ARCHIVE: Category Archive for: Customer Spotlight

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression

Welcome to 2024. We greet every year with optimism wondering what good things the months will bring. Some of us use January as a personal ‘reset,’ perhaps changing the route we jog or editing our wardrobes to update our own personal brand. What about your business’s brand? Is it time for a refresh there, too? After all, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make that first impression count! The Effectiveness of Exterior Signage You could think of on-premise, outdoor signs as the durable workhorse of all advertising types since they’re promoting your business 24/7 for years to showcase your company and brand. Exterior signs generate a strong ROI by helping define your brand while driving

What a year! As we begin 2024, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude. Your support and collaboration have made the past year our most successful yet! Looking back on 2023 fills us with gratitude. We’ve had the honor of completing a wide range of signage projects—from city landmarks to local businesses. Each sign represents our dedication to quality and client happiness. We’re incredibly thankful for the chance to have worked on such varied projects, knowing they’ve left a meaningful mark wherever they stand. Let’s take a step back and look at some of the projects from 2023 that caught our eye… A 360 Package: Tree House Brewing Company Working with Tree House Brewing Company in Tewksbury, MA

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Strategic business partnerships empower companies, giving them the opportunity to grow their customer bases via referrals—a very potent strategy—and more importantly, improve their business by leveraging other’s capabilities to produce better products and services than they could on their own. Metro often works on projects involving large corporations, financial and educational institutions, retailers, mixed-use developments, and more. It’s often on projects like these that general contractors, property developers, architects, or property managers—experts in their fields but not in signage—bring Metro in to assist. When we’re involved early in the planning stages by partners, we can anticipate and address potential issues that those not in the signage industry might not realize

Welcome to 2022. We greet every year with optimism wondering what good things the months will bring. Some of us use January as a personal ‘reset,’ perhaps changing the route we jog or editing our wardrobes to update our own personal brand. What about your business’s brand? Is it time for a refresh there, too? After all, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Make that first impression count! The Effectiveness of Exterior Signage You could think of on-premise, outdoor signs as the durable workhorse of all advertising types since they’re promoting your business 24/7 for years to showcase your company and brand. Exterior signs generate a strong ROI by helping define your brand while driving

One of the easiest ways to get recognition is to put up a sign. We’ve all seen those iconic signs that garner instant attention: The Citgo Sign in Kenmore Square, Cask ‘n Flagon next to Fenway, McDonalds’ golden arches. Target’s bullseye. A quick glance at these signs tells us immediately what store we’ve found. But these globally recognized icons—like any sign, really—needed serious planning and strategy to work effectively. Most people—even smart businesses who hire a company like Metro—don’t realize all the steps involved with designing, building, and installing signage. Adding signs requires more than simply hanging a sign on an interior wall or erecting a sign on a pole outside. Developing a signage strategy, from conceptualization through installation, often

Since the beginning of hunting and gathering, people have relied on signs for information. Very early sign markers, often just a pile of stones, helped guide people traveling through the wilderness to find game or communities. The Scots used rock cairns—Gaelic for “heap of stones”—as signposts to mark trails across the grassy moors. People living in Mongolia and the Andes Mountains used similar rock cairns to mark routes between villages and food supplies. Gradually, signs expanded to include marks left by hunters and wayfarers on rocks and trees. It’s why hikers today still rely on blazes along the Appalachian and other trails. As populations have increased, communities have grown, and technology has evolved, signage has similarly transformed. Signs have evolved

The restaurant industry has always operated on a shoestring budget. When COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, restaurant owners and operators had to stretch budgets even further. The pandemic—and its necessary social distancing—required owners to rethink how to serve their customers, keep staff and patrons safe, and generate profit. The past 17 months haven’t been easy. With severely diminished profits—restaurants have struggled to pay their bills. According to a new survey from the Alignable Research center, nearly 40% of restaurants couldn’t pay June’s rent this year. While a slight improvement over the 49% of restaurants struggling to make rent in May, the picture remains stark for this industry in recovery. In June 2021, Congress sent an amendment to the floor that

Here at Metro, we’ve developed a reputation for overcoming challenges. In 2020, the pandemic required us to rethink our approach to projects and conduct much of our collaboration in a remote environment. Government buildings closed for weeks, which presented another challenge for obtaining signage permits and staying on deadline with project installations. Clients saw initial project budgets shrink, so our team worked with them to devise alternative signage options—in design, materials, or both. At Metro, we love a good challenge. Challenges make us better because they require us to grow and innovate—and that benefits our clients and our partners, especially when we’re faced with a new “problem” we’ve not encountered before. And let’s face it. It isn’t just us signage

Different types of plastics trends can influence what material makes sense to use for signage construction. Various plastics options — including acrylic, impact-modified acrylic (IMA), and polycarbonate — share properties but have key differences. A sign’s location should also influence material choice, because not all materials react the same to weathering. Signage manufacturers should take into consideration sign style (screen vs. digital printing) and ink types (UV-cured, latex inks, UV-LED print) when recommending what materials their clients should choose. Click here to read the original article from Sign Builder Illustrated.

Why It’s So Easy to Love Neon Lights

Neon lights evoke a certain nostalgia. This long-lived lighting, while not as efficient as LED neon lights, is durable and long-lived, often lasting for 50 years or more. The technology behind neon is over 100 years old. Its invention predates the battery, phonograph & other simpler technology. Still a favorite of interior architects because of its uniqueness as an American experience especially in the post-WWII era, the neon light owes its existence to another innovation: the process of air liquefaction. This process converts gases (like neon) to liquid via cooling and reheating. However, because bulbs require large quantities of neon and pure neon is difficult to obtain, it took 10 years after developing air liquefaction to patent neon lamps. Learn