Signage in the Schools for School Spirit, Branding and Fundraising

Remember your first day at a new school, whether it was an elementary school high school or college.  You were excited or nervousness, maybe event both, entertaining this new environment can be very stressful, even more than when you have to navigate the halls finding your way to classrooms, restrooms, and other places in the school.

School signs can ease the transition by providing the basics of way-finding and safety, and by creating a welcoming environment with wall art, informational signs, and more.

Signage for Safety, Compliance, Wayfinding and school spirit

Let us talk about some of the challenges schools face and how signage can help for safety and compliance and way-finding.

The number one goal for a school is to keep students safe. This begins from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave. The first signs that they will encounter are location signs.

Location Signage

In front of the school, you probably have a monument sign of some sort. Monument signs are usually pretty big structures identifying the school and main entrance. Monument signs can be static signage, reader board signs with changeable lettering to LED signs with on-demand information and graphics.

These signs do a very good job at keeping everyone informed about important information, like when school is closed, when registration or open houses are, or anything like that.

They are usually located at the main entrance to be highly visible. You may have some smaller signs that are similar in nature at some of the minor entrances to the school, but the one you are really going to want to focus on, the one that is going to give you the most information, is the monument sign out front.

Pedestrian Crossing & School Traffic Signs

When traveling to and from school, as well as around the school campus, it’s very important for people to be able to find their way.

When dealing with big college campuses directional signage is very important for the students to be able to find their classrooms, teachers’ offices, and school departments. You’ll see this same concern in smaller schools as well as larger ones.

ADA & Handicap Signs

. The Americans with Disabilities Act gives a set of design standards that all signs must follow. The ADA Standards for Accessible Design provides guidelines about the finishing and contrast, fonts, pictograms and symbols, and Braille used in signs as well as requirements for the installation and mounting of signs.

Here, you can see a couple of examples of these types of signs. The Boys, the Girls and the Stairs signs are traditional ADA signs, using raised pictograms, letters and Braille.

Regulatory Signs

Also at a school, you’ll probably see signs that manage the flow of cars. This is especially important for the lower level grades where you’ve got elementary kids and middle school kids going to a carpool line and a bus line. You want to manage the flow of traffic – both cars and kids – so that everyone stays safe.

Promote & Inform

There are lots of different ways that schools can inform or let students know and even promote the school and create a sense of school spirit. This comes into play with the monument signs and message centers at key areas around the school, but it also includes things like banners.

Sports programs will use banners for sponsors. The various teams will raise funds for their home team by going to businesses and ask for support. In return, they’ll have some sort of signage that advertises that business and shows that business supporting the school.

Another example of promoting is by using wall graphics to highlight the activities at your school, such as the support teams.  We’ve also created rigid signs for schools which are usually used as temporary signs to promote events.

Graduation and School Spirit Banners

Graduation is a big event for each student putting up banners for this event with bring out pride and excitement of the school year drawing to a close and the new adventures coming up in the next school year.

Spirit banners are the best way students and parents rally around events from science fair to the next big home game.

Branding

Branding is also important. Your brand image is more than just a logo; it’s an idea. Building that brand is key, particularly with schools and the importance of alumni associations. When your school is well branded, it’s easier for students and families to rally around it, to create a strong community.

When looking at ways to brand your school, look at the high traffic areas, like if you have a nice big wall when you first walk into the entrance of the school. That would be a great place to put some sort of wall mural that might feature your mascot, logo, and tell something about the school.

Promotional items

Why would a school or college need promotional items such as logoed backpacks, pens, t-shirts, water bottles or any of thousands of items.

Promotional items for students are a great way to get your brand into the hands of people who will use them until they are literally falling apart.  And if they aren’t necessarily your target audience, they are sure to get seen by those who are (aka their parents).