Promoting a business, giving directions or instructions is the basics of what signage has been used for throughout history. Signage is as important now as it has ever been in the past and with the need to stand out from the crowd on the high street, ensure you brand reputation is protected by using great branded signage and ensuring you have enough directional signs to help people find their way, signs may even be more important than ever.
Modern signage is amazing, with so many materials, modern manufacturing processes and options on shapes, sizes and lighting, it has never been so easy to actually get the exact signage that reflects the image in your mind. The team at Technical Signs are experts in designing, manufacturing and then installing all types of modern signage and can really make you anything you can imagine!
Signage History
While signs have always been a part of life, the options available throughout history have obviously been more limited. Below is a quick history of signs and how they have been used in the past.
The first instance of what we would call modern signage is from The Greeks and The Romans, using imagery more than letters, symbols were used to identify different businesses from each other and so that travellers could identify the tavern in the town they were in! The ancient Egyptians may have had earlier signs, but they were very much more pictorial and more like labels that what we would consider today as signage. Other ancient symbols include the use of the cross to identify a meeting place for Christians or the Sun and the Moon symbols for Pagans.
Commerce expanded after the Dark Ages and so did the need for signs for business to help locate and identify them. There was a law in the age of King Richard III that any place that served beer much place a trade sign outside of its business. When this was first introduced the publicans simply complied, but then the signs became more elaborate to differential them from other taverns and to try and attract customers. These decorations were often lions and dragons, which was the start of the traditional pub sign and names that survive to this day.
Signs grew in popularity over the following century and became more elaborate and more promotional. As more and more people moved into cities looking for work signs appeared from the local administrators to advice of dangers or to give advice. By the 18th Century capital cities like London had laws that ensured signs had to be fixed to the wall to avoid injury.
As new technologies emerged like gas lighting, they were adapted to create more individual and unique signs as they identified that creative signs attracted customers. By the time of the second world war, signs were being manufactured on an industrial scale and lots of different options for signs were available to businesses.
Signage has had a long history and has an exciting future, as technology, materials and methods evolve we can’t wait to see what the future holds for the innovative signage industry.
