Totem Signs
Freestanding totems and monoliths that make your premises visible from the road, day and night.
Recent Totem Signs Work
What a totem is for
A totem exists to be read before anyone reaches your door. It is the sign for the driver deciding whether the entrance is this one or the next one, and for the visitor looking for a name across a car park. That job is different from a fascia, which is read once you have already arrived.
They earn their place on business parks, retail units set back from the road, industrial estates with several occupiers, dealerships, care homes and schools. Where several businesses share a site, one totem carrying every name usually beats a scatter of individual boards.
Often paired with illuminated signs.
From groundworks to sign-off
Aluminium and steel structures with LED illumination options, built for British weather. We handle foundations, electrics and installation, as we did for Ipswich Borough Council and Felaw Maltings.
A freestanding sign is a small piece of construction. It needs a foundation sized for the structure and the exposure, a route for the electrical supply if it is lit, and a finish that survives years of rain, frost and sun without the colour going. That is why the groundworks are part of the job rather than something you arrange separately.
Multi-occupier totems are built so that individual tenant panels can be changed without replacing the structure — units change hands, and a sign that cannot be updated becomes a sign that is wrong.
What to decide before you ask for a quote
Start with where it goes and who owns that ground. Then the height and width, which are usually decided by sight lines rather than by taste: what has to be readable, from how far, and at what speed. Then whether it is illuminated, which decides whether you need a supply run to that spot.
If the site has more than one occupier, count the panels you need now and the ones you may need later. It is far cheaper to build in a spare panel position than to add one afterwards.
Survey, manufacture and installation
We survey the position on site, because the ground, the sight lines and the route for a supply cannot be judged from a plan. Manufacture is done from our workshop in Ipswich, and we install across Suffolk, East Anglia and London.
Where consent is likely to be required, we will say so before anything is made. Quotations are free.
Common questions
- Do you do the groundworks, or do I arrange that?
- We do. Foundations, electrics and installation are part of the job — a freestanding sign is a small piece of construction, and splitting it between trades is where things go wrong.
- Can tenant panels be changed later?
- Yes, and we build multi-occupier totems so they can be. Units change hands, and a sign that cannot be updated becomes a sign that is wrong.
- Does a totem need planning permission?
- Freestanding signs frequently do, and illumination makes it more likely. We can advise where consent is needed before anything is manufactured.
- How tall should it be?
- Sight lines decide it, not taste: what has to be readable, from how far away, and at what speed people are travelling. We work that out on the survey.
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Need a quote for totem signs?
Free quotations: 01473 688111