How do signs stay in the best condition over time, in spite of rain, direct sunlight, and ice? A number of things can contribute to the quality of a sign but one of the main attributes of a weather-resistant sign is lamination! Did you know some signs will be put onto roadways without lamination? If you’ve ever seen an outdoor sign faded away to oblivion, it’s likely that the lamination didn’t hold up or that it wasn’t laminated at all.
First off, what is lamination? Laminate is often a large thin clear sheet of plastic film that covers a print. It’s often made of polypropylene or polyester. This is clear extra layer that’s put over images for weather-proofing, shine, and resistance against scratches or marks—while also having the added benefit of making a surface have a similar quality to whiteboards. This is how you can turn a household print or sign into a dry-erase board, which will give it multiple purposes and uses!
How is it applied? For us, we print all of our images onto our high-quality reflective and non-reflective substrate. See our post about that process here. When the print has completed, we load the substrate to feed through our laminator. The lamination is pulled taut to prevent any bubbles and to make sure it lines up perfectly straight. When the substrate and the lamination meet, we feed it through to make sure our prints are laminated without any error. All of this is done by hand, with a person brushing the print as it feeds through the laminator with a static roller that picks up every dust particle and hair to ensure the flattest, smoothest lamination. Check out this quick little video we made to show our process!
Why do we laminate our signs? To make them last! While this may not seem like as important of a step for someone getting a sign that will hang on a dorm room wall, we often print signs for businesses, parking lots, and 911 signs. A 911 sign is a sign with the street address number on it for emergency vehicles to use for reference—it needs to last and shine like new for years. Our signs will last for decades thanks to using the best quality materials, even if it goes to Wisconsin or Florida. Laminating our signs make sure that they will withstand anything thrown at them, regardless of extreme temperature changes, weathering, direct sunlight, or days of rain.
We only make the most durable, weather-resistant, and lasting products, and because of that, we’d never skip lamination!
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