We replaced a directory sign for an existing customer because they needed more spaces to list all of the tenants in the building. They didn’t want a completely new design, they wanted to recreate their current sign but with more tenant panels. As you can see from the photos, this sign has a metal base, and the clear tenant strips are installed individually and can be removed and changed easily. We used a combination of sibond and acrylic to make this custom directory sign.
Sibond is a polycarbonate that is sandwiched between two sheets of brushed aluminum. We use sibond in many of our signs because it is rigid, lightweight, and a great affordable alternative to aluminum. The only downside of sibond that isn’t an issue when using actual metal is that from the side, you can see the black of the polycarbonate. For most clients, this is not an issue because Sibond is usually pretty thin, so the sides aren’t very prominent.
You can see from the side photo that there is one large sibond backer panel, a layer of acrylic panels in the middle, and another layer of sibond at the top and bottom so the entire sign is the same thickness. The top layer of the top section and the address are one piece, we just took a larger piece of sibond and routed it so the address would be dimensional but still attached to the panel.
For the directory strips, we used 3/16″ thick acrylic that is clear with green edges. We used a clear acrylic with green edges to mimic glass. Acrylic is less fragile, less expensive, and lighter than glass which is why it is used for many signs. If you’ve seen an interior sign with a clear backer panel and thought it was glass, it was likely clear acrylic.
