A-boards

The ones we supply are built for it. Water-based pavement signs sit on a weighted base that you fill on site, so they take a gust rather than cartwheeling down the street, and the better swinging models are designed to pivot in the wind instead of fighting it.

What does not survive is the cheap flat-pack board bought online for thirty pounds, which lasts one windy Tuesday. There is a real difference between a sign designed to be put out every morning for years and one designed to be sold at a price. We will show you what we would put outside our own workshop, and it will not be the cheapest thing on the page.

Yes. Most pavement signs take interchangeable printed panels or poster inserts behind a clear cover, so the frame stays and only the graphic changes. Swapping one takes a minute and no tools.

That is what makes them worth having for anything seasonal — a lunch menu, a promotion, opening times over a bank holiday, a course starting in September. We keep your artwork on file, so a replacement panel is a quick reprint at a fraction of the cost of a new sign. Order a spare set at the same time as the board and you will always have one ready to go.

Possibly. Highways licensing for pavement displays is a local authority matter and rules vary between councils and even between streets — some town centres operate a licence scheme, some have designated clear routes where nothing is permitted, and enforcement varies a great deal.

If the board is standing on your own forecourt or private land, this generally does not arise. If it is going on the public footway, it is worth a short call to the council before you spend the money. We can tell you what other businesses on your street are doing, but the licence, if one is needed, is between you and the highways department.

A0 and A1 are the common sizes and cover most situations. A1 is the workhorse — big enough to read from across the road, light enough that whoever opens up can carry it out one-handed every morning.

Go bigger and you get more presence but a heavier sign and a wider footprint, which matters if the pavement is narrow or if a licence limits your footprint. Go smaller and it stops working from any distance. The honest test is whether the person who opens the shop will actually put it out every day — a sign that is too heavy ends up staying inside, which makes it worth nothing at all.

A swinging sign has the printed panel suspended within an outer frame on pivots, so it rocks and turns in the wind rather than presenting a solid surface to it. The base is weighted, usually water-filled, to keep it planted.

There are two advantages. It is far more stable in wind than a rigid board of the same size, because the panel gives instead of acting as a sail. And the movement catches the eye — a sign that moves is noticed by people walking past who would look straight through a static one. On an exposed high street they are usually the sensible choice.

Yes, and it is nearly always the same job. We design and print the panel, fit it to the frame and hand over a finished sign ready to put outside, rather than a flat-pack with a print to insert yourself.

Because we print in-house, the panel matches the rest of your signage — same reds, same fonts, same logo as the fascia and the van. A pavement sign that does not match the shop front behind it is a missed opportunity, and it costs nothing extra to get it right when it is all made in the same workshop.