Reade Blog

As museums and heritage sites begin to open in the next few weeks, they’ll be keen to ensure both employees and visitors support social distancing measures as well as promote hygiene. The trick will be to protect against the further spread of coronavirus, while ensuring all visits are a fun and enjoyable experience. Being COVID-secure will include minimising face-to-face contact by selling pre-booked tickets, spaced queues and designated entry and exit points. Screens and sanitation stations will also protect staff and visitors at information points as well as in museum shops and refreshment areas. We already work with museums and heritage sites to provide wayfinding signage and our experts have a good understanding of the needs of visitors and staff in sometimes complex buildings. Points of focus will be: safe entry and exit, social distancing around exhibits, maintaining one-way flow, limiting numbers of people in lifts and keeping refreshment areas safe. If you’re not sure where to get started, you can find out more about our services on our dedicated social distancing and signage for museums website page. We’ve also created a brochure for museums with some simple options. However, we are able to create any design, size or format to meet the needs of your museum’s brand. Here are some signage and graphics options you may need to consider: Social distancing floor graphics, posters and wall graphics Perspex shields for ticket offices Barriers Clear one-way directional signage Signs for closed off areas Lift notices Hand sanitising stations Museum cafe and shop signage Internal and external signage about COVID-19 and safety Bespoke signage requirements. If you’d like to find out more, please visit our social distancing graphics and signage for museums page, call us on 01252 336 000 or email enquiry@readesigns.com.

As schools tentatively look to return to face-to-face teaching for some school years, headteachers will be keen to ensure their school supports social distancing and promotes cleanliness to protect pupils and teachers from the spread of coronavirus. We already work with schools, colleges and universities and we’ve been in regular conversation with them about signage and graphics requirements. Points of concern include: ensuring safe drop-off and pick-up for parents and children, social distancing in classrooms, limiting access to library books, maintaining one-way traffic in corridors and staircases, protecting reception staff, and making breaks and lunchtimes safe. If you’re not sure where to get started, you can find out more about our services on our dedicated social distancing and signage for schools website page. We’ve also created a brochure for schools with some simple and child-friendly options. However, we are able to create any design, size or format to meet the needs of your school or to match your school colours. Here are some signage and graphics options you may need to consider: Signage to encourage safe drop-off and pick-up Social distancing floor graphics Posters to encourage social distancing and cleanliness Social distancing wall graphics Warning floor tape or directional arrows Directional signage for stairs and corridors Canteen signage School library signage Hand sanitiser stations Perspex shields for school reception Internal and external signage about COVID-19 and safety Bespoke signage requirements. If you’d like to find out more, please visit our social distancing graphics and signage for schools page, call us on 01252 336 000 or email enquiry@readesigns.com.

The Government looks set to recommend floor signage, one-way flow routes and desk screens in the workplace to support social distancing when the lockdown starts to be relaxed. We’re already working with property clients and public facilities to supply on-site social distancing graphics and signage. Social distancing for marketing suites will be another important area of focus as the property market starts to open up again. We’re reviewing requirements, such as: social distancing signage, directional and queuing signage, perspex screens, furniture and adaptations to layout, and installing hand sanitiser stations inside and out. Our team is supporting clients with standard and branded social distancing graphics and signage, including: Social distancing floor graphics Social distancing posters Social distancing wall graphics Perspex shields Building site social distancing signage Directional signage Internal and external signage about COVID-19 and safety Marketing suite social distancing graphics Bespoke signage requirements. If you’d like to find out more, please visit our Social Distancing Graphics page, call us on 01252 336 000 or email enquiry@readesigns.com.

What happens if your hoarding, signage or flags have been damaged in some way and you just haven’t seen them? As part of our regular work, we ensure that clients’ signage is always in tip-top shape and looking great – not just when we install, but over the long-term too. Even if your site or new development is currently closed, people out taking their daily exercise or shopping and key workers, will still be seeing your brand every day so it’s important to maintain the quality of your marketing. Site hoarding is most at risk of damage due to its positioning between a building site and sometimes busy roads. Other signage like banners and flags, which have a three-month life-cycle, can also be subject to wear and tear, weather damage, or vandalism. To help our clients, we’re offering a ‘check and correct’ maintenance service. We’ll assess the condition of your hoarding and signage from the roadside and provide photographs for you. If needed, we can then quote for cleaning, repair or replacement, which will be carried out within social distancing guidelines. If you’d like to find out more, please get in touch with James Herbst on 07471 227 980 or Ed Hayden on 07471 518028 or email enquiry@readesigns.com

We all know chocolate can bring happiness so we thought, with everything that’s going on right now, it’s time to sprinkle some positivity this Easter. We’re giving away £40 worth of delicious chocolate from Hotel Chocolat to the winner of our prize draw and Hotel Chocolat vouchers worth £10 each to two runners-up. We’ve hidden a selection of Easter images on the Reade Signs website www.readesigns.com. All you have to do is count up how many of each character you can find and email chloem@readesigns.com to let us know what you found e.g. three bunnies, two eggs and one chick! All entries need to be submitted by email before 5pm on Thursday 30th April. Winners will be chosen randomly from all the correct answers. There are three different characters to be found across our website, an example of each is below (these don’t count in the final total). Happy Easter and good luck! Terms and Conditions: The winners will be randomly selected from all the entries and notified the week after the closing date. Reade Signs will contact you directly if you have won and will publicly announce the winner on the same date. The prizes will be sent to the winner via post after the winners have been announced. Only one entry per individual. If you submit multiple entries, only your first entry will be considered. Prizes are non-transferrable and there is no cash alternative. Reade Signs will treat your contact details with utmost care and will never share it with third parties. If you enter this competition, you will be notified by email of the winning entry. Any data you provide when entering this competition will not be kept. Submitting an entry constitutes your full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these terms and conditions, which shall be final and binding on all matters relating to the competition. The competition is open to UK residents only.

Back in 1980 when Andy Reade founded Reade Signs, there wasn’t much in the way of health and safety. It’s something that’s hard to imagine today, particularly in the current climate of social distancing and stringent safety measures to protect people from the coronavirus. However, with the ‘80s way behind us, safety compliance is one area of our business that we’ve been fanatical about for a long time now. We strive to find solutions that enable our production, installation and office staff to operate safely and observe strict regulations. A key aspect of our pledge to provide the highest quality of service is our approach to health and safety, whether we’re on a building site, in a live public environment or in our factory. And we take regular advice from our own health and safety consultant who also runs workshops and briefings with our team. Training and accreditation are so important to being professional and maintaining high standards at every stage of the design, manufacture and installation process. We make sure our team keep up to date with their safety training certification (IPAF, PASMA, IRATA), we use experienced personal and we undertake accreditation relevant to our industry. To ensure we can operate at a high level, we also regularly upgrade our technology. Working at height is obviously a major area of focus for safe installation of signage. We use a variety of equipment, including advanced guard-rail mobile towers, pre-erected tube and clip scaffold, cherry pickers, and rope access with dedicated abseil teams. All our crews are trained to use this high-level access equipment. The choice of equipment depends on site accessibility and what we’re working over. At the One Blackfriars development in London, there was no way to gain mechanical access to install giant promotional vinyls, so we used our skilled abseil team to install them on the 33rd floor – making it visible across the entire South Bank. We’ve seen increasing use of rope access on large residential and commercial properties because it means we can install graphics to windows at a very high level, providing highly effective advertising. Wind conditions are also an incredibly important factor at height and installation is often very weather dependent; we always have a keen eye on the weather forecast and installation can often be tricky in the winter months. What we’re working above also dictates the type of access equipment we select, for example if there’s a public walkway below. Keeping installers safe is a crucial consideration, but we also need to meticulously consider public safety. We’re often working in ‘live’ environments, for example, we installed signage over the main entrance of Kingston University when students were still coming and going to lectures. Road closures are often required, so we have an in-house Chapter 8 specialist who provides our traffic management facility. However, the work to ensure safe installation at any level starts way before the actual installation day. Every project requires detailed set-up and planning. Risk and method statement procedures must be outlined. And a structural engineer designs all supporting structures to ensure wind loadings have been considered. We’re also always on the lookout for new ways of working that can improve health and safety, for example we’re following advances in drone surveys, which can drive down the cost of surveying especially at height. Follow this link to find out more about Reade Sign’s safety accreditations. If you have a project you’d like to discuss with us, or would like some social distancing floor or wall graphics, please get in touch via enquiry@readesigns.com or call us on 01252 336 000.

https://readgahfcz.nimpr.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/motivte8.mp4 Here Sally Ottewell, Gym and Spa Consultant at motiv8 explains how Reade Signs worked with Supersonic Fitness – a state-of-the-art fitness centre in York. This included funky aluminium signage for a moss wall, motivational cinema light boxes, reception and external signage to help translate the lifestyle brand across the venue. Reade Signs has also worked with Motiv8 at CYC:D, a modern, stylish and inspiring boutique fitness studio in Surrey. If you’d like to know more about our range of services, please get in touch on 01252 336 000 or email enquiry@readesigns.com.