How to brief signage for a commercial scheme

A totem goes up on Friday. The contractor has the drawings, the fabricator has the aluminium, and the brand guidelines say nothing useful about scale, fixing or finish. This happens more often than it should. Most commercial schemes need signage at four points: the road, the entrance, the building itself, and the internal wayfinding. Each one needs a brief. Each one will be seen by different people, at different speeds, in different weather. And if you don’t brief signage as a system, you end up with a totem that looks fine in the PDF but embarrassing at full size.

What does a signage brief need to include?

A signage brief needs the brand identity files, the site plan, the viewing distances, the materials constraints, and the approval chain. It also needs to say who owns maintenance, what happens when a tenant changes, and whether the sign needs to work at night. Most fabricators can solve technical problems if you tell them early. Most can’t if you don’t.

The brand identity files should include vector logos, the full colour palette with material references (not just hex codes), typefaces with usage rules, and any lockups or layouts that need to repeat. If the guidelines don’t cover signage, they’re incomplete. A logo that works on a business card does not automatically work at three metres tall, backlit, or cut from brushed aluminium.

The site plan tells the fabricator where each sign goes, what it needs to say, and what’s behind it. A totem fixed to tarmac is different from one fixed to soil, which is different from one that needs to cantilever over a drainage run. The plan also shows sightlines. A sign that looks prominent on a drawing can disappear behind a tree or a parked van in reality.

Viewing distances matter more than most people expect. A sign read from a car at 30mph needs different letter heights, weights and spacing than one read by someone standing two metres away. The same identity will need different treatments depending on whether it’s a roadside totem, an entrance sign, or a door number. If you brief them all the same way, at least one will fail.

Who needs to sign off the brief before it goes to the fabricator?

The client, the architect, the planning officer, and sometimes the landlord or the managing agent. If any of them see the sign for the first time when it’s installed, someone will ask for changes. Get written approval at the drawing stage, ideally with a scaled visual in situ, not just a flat rendering.

Planning conditions often specify materials, colours, illumination and maximum heights. Some local authorities require samples or 1:1 mockups before they’ll discharge the condition. If you don’t check the planning decision notice before you brief signage, you might design something that can’t be installed. I’ve seen schemes where the totem had to be remade because the powder coat colour wasn’t on the approved schedule.

Architects care about how the sign affects the elevation. A totem in the wrong place can block a sightline or unbalance a facade. Landlords and managing agents care about access, maintenance and tenant changeovers. If the sign is designed around one occupier and they leave in two years, someone has to pay for a new one. Brief for flexibility unless you know the tenant is locked in long-term.

What’s the difference between briefing a totem and briefing wayfinding?

A totem is a brand moment. Wayfinding is a system. The totem needs to look right and survive the weather. Wayfinding needs to work for someone who’s lost, late, or visiting for the first time. Different problems, different briefs.

Totems live outside, usually at the site entrance or on the main road. They take wind load, rain, UV, and sometimes impact from delivery vehicles. The brief needs to specify the substrate (aluminium, ACM, powder-coated steel), the foundation type, and whether it’s illuminated. Illuminated signs need power, which means cabling, switching, and maintenance access. Most also need planning permission for the light source itself, not just the structure.

Wayfinding is about hierarchy and consistency. Someone arriving for a meeting needs to find the right building, the right entrance, the right floor, and the right suite. That’s four or five sign types, all using the same identity, all with different content and durability requirements. Internal signs can use materials that would fail outdoors. They also need to account for accessibility: contrast ratios, letter heights, and tactile elements where required by Building Regulations Part M.

A good wayfinding brief includes a zone plan, a naming or numbering strategy, and a schedule of what goes where. It should also say what happens when a tenant moves or a suite is subdivided. If every sign is bespoke, updates become expensive. If they’re modular, you can swap out a vinyl insert or a printed panel without remaking the frame.

How do you make sure the brand survives the fabricator?

Send the fabricator the source files, not just a PDF. Specify Pantone or RAL references for every colour. Include a physical sample if the brand uses a particular finish or texture. And make it clear what’s negotiable and what isn’t.

Most fabricators are good at what they do, but they’re optimising for cost and buildability, not brand consistency. If you don’t specify the typeface weight, they’ll use whatever’s closest in their library. If you don’t specify the finish, they’ll default to gloss when the brand needs matt. If you don’t give them a maximum and minimum size for the logo, they’ll scale it to fit the space and it’ll look wrong.

I’ve worked with specialists like External Works suppliers who understand that identity signage is part of the brand system, not just something bolted to the building. The good ones will query anything that doesn’t make sense and suggest fixes before fabrication starts. The poor ones will build exactly what you asked for, even if it’s wrong.

A final proof at full scale, in situ if possible, catches problems that don’t show up in renderings. Colours look different at three metres than they do on a screen. Letter spacing that works in a PDF can look too tight or too loose on a fabricated sign. If the budget allows, a physical mockup is worth it. If it doesn’t, at least print the design at 1:10 and hold it at arm’s length.

When should signage be briefed in the project timeline?

Before the hoarding goes up, ideally at RIBA Stage 3. If you wait until Stage 5, you’re trying to fit the signage around decisions that are already locked. Early means you can integrate it properly. Late means you’re compromising.

Site hoardings are often the first piece of signage anyone sees, and they’re almost always briefed too late or not at all. A hoarding is a brand opportunity. It’s visible for months, sometimes years, and it sets expectations for what the scheme will be. If it’s designed as an afterthought, it looks like one. If it’s part of the identity system from the start, it reinforces the brand before the building is finished.

The same applies to show suites, marketing suites, and anything else that goes up before practical completion. These are all signage moments. They all need the same brand consistency as the final totem and wayfinding. If you brief them separately, they’ll look like they belong to different schemes.

I work with developers, contractors and planning consultants who treat signage as part of the brand brief, not a procurement afterthought. The schemes that get this right are the ones where someone owns the whole identity system, from the first site board to the last door number. The schemes that don’t are the ones where the totem doesn’t match the website, the wayfinding doesn’t match the brochure, and the brand falls apart somewhere between the road and the front door.

If you need to brief signage for a commercial scheme and you’re not sure where to start, send a paragraph. I’ll write back.