Shop Front Signs

Your shopfront is the sign that does the most work. It runs twenty four hours a day, it is seen by everyone who walks past whether they were looking for you or not, and it is usually the reason a first time customer decides whether to come in.

We have been fitting out shopfronts on the Sunshine Coast since 1989. Cafes in Mooloolaba, salons in Kawana, workshops in Kunda Park, retail in Noosa Junction. The building changes but the job is the same. Work out what will look right on that facade, make sure the landlord and the council are happy with it, then build something that still looks sharp in five years.

Most shopfronts are some combination of a fascia sign, some lettering, and glass. We can do all three:

Fascia and awning signs. Printed and laminated ACM panels, or aluminium composite with applied cut vinyl. Weatherproof, flat, and clean looking.
3D and cut out lettering. Acrylic, aluminium or stainless letters pin fixed to the wall or spaced off it. Looks more expensive than it usually is.
Illuminated fascia and lightboxes. LED lit faces so you are still visible at seven at night in winter.
Under awning and blade signs. Double sided, hung perpendicular to the building, so people walking along the footpath can see you before they are past you.
Window graphics. Cut vinyl, printed panels, frosting and one way vision film.
A frames. For getting the day's specials out onto the footpath.

Materials that survive the coast

Salt air is not kind to signage. We are eight kilometres from the water and we see what it does. Cheap composite panel delaminates. Untreated steel fixings bleed rust down a wall inside a year. Inkjet prints without a UV laminate fade to pastel.

So we use marine grade fixings, 3M and Avery cast vinyls with a UV laminate over the print, and powder coated or two pack finishes on anything fabricated. It costs a little more up front. It costs a lot less than replacing the sign twice.

Landlord approvals and council

If you are in a shopping centre or a leased tenancy, there is almost always a signage brief that dictates what you can and cannot do. Sizes, illumination, mounting method, sometimes even the font. Send it to us with your quote request and we will design to it, so you are not going back and forth with centre management for six weeks.

For freestanding shops, Sunshine Coast Council has its own rules on sign size, projection over the footpath and illumination. We will flag anything that needs an approval before you commit.

What it costs

A printed fascia panel on an average shopfront generally sits in the high hundreds to low thousands installed. Add cut out lettering and you are usually into the low to mid thousands. An illuminated fascia is more again because of the LED work and the electrical connection.

The honest answer is that we cannot price a shopfront properly without seeing it. Send us a photo of the building and a rough width and we will come back with a real figure.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a shopfront sign take?

Printed fascia and vinyl work is usually one to two weeks from artwork approval. Fabricated lettering and illuminated signage is three to five weeks. If you have a lease start date or an opening date, tell us up front and we will work backwards from it.

Can you match my existing branding?

Yes. Send through your logo files and any brand colours you have. If all you have is a business card or a photo of an old sign, we can work from that too. We do the graphic design in house, so if your logo needs redrawing for large format we can handle that as part of the job.

Do you do the whole fitout, or just the sign?

Signage, window graphics, and any printed material that goes with it. We are a design, print and signage business, so if you need menus, loyalty cards or flyers with matching artwork, it is the same job for us.