Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1491555
7 6 G R A P H I C S P R O • A P R I L 2 0 2 3 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M S I G N A G E & P R I N T I N G address that was buried deep in one of those "urban sprawl neighborhood maze" experiments of the '60s. You lived with a map in your car. Period. Nowadays, maps have all been con- verted to digital apps, which makes using a map not only easier but safer and more accurate 97.38% of the time. (Don't check my math. is is a presumption I made, myself, without actual research.) Today, if the same driving directive was given, the conversation would be some- thing more along these lines: "... Um, one more thing. Tom said to meet him at the job site. Check your phone — he sent you a map link in a text message." Done. The link will open up a map application that we only need to follow, and it will take us to the exact spot we are looking for. It will even notice that we have parked, and that we are now walk- ing, and it will walk us to the front door of the place we seek. So, where is the usefulness of the panel tenant sign? is inequity may be, for the sign indus- try, the next big opportunity to provide tenants more than they could have ever imagined from their tenant listing. Here is how it can happen easily and profit- ably for sign shops that get on this band- wagon early: e customer uses their phone to get to the store's front door (as in not look- ing up other than to navigate stairs and open doors). So, how much influence did the tenant panel signs on that big what- chamacallit in the parking lot have on anyone other than old sign dogs like me who always look at signs and pay attention to who isn't looking at them? A sign has a purpose. It makes no sense to put a huge sign out front of a mall or other venue that's designed to attract visual attention from distant viewers. Smaller, different signs would be more effective. Will the core purpose of the outdoor tenant panel sign (used at shopping cen- ters and office parks) suffer a similar fate as the DVD, VCR, or travel agency? In this example, the landlord tried to give the other tenants a bit more space than normal, but neverthe- less, it all became very busy. Question: If you were giving directions to a friend for driving to that pizza shop in the bottom left corner, would you say it's in the Verizon Plaza? Or the Office Depot Plaza? Fail- ing to make the shopping center name dominant enough can actually cause confusion when the sign is viewed from a distance. How do tenants instruct their customers on finding their store? What do they say? Do they say, "I'll text you a map link?" (Image courtesy of James Alfaro of Alamo Sign Solutions, and Alamo Sign Manufacturing, San Antonio, Texas)