Windigo Signs Takes Soft Signage to the Next Level

Every time I go to the airport I’m really shocked at how much retrograding and updating they’ve been doing to fabric graphics,” said Mark Baldwin, founder and principal of Tempe’ Ariz.’s Next Level Signs. “They’re mostly the LED SEGs [silicone edge graphics], but you’re still seeing a lot of floor stands.” Indeed, if you have been out and about in the world lately, you have seen soft signage proliferate, especially in retail environments. “I haven’t seen a vinyl banner in a mall in several years,” added Baldwin. “It’s all fabric. It’s nice to see fabric continuing to take over in certain areas.”

Next Level Signs, which Baldwin founded in 2001, offers a wide variety of indoor and outdoor signs, with an emphasis on various kinds of textile-based (or “soft”) signage. And a lot of soft signage is today replacing older non-soft signage. “We’ve been doing more retail stores lately,” said Baldwin. “We’ve been doing a lot more retrofitting, as well as building out of new stores. We have a contract with a firearms store and they’ll do 10 SEG light panels in one of their stores. Every time they build a new location, we’re putting in 10 or 12 frames and it lightens up the whole interior of the building.”

(In silicone edge graphics [SEG], a silicone gasket is sewn onto the edge of the printed fabric graphic, which then snaps into an aluminum frame. The graphic is pulled taut and looks identical to rigid signage. LED lighting can be added to side- or backlight the graphic.)

Next Level Signs also offers some complementary products such as table throws, which are also printed on textiles, but are easier to produce as they don’t need the meticulous measurement and cutting that signage fitted to frames require. 

In 2015, Baldwin launched Windigo Signs, which offers custom frame options for outdoor signage. As anyone who has ever installed outdoor signage knows, the elements—especially wind—can pay havoc with graphics. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention, so Baldwin sought to develop a alternate solution to conventional soft signage mounting options—specifically, pole pockets, which are sewn onto banners, be they vinyl or textile, to allow mounting poles to be inserted. 

“My theory was with the Windigo products was to replace the pole pocket banner,” said Baldwin. “I’ve done so many pole pocket banners in my days, and when you have round poles and the wind comes up, they spin around. They’re never taut, they’re hard to read, and they just don’t do well.” 

The Windigo products are frames that comprise several blow-molded plastic components that fit together: a straight piece, a corner piece, and a hinge piece, the latter of which is Baldwin’s patented design. With this modular approach to frames, signs can be small or large. They can also be combined in various ways to make a light-pole sign or a sidewalk sign. Windigo has also recently introduced a new real estate sign, as well. 

“You could do a 24-by-72-inch light-pole sign, put the components in a small box, fold up the graphic and put it in there, ship the package, unbox it, put the pieces together, and then slide the graphic over the top of it with a zipper at the bottom,” said Baldwin. 

The Windigo Signs have been wind-tunnel tested to 45 miles per hour—but Baldwin has done some of his own testing. “I put a four inch-steel post in the back of my pickup truck hung a sign off the side,” he said. “I was going to drive around 70, 75 miles an hour out on the back roads to ‘break’ the sign. I wanted to figure out when it broke, where it would break, and why would break.” The thing is, it didn’t break. “I got the truck up to 83 miles an hour and the sign turned in the wind. When I stopped, the sign came back to center. So it actually exceeded my expectations.”

And not just Baldwin’s: Windigo Signs won a 2017 SGIA product of the Year Award.

(You can watch a video of the “pick-up truck test” at https://youtu.be/P1mlZc9xZ8s.)

The Windigo Signs approach sounds like a more robust-outdoor version of silicone-edge graphics. And, in fact, Baldwin also offers custom SEG solutions. 

“One of my featured products that I just love are the SEGs,” he said. He cuts his own frames and provides power and lighting sources. “I have 11 different extrusions—five that are lit, five that are non-lit, and one that’s either/or. Those are fun projects.” They can also be high-margin projects, especially compared to smaller sidewalk signs. “They’re $8,000 and $10,000 jobs instead of a sidewalk sign that’s a couple hundred dollars. SEG jobs are much bigger,” said Baldwin. A lot of those are trade show graphics for large accounts. “We did an 8-by-10 fully-lit back wall for a trade show booth with end caps—all SEG—for a helicopter company,” he said. “They had a bunch of different quadrants, because they change the graphics around at each show they go to and they didn’t want to have just one big panel.” 

Baldwin’s Next Level and Windigo Signs have come to specialize in soft signage and related fabric printing. The company uses a 3.3-meter Canon d.gen direct-to-fabric textile printer, and has a full complement of sewing machines and other finishing equipment, offering complete printing and finishing services. Getting into textile printing and soft signage was not without its challenges, particularly when it came to mastering the dye-sublimation process, which involves the careful balance of time, heat, and pressure during calendering, as well as creating color profiles. 

“The learning curve was actually greater than I ever anticipated on fabrics,” said Baldwin. “It took a long time to get all the settings right, to get the ink right, the profiles right. You’ve got to get the media right, you’ve got to get the speed and the heat right. Once we dialed it in, though, it’s been running like a top for the last year.”

Baldwin runs direct-to-fabric rather than transfer dye-sublimation, and has learned that each process has its trade-offs. “The benefit of the direct-to-fabric is you get a little more ink on the fabric,” he said. “Transfer is a little less ink, so you can get a little finer text, and a little finer detail. But you can get a little more ink and a little more durability and a little bit more pop on the color when you go with the direct.” Direct-to-fabric has traditionally proven to be ideal for flags—which is one of Baldwin’s major product areas. 

Baldwin is always looking for new product areas to add. “There’s always stuff that I’m looking at,” he said. “There are pop-up banners, and I just got a roll of the mesh fence banner material so we’re going to start doing fence banners. There’s a big market for that here in our area and I get a lot of requests. We’ll run a couple of tests on it, get the profiles dialed in, and then I’ll add that stuff to the website.”

Baldwin’s chosen marketing strategy is online, and he has learned search engine optimization and how to choose the right keywords to drive customers to his sites. “It’s nice when you’re in the sign business and you can have a website presence and get business from all over the country,” he said. “You come in in the morning and you’ve got five or eight orders already there, which pays all the bills for the day.” Like most businesses these days, he is expanding his social media presence and has hired a company to help with managing social and other online media initiatives. In fact, online marketing was Baldwin’s M.O. from the start. “I never wanted to be a sign company with a territory, or boots on the ground, or work in my local sales area,” he said. “I always wanted to be a web-based company that just happened to sell signs. That’s the theory behind both Windigo Signs and Next Level Signs.” Find article here PrintingNews.com/00000000 ■