“Evidently, it’s stimulated the sign-making industry—putting America back to work by putting up ‘Putting America Back to Work’ signs every 200 yards across the land. And at 300 bucks a pop, the signage alone should be enough to launch an era of unparalleled prosperity—assuming America’s gilded sign magnates don’t spend their newfound wealth on Bahamian vacations and European imports.”

—Mark Steyn, political commentator and cultural critic

This Avery Dennison semi trailer features computer-cut Avery High Visibility metallized prismatic reflectivei films, including Avery HV 1100 Prismatic blue film and Avery HV 1200 yellow conspicuity tape for ideal visibility during night driving. Avery 1200 red/white conspicuity tape outlines the trailer for maximum visibility and safety for night-time drivers.

Departments of transportation across the country demand that drivers pay attention to their signs, mandating that reflective films be used to catch headlights and warn, direct and inform. It’s a concept that obviously works as the demand for reflective films for use on regulatory road signs has only increased over the years.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, which is that the regulatory use of reflective films has a commercial application that canⁱ lead to more sales for the sign company. After all, everyone’s looking for an edgeⁱ, a new way to spotlight their business and bring in more customers.

“There’s an opportunity to better use reflective material so that the customer is able to grab more attention and use it as an advertising medium,” says Scott Chapman, regional trafficⁱ & safety segment manager, North America, Avery Dennison Graphics & Reflective Products Division. Chapman says that there are any number of quasi-regulatory signsⁱ in and around private businesses that would benefit from the use of reflective materials, such as parking and wayfindingⁱ signs.

DEALING WITH REGULATIONⁱ

However, the increasingly long arm of government is forcing regulation onto private property, adds Chapman. Signs located in what is considered a public space, like a parking lot, will probably need to conform to specific criteria dictated either by local, state and federal agencies—or all of the above.

Despite the bureaucratic pain of regulation, the regulation itself provides opportunity. The key is to know the codes and requirements, and how they apply to your customer’s property. There may be an opportunity for sign makers to offer upgrades to client signage in order to bring them into compliance. This is a valueⁱ-added service that highlights your knowledge of their business and ultimately helps sell more signs.

These Chinese highway signs are constructed with Avery T-7500 Maximum Visual Performance (MVP) for excellent daytime color and the highest levels of reflectivity. T-7500 MVP is ideal for overhead guide signs and directional signs, providing early detection and an extended range of sign legibility.

Despite increasing regulation, there remain scores of potential work for the “quasi-regulatory” sign—be it wayfinding, warning or identification that isn’t subject to daunting government specifications. Here, some creativity may be used so that the sign lives a double life as informer and advertiser.

“Reflective films can offer enhanced visibility in applications like directing people to a store location at night. In a passive lighting application, as opposed to an active one like neonⁱ, reflective films can be very impactful in many situations,” says Douglas Blackwell, product marketing manager, 3M Commercial Graphics. “Signs placed at entryways to a village square, a restaurant entrance, real estate signs near the road, hours of operations signs, either on-premise or on an A-frame on the street… These are all potential reflective film applications that can be very helpful for the customer and provide additional sales and margin for the sign company.”

Blackwell says that reflective film applications are particularly effective in adverse conditions such as rain, fog, low light at dawn and dusk and other tricky lighting situations. However, adds Blackwell, “On all parking lot or road signs, sign companies should check with the FHWA/MUTCD (the manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which can be found at http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov) as well as state and local guidelines on size, colors, placement and so forth. Wayfinding signs, such as ‘Welcome to the Town of Elmwood’ for example, may also be subject to regulations if placed on public roads.”

SUBSTRATES AND FILMS

Paul Konvicka, signs and rental manager for Batterson Incorporated in Houston, says aluminum is the company’s preferred application substrate. Konvicka usually doesn’t have a choice since all of the company’s signs must comply with regulatory agency guidelines for use at road construction sites and on the streets, byways and highways of Texas.

The three basic materials Batterson is relegated to using are MDOⁱ, Coroplast and various gauges of aluminum, which are specified based on the end use of the regulatory sign. “We don’t print because we found that printing isn’t durable enough for the day-to-day beating and exposure these signs take. We use a lot of the signs repeatedly,” says Konvicka.

“It’s all spelled out and we have to get the signs inspected before they go out. They test the gauge of aluminum and the retro-reflectivity of the sign. For retro-reflectivity—which is the ability of the surface to reflect light directly back to your eyes as opposed to scattering it—the inspector shines a flashlight on the sign in a dark room and measures the light coming off the sign,” adds Konvicka.

Batterson uses three basic grades of reflective film: engineer, high-intensityⁱ and diamond grade. Konvicka says diamond grade is the “Cadillac version” used for applications like stop signs, high-intensity film is used for speed limit signs, and engineer grade for handicapped parking signs and the like.

“If there’s no set regulation on reflectivity I would recommend high intensity. It has enough reflectivity that you don’t need to go to diamond grade,” says Konvicka. “But if you use diamond grade you just need to set the plotterⁱ to cut deeper. Other than that, the only thing that’s changed in production is the fact that the materials and the equipment continues to improve.”

Road Rage Designs printed and installed digital graphics on Avery MPI 6200 Premium Reflective film, a reflective cast film with a brilliant gloss finish that is digitally printable with solventi, eco-solvent and UVi-curable inkjet printers and conforms to the most difficult contours. Manufacturers are busily developing more conformable and printable reflective films to maximize advertising impact on vehicles.

Reflective films, when printed on using solvent inksi, can result in truly eye-catching images. Desaturating the ink coveragei allows more reflectivity through the image.

PRINTING REFLECTIVES

If not subject to specific DOT regulations, reflective films can be a nice additional highlight to enhance nighttime viewing and drawⁱ people in, particularly when used for phone numbers and website addresses.

Reflective film’s “highest value is usually as an accent piece, either as a drop-shadowⁱ or outline. If you use it much more than that, the amount of shadowing/haloing can defeat the overall value of a sign unless the letters are monstrous. I’ve seen it used most effectively to create a negative outline or drop shadow,” says Chuck Bules, tech service manager for Arlon.

While using a plotter/vinylⁱ cutter is the most typical production method, Bules notes that most reflective films can be printed directly. However, there are limitations to printing onto reflective films due to the basic properties of the film itself, and with regard to the print technology that is used.

“UV-curable hasn’t made in-roads into printing onto reflective materials because the surface is tricky to bond to in the first place. The best digital print technologies for reflective films are with solvent inks and thermal transfer platforms,” explains Bules. “Usually when people are digitally printing reflective material they’re using the open areas as the actual image and making a negative out of it. You can get reflectivity out of the entire printed image if you de-saturate the ink coverage on the image enough to allow candle power through it; but that means you’ll get a fairly significant color shift, and you won’t get the image-pop you were after.”

When printing, the key is to find out about compatibility issues from the manufacturer, then experiment on small samples to see how the ink and film interact to yield the final image. Bules adds that if you plan on removing the film sometime down the road, first apply a layer of inexpensive film to the substrate, and then add the reflective material. “The basic construction of reflective film is far more brittle than any other vinyl material sign companies work with. It won’t take a shape like standard vinyl, but more importantly as the product gets older it becomes brittle and difficult to remove.”