High School Ath­let­ics Sig­nage: 4 FAQs Answered

Tony & Tom Tack­le 4 FAQs to Cre­at­ing Sig­nage to Rec­og­nize Ath­let­ic Accomplishments

Remem­ber the big game in high school? The year your team final­ly made it to the state tour­na­ment? We do too!

Schools want to cap­ture that ener­gy and cel­e­brate their ath­let­ic suc­cess­es with signs. Record boards, sim­i­lar to donor wall sig­nage, come in all shapes and sizes and can accom­mo­date any­thing the school wants to cel­e­brate.
Some­times it’s a tall mon­u­ment sign out­side the high school to com­mem­o­rate their many state titles. Oth­er times it’s a list of track and field record-hold­ers hung on the side of the con­ces­sion stand build­ing. No mat­ter what your school wants to high­light or how you want it to look, here are four ques­tions our experts are fre­quent­ly asked.

1. How do I get the most for my school’s sign budget?

It’s no secret that schools are always on a tight bud­get. Work with a sig­nage expert to get the most for your mon­ey. Using val­ue engi­neer­ing, our team cre­ates solu­tions that will add sav­ings to the bot­tom line. ​“Orig­i­nal­ly, a school came to us want­i­ng a tall sign with one pan­el for each state title. But that would have made the struc­ture extreme­ly tall,” Squire says. ​“We reworked the design to make it short­er, mak­ing it more afford­able. We also made it eas­i­er to update in the future, pre­serv­ing their invest­ment.” Learn more about this project here.

Since we are also a man­u­fac­tur­er, our sig­nage experts have access to many man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques and prod­ucts. They know what mate­ri­als will achieve the desired look with­out adding weight or extra pro­duc­tion time to a project. Be sure to dis­cuss ener­gy-sav­ing main­te­nance solu­tions such as LED illu­mi­na­tion or solar-pow­ered sig­nage.

2. Can you have a cus­tom sign AND make every­thing fit?

There is a way to include every­thing. Don’t accept a once-size-fits-all solu­tion that forces you to cut out decades-old achieve­ments. Sig­nage experts thrive on cre­ative solu­tions that are tai­lored to the spe­cif­ic school and their goals. ​“You can always find a way to make it all fit,” says Tony Squire, Cen­tral Iowa Sign Expert. ​“There’s no rea­son to cut out a part of his­to­ry. If you want the design to include all the state titles, we can rethink the space and the design to include every­one — includ­ing future champions.”

3. How do you make signs flex­i­ble for future growth?

As part of the space plan­ning and design process, con­sid­er how the sign will be updat­ed in the future. ​“No record is going to stand for­ev­er,” says Tom Wilcox­en, Cen­tral Illi­nois Sign Expert. ​“Remov­able pan­els and vinyl let­ter­ing is an easy way to update school record sig­nage. For exam­ple, if you have a track star tear­ing up the his­to­ry books, we can eas­i­ly unscrew a pan­el and pro­duce new vinyl let­ters to update it with their success.” 

Lock­ing your­self into a set design will cost you more down the road.

*Exam­ple below shows names descend by years so the newest names can be added to the top.

4. How do you get buy-in from all the stakeholders?

There are many stake­hold­ers in any com­mu­ni­ty school project. While a boost­er club or ath­let­ics depart­ment may be dri­ving an ini­tia­tive, it’s impor­tant to get buy-in from admin­is­tra­tors and facil­i­ties. Our sig­nage experts can pro­vide a com­plete overview of what it will take to main­tain or pow­er a school-record sign for school board approval or facil­i­ties main­te­nance plans. Work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with an inter-depart­men­tal team from the start makes it eas­i­er to address issues prompt­ly and avoid delays. 

If you’re inter­est­ed in a record board sign for your com­mu­ni­ty, reach out to one of our sign experts to see how we can cre­ate a cus­tom sign that fits your needs and budget.

Click here to explore more Case Stud­ies in Education.