For years there has been a critical demand within the sign industry for a book on the structural engineering of signs. This comprehensive text more than meets that demand -- it exceeds it. Sign companies, ...
Albeit slighted, signage is extraordinary communication.
Two decades ago, in general practice, the world’s digital-data infrastructure was limited to voice communications — telephones, primarily. Since then, we’ve seen and enjoyed the ever-escalating buildup of text, graphic and video platforms and applications designed for business as well as individual use.
At that time, I worked for AT&T Bell Laboratories (Holmdel, NJ) in a division that pioneered fiber-optic, digital technologies. Our lab's task was to increase fiberoptic bandwidths, so such systems could transport huge amounts of data. Truth is, we were looking for a killer application for internet and intranet use, and our first applications streamlined email-type communications.
Today, the mainline choice for personal communication — connectedness — is text. Next comes image and video transfers, although the latter remains somewhat restricted because today’s available bandwidth, although immense when compared to the recent past, still limits video’s real-time quality and usage. Also, because time always equals money, video, in a file-size (not content) sense, requires more bandwidth and storage space. Thus, it’s more expensive to create, store, transmit and view than static files.
-->Even so, many businesses use such modern, electronic-communication tools — Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube — for connecting with various customers and audiences.
Interestingly, as the Internet and telecommunication scientists were bringing more capabilities to personal and B2B communications, many appear to have overlooked signage. Perhaps signs’ static nature (both in message and in location) causes them to received scant attention from information technology (IT) scientists. When IT developers, myself included, think of enhancing communication, we tend to visualize transportation of electronic information as telephony and internet data via copper cables, fiber-optic and wireless systems.
However, albeit slighted, signage is an extraordinary form of communication. More interesting, now that digital technologies have reached outdoor multimedia, the communications scientist’s grandest customers are the signage, advertising and entertainment industries.
Signs as advertising
So how has the signage industry benefitted from digital technologies? Through electronics, signage has become an active, dynamic, advertising medium. Also, because changeable sign content allows varying messages — think of graphic ads or traffic warnings. Further, constantly changing text and images attracts more attention than static images.
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