What a Sign Writer Website Needs

The portfolio is the product

Somebody choosing a sign writer is choosing an aesthetic and a standard of finish, and neither can be described in words.

So the work is the argument, and the site's job is to show enough of it, quickly, on a phone.

That is different from most trades, where the photographs support the text rather than replacing it.

Here the text supports the photographs, and there should be considerably less of it than a web designer will suggest.

Organise by type, not by client

• Vehicle graphics and wraps.
• Shopfront and fascia.
• Interior and wayfinding.
• Site and safety signage.
• Illuminated work.

A visitor arrives wanting one of those and does not care which client it was for. A gallery sorted by customer name forces them to open everything, and most will not.

The questions that arrive by phone

Which the site should answer before they call.

Roughly what does a van cost.

How long from approval to fitted.

Do you do the design or do I need artwork.

Can you match what I already have on another vehicle.

And do you come to me or do I bring it to you.

Five short answers, on one page, remove most of the qualifying conversation.

Say something about price

Which almost nobody in this trade does.

Signage prices vary enormously by size, material, and complexity, which is the reason given for saying nothing.

The useful version is a range per common job: a set of van graphics from this to this, a shopfront fascia from this to this.

That filters out the person expecting a hundred dollars and reassures the person who feared thousands.

State clearly that it depends on the design and the surface, which everybody understands.

A business publishing ranges gets fewer enquiries and more of them turn into work.

A worked example

A sign writer had a gallery of sixty images in one long grid, unsorted.

They split it into five categories, added a from-price to each, and put a line about turnaround on each category page.

Enquiries fell by about a fifth and jobs won rose, because the people who stopped enquiring were the ones who were never going to proceed.

The category most viewed turned out to be vehicle graphics by a wide margin, which changed what they photographed next.

They also stopped fielding calls asking whether they did interior work, since it now had its own page.

The whole change was organising what they already had.

Turnaround is what they actually ask

And it decides more jobs than price does.

Somebody who has just bought a van wants it lettered this month, and somebody opening a shop has a date.

Say your current lead time honestly, in weeks, and update it.

Where it varies by job type, say so per category: vehicle graphics in this many days, fabricated signage in this many weeks.

A business quoting a realistic four weeks wins work from one that says it depends and then quotes four weeks anyway.

Update it seasonally, since this trade has a shape to its year.

Say what you need from them

Which shortens every job.

What artwork format you can work from, and what happens if they have none.

Whether you need the vehicle for a day or two.

What surface preparation is on them and what is on you.

And whether permits are needed for a shopfront, which for most municipalities they are, and whether you handle that.

That last one is a genuine differentiator and almost nobody mentions it.

Photograph properly

Since this is a visual trade being judged visually.

A finished van in a car park in flat light undersells work that took two days.

Shoot in decent light, from a consistent angle, with the whole sign in frame and level.

Include a detail shot showing the finish, since that is what distinguishes good work from cheap work.

And get a before image where there was something previous, which makes the change legible.

Nothing on this list costs anything except attention and a few minutes at the end of each job.

The photograph is the sale in this trade, so it deserves the same care as the work.

Show the work in place, not on the bench

Which is the difference between a portfolio and a product catalogue.

A fabricated sign photographed in the workshop shows your manufacturing, and the same sign on the building shows the customer what they are buying.

People choosing signage are imagining their own frontage or their own van, and a photograph in context lets them do that.

Go back and photograph installed work where you have permission, particularly for anything fitted more than a year ago that still looks good.

An older sign still looking sharp is an argument about durability that no wording on the page can make.

Say where you work

Which matters more in this trade than most, because a good share of the work is fitted on site.

Vehicle graphics and shopfronts both mean travelling, and a customer three towns away needs to know whether that is a problem before enquiring.

Name the area plainly, say how far you travel without a charge, and say what happens beyond that rather than leaving it open.

Where you fit anywhere and charge for travel, say so, since that is a perfectly good answer and nobody minds a stated figure.

This is also the information that lets somebody recommend you to a friend in the next town, which is where a good deal of this work comes from.

The counter-case

Some of this work is not photogenic.

Safety signage, statutory notices, and industrial labelling are bought on specification and turnaround rather than appearance.

A business doing mostly that has a different site, closer to a supplier's than a designer's.

And publishing prices in a trade where every job is bespoke genuinely does cost some negotiating room.

Sort the portfolio by type, put a from-price and a lead time on each category, and photograph the work properly.

What to build first

1. Sort the gallery by type.
2. A from-price per category.
3. A lead time per category.
4. What artwork you need.
5. Whether you handle permits.
6. Detail shots of the finish.
7. A short enquiry form.

Step one produces the biggest change for the least work, since somebody wanting a van wrap will not scroll past forty shopfronts to find one.

The gallery problem is covered in a gallery with ninety photographs.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.