Customer Spotlight Sign-A-Rama

Joe Lee has been a Sign-A-Rama franchise owner in Toronto, Canada for less than a year, but he’s already passionate about the business. “Can you name an industry that doesn’t need a sign?” Joe says. “Everybody needs to identify themselves and their businesses – except maybe the CIA!”

Joe’s Sign-A-Rama company creates everything related to signage – from storefronts to interiors to decorative signs. They can create 3-D lettering and pictures. They can engrave on metal or wood. They can make electrical and neon signs. And they can do large-format printing – everything from pictures to posters to banners.

Sign-A-Rama customers are equally diverse, but are typically commercial retail stores. Joe says he’s made signs for department stores, restaurants, and physician’s offices, even the government.

“When I decided I needed a solvent printer, I did research comparing different vendors and models,” Joe says. “I narrowed it down to a few choices and went to suppliers asking them to create samples to demo their printing capabilities. The Mutoh Toucan LT was the one I purchased. The quality, speed and wide range of media I could produce were the determining factors.”

Joe says his supplier, Treck Hall, Inc., calls his Mutoh “The Squid,” an acronym for speed, quality, uninterrupted, ink, delivery.

Even though Sign-A-Rama has only had the Mutoh for a few months, Joe says they’ve already completed a good number of jobs with it. One of the most high profile was campaign signage for a candidate running for re-election in the local council.

“We created fundraiser signage for him,” Joe says. “Most campaign signs are dull and bad quality. Thanks to our Mutoh, our signs featured a photo-quality image of the candidate’s upper body and face, and very strong colors.”

The re-election signs were displayed by the road and outside the hotel where the candidate’s fundraiser was held. There were 50 signs placed on the walls of the hotel ballroom. Sign-A-Rama also made the tickets to the event.

“We had a lot of good comments about the artwork from the guests,” Joe says. “And I guess it worked, since we sold tickets to 1,200 of them at $100 a pop!”

You can learn more about Sign-A-Rama at their website: www.signarama-to.com.