, so finish and detail matter more than size. Reception logos, glass manifestation, door plates, directories and wall graphics are the usual items. Interior signs are also the ones that change most often as teams and tenants move, so modular systems with replaceable inserts are worth considering.
Plan from the street inwards
Walk the route a first-time visitor takes, starting at the road. Write down every point where they might hesitate: the turn into the car park, the choice of doors, the lift lobby, the corridor junction. Each hesitation point needs a sign. Anything that is not a hesitation point is branding, which is valuable but optional.
That list becomes the sign schedule, and it is the single most useful document to bring to a sign company.
Who does what
Some firms only design, some only manufacture, and some only install. Complete Signs has been making signs since 1982 and handles all three in house, from the first survey through our own workshop to fitting by our own team, anywhere in the UK. With one firm responsible for the whole job, there is nobody else to blame if a sign does not fit.
Common questions
Is commercial signage the same as business signage?
Yes. The terms are used interchangeably for signs made for businesses and organisations, as opposed to house signs or personal gifts.
Do I need planning permission for commercial signs?
Many signs need advertisement consent, particularly illuminated ones and those above a certain size. Your local planning authority makes the decision, and a sign company can prepare the drawings they ask for.
Which sign should I buy first?
The one that stops people getting lost or walking past. For most businesses that is the main exterior sign, followed by any statutory safety signs.
Can one company handle signs for several sites?
Yes. We work UK-wide, so a single schedule can cover every site and keep the branding consistent.
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Bring us your sign schedule, or let us write it
We offer a free survey and a free quote. Tell us about the premises and we will map the signs it actually needs.