We have reached the halfway month through 2017 and what a year it has been so far! The Sign Industry has taken on some hurdles regarding material price stability after the British public voted for Brexit in mid 2016, however the industry as a whole is riding the wave well and pushing through to stay a thriving trade throughout the UK.

Here at Sign Trade Supplies we have continued in our efforts to source new, innovative products. While maintaining our relationships with European and International suppliers. We have invested in some great bits of new machinery and we are always striving to improve our customer service and online shopping experience.

I have outlined below some of our highlights of the year:

Introduction of the Brand New 2017 Vehicle Outline Library

Impact Vehicle Outlines are the industry leading company that have been cataloguing UK cars, trucks and commercial vehicles in vector format for many years. The vectors are provided on a disc with an A4 index binder that illustrates the different model vehicles. The pictorial index makes it fast and easy to identify the vehicle you need to create a design for. The vehicle vector files are provided in formats that are accepted by  Casmate, CorelDRAW, EasySign, Flexisign, Adobe Illustrator, SignLab and many more CAD and design programs. A true necessity for anyone looking to improve speed and accuracy of vehicle designs.

Installation of our Acrylic Diamond Edge Polishing Machine

We have been thrilled with the introduction of our Diamond Edge Polishing Machine, and we have received some great feedback from you too! The investment in this piece of equipment has opened up our edge polishing service to faster turnaround times, higher quality finishing and consistent clear edges. We are now able to efficiently polish the edges of acrylic and poly-carbonate up to 45mm in width. However as standard stock, we hold 5mm, 8mm, 10mm & 20mm Clear Cast Acrylic ready to be made into wall plaques and other POS products. We cut the acrylic on our large format CNC machine to provide the most size accurate product.

The Launch of the Edge Polishing Online Calculator

After the initial success of our new edge polishing service, our tech team got to work on producing an online calculator. the calculator was designed for trade customers that need instant quotes and streamlined order process. After a few weeks of development we have arrived at a finished project. Trade customers can now log in to our e-commerce website and produce instant quotes, all the way through to ordering for 5mm, 8mm and 10mm clear cast acrylic plaques.

Introduction of Clarity Systems 

To help us continue to improve our customer service, quoting speed and accuracy we invested in Clarity Software. Designed specifically around the sign and print industry it has proven to be an extremely useful tool to improve our customer relationships. We can now easily manage previous order history, keep track of quotes, sales and shipments and also allow all of our staff to provide quotations. A great investment for any sign company that is looking to drill down on their admin time and create a better understanding of their customer.

Marabu Marajet Eco-solvent Inks 

Marajet Eco-solvent inks are the first line of digital printing inks we have stocked at Sign Trade Supplies. Suitable for the majority of Roland printers being used in the UK sign industry. We performed in-depth research of the 3rd party ink industry and came to the conclusion that Marabu was the manufacturer of choice.  Marabu's  manufacturing headquarters is based in Germany and they have over 150 years of experience in the production of high quality ink, pigments and paints. With a total range of over 20,000 products we have put our trust in the knowledge and expertise of the Marabu company.

New product line of WrapCut

 With the increasing popularity of the 3M knifeless tape range we decided to offer our customers a larger product choice by introducing the wrapcut series of products by langeman . The three variations include a standard WrapCut line used for simple lines and straight cuts, the WrapCut Pro which provides a more conformable line, used for wheel arches etc. Finally the Wrapcut wire which boasts a metal filament strong enough to cut through reflective films and thick stone protection films.