AFTER celebrating its 30th year in business, Kettering-based Sign of the Times is happy to be receiving top industry accolades and the continued business of international household names, a result that owner and Managing Director Darren Roughton couldn’t be more proud of. Plans for the year ahead are set to build on this success.
2015 saw Sign of the Times win a much-coveted industry award, the BSGA Award for Best Overall Sign of the Year, an award that the firm also won in 2014.
AFTER celebrating its 30th year in business, Kettering-based Sign of the Times is happy to be receiving top industry accolades and the continued business of international household names, a result that owner and Managing Director Darren Roughton couldn’t be more proud of. Plans for the year ahead are set to build on this success.
2015 saw Sign of the Times win a much-coveted industry award, the BSGA Award for Best Overall Sign of the Year, an award that the firm also won in 2014. Working closely with creative strategic partner Acrylicize, both years’ winning entries were for the design, manufacture and installation of bespoke key atrium display pieces. Heinz Wall ’57’ (winner in 2014) and the fully-functional timepiece titled Timeless (winner in 2015) both allowed Sign of the Times to draw on its great wealth of in-house craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology to produce displays that are often referred to as works of art.
But bespoke displays and custom ‘art’ pieces are only the tip of the iceberg when showcasing the extent of Sign of the Times’ services, and offering the more traditional sign-based work is just as an important part of the business portfolio.
Darren said: “It’s good to have a mixture of jobs, such as those we undertake for Nationwide and other long-standing clients of similar ilk. This includes everything from the production of straightforward corporate signing and wayfinder schemes to office decor and vehicle liveries.”
Originally trained as a signwriter, Darren wanted to follow a career path that would allow him to utilise his artistic talents and natural curiosity about how things work, and the sign industry offered him just that opportunity. He explained: “I worked my way from the bottom up and learnt craftsmanship skills that sadly aren’t as prevalent any more. But these raw skills allow me to look at a project in its entirety now and see exactly what can be achieved in the most efficient way. It’s this skill of considering a project brief in an holistic way that I am keen to instil in my team, too. It allows us to offer our customers a creative solution with the high end quality finish they expect, in the most efficient and effective manner.”
Being noted for high-quality craftsmanship is what earned Sign of the Times the reputation for being the industry leader in the field. For projects such as London’s St Georges House Timeless, Sign of the Times had to draw on its vast knowledge of signage and display, CAD, prototyping, model-making and engineering in order to manufacture and install a fully-functional timepiece that now hangs in an atrium which is over six stories high. The installation itself took over two weeks, but it is projects like this that are propelling Sign of the Times in front of a wider number of key decision makers.
Darren commented: “I think the award brought us to the attention of a lot of businesses that wouldn’t necessarily have considered us before as it provided us with a fantastic showcase for our work and also underlined our credibility.”
As a natural result of this exposure. workload has since increased and therefore so has the demand for efficiency. Darren explained: “We’ve recently taken on two apprentices who will learn the job from the bottom up and already appointed project managers to look after specific commissions, but they now need some extra assistance and, just as importantly, we also need to take a more structured approach to our sales effort.”
The company has also recently invested in the latest industry machinery on-site to fulfil demand. A Zund G3 cutting table now complements an equipment portfolio that already included EFI VUTEk, Arizona and HP Latex printers, plus Tekcel and Sabre CNC machine.
A much more proactive approach to external marketing has also been adopted over the past 12 months with a new website launched at the end of 2015, full of inspirational showcase pieces and an A-Z product and services catalogue. E-marketing and social media will also become part of Sign of the Times’ key marketing strategy for 2016.
“It’s all about communication,” said Darren. “It’s all about telling our customers what we’ve been doing, and where we have been doing it, too! 2015 alone saw us being commissioned for projects in locations as far as New York and Jerusalem. It’s exciting times for us and we want our customer base to share in that.”
Working with names such as Nationwide, Barclays Bank, Costa Coffee and Heinz, it seems that 2016 is set to be another huge year for Sign of the Times. Moving forward however means not standing still, and Sign of the Times’ continual investment in staff, new technology and external marketing means there is only one direction they are heading.
