FEATURE: Sustainable materials in signage design and interior finishes

One of the fastest-growing, renewable resources in the world that Signbox, as a leading sign manufacturer in the UK with a reputation for creating powerful environmental signs, is now using is bamboo. Bamboo grows fast, it absorbs CO2 in large qualities and it’s a very hard ‘wood like’ species of grass. Pressed into sheet or beam form, it is beautiful, tactile, functional and structural. All these qualities make bamboo a material that’s ideally suited for use in construction and why not, in signage.

Why use Bamboo in signage design?

The type of bamboo that we have started using is called Moso, which is the fastest growing plant in the world; it reaches up to 20 metres within a couple of months and can grow up to one metre a day in the growing season. It takes the stem around four to five years to mature and achieve the hardwood characteristics sensitive signage design demands of its materials, i.e. hardness, strength and durability.

The advantage of using bamboo is that the mother plant doesn’t die when harvesting as with oak and other trees. 20-25% of the poles can be harvested each year without reducing the plantation or damaging the plants in any way. In contrast, by harvesting the mature bamboo plants the quality of the plantations actually increases.

This material is provided to us by Moso Bamboo surfaces, A UK market leader specialising in manufactured bamboo and the sole UK distributor for MOSO a world leader.

“We are now working on developing a new range of environmental signs and sign products from bamboo.”

Treated accordingly, bamboo is a very durable material. The special thermo-density process used by Moso increases the density from 650-700 kg/m3 to approx. 1150 kg/m3, significantly improving the hardness of this product. After pressing, the material is stronger and harder than almost any other hardwood in the world, making it a perfect hardwood signage alternative.

We are developing a new range of signs manufactured from bamboo, that has been treated with an anti-fungal and anti-rot treatment which makes it perfect to be used externally without further maintenance. This is the material Signbox’s signage design team used for this golf course exterior signage system.

We are now working on developing a new range of environmental signs and sign products from bamboo, but if you have any requirements for a bespoke, inspirational sign product, please contact our sales team.

LEDs and solar systems

You will have heard about LED systems, which are cost effective and energy efficient because they use less power to produce light. Signbox has been using LEDs successfully for many years for interior signage and exterior signage schemes, as LED display solutions, LED door signs, LED room number signs, illuminated LED signs, LED information signs and as LED stealth monoliths. Indeed, the range of LED illumination signage solutions that are now available to us and our clients is vast.

Now, solar signage is on the rise. Whenever we have been able to, we use solar in our signage schemes – just as we’ve utilised it with the signage for Dakota where all finishing touch signs and exterior signage that relied on LED illumination were controlled by solar switch.

100 per cent recycled acrylic sheet

If you’re conscious about the planet and you want your environmental signs to be manufactured from 100% recycled plastic instead of using the standard acrylic sheet, please let us know and we’ll ensure our production team uses GreenCast – an 100% recycled acrylic sheet from Amari Plastics. Amari provides a full range of sheet sizes, thicknesses, colours and product types, manufactured, tested and validated in the EU, which are perfectly suited to a wide range of exterior signage and interior signage design schemes.

For more information about architectural signage solutions manufactured from sustainable materials, please contact the Signbox team.