From conveying warnings and restrictions to bolstering brand recognition, custom indoor and outdoor healthcare signage plays a key role in the communication strategy of organizations like hospitals, clinics, and medical offices, among others.
Here’s everything you need to know about signage for the healthcare industry, one of the most complex and interesting areas of application of large format printing. Keep reading to learn more!
Indoor Healthcare Signage
Indoor healthcare signage is located inside a healthcare facility, where it can serve several functions, including:
- Conveying warnings and restrictions
- Communicating safety and hygiene messages
- Improving wayfinding
- Enhancing brand recognition
It’s worth noting that healthcare signage is more than a pleasant visual addition. Case studies show that effective indoor healthcare signage can reduce the stress levels of patients. Furthermore, personal safety signs help prevent accidents, creating a more secure environment for all involved.
Window Graphics
Window graphics are signs printed on self-adhesive vinyl and placed on a glass or glass-like surface. From the standpoint of the healthcare industry, window graphics offer some important advantages: they are easy to sanitize and can be printed using techniques and materials that are safe to use in sensitive environments.
These are some examples of window graphics for the healthcare industry:
- To brand doors, windows, and other surfaces
- As a way to display messages or directions on doors windows and other surfaces
- To display wayfinding messages and room designations
- To make waiting areas more pleasant and welcoming
- As a means to create privacy in areas with glass dividers
Wall murals, also called wall graphics, are a relatively recent innovation in large format printing that projects a contemporary and efficient look that can upgrade the appearance of any healthcare facility. Just like window graphics, wall murals are easy to sanitize and can be made using materials and techniques that are safe to use in sensitive environments.
Some examples of wall murals for the healthcare industry include:
- To display wayfinding information
- As directory signage
- To convey corporate messages
- To create a friendly or even playful atmosphere
- As a means to display infographics
Wayfinding Signage
Effective wayfinding signage is important in any kind of facility, but it can prove essential in a healthcare environment. Wayfinding signage helps patients, visitors, and staff quickly identify the paths to reach the areas they are looking for. Many recent studies support the pivotal role of wayfinding signage in healthcare facilities and recommend paying even more attention to this set of useful visual solutions.
Here’s why printing on vinyl is the ideal alternative to create wayfinding signage for hospitals and other health care facilities:
- It’s a versatile solution
- Easy to clean and sanitize
- Durable
- Customizable
- Eye-catching
Glass Finishes
Glass is a building material commonly used in hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities. From windows to doors and glass dividers, any glass surface can be decorated or enhanced with a glass finish. As you may remember from a previous post, there are five basic types of glass finishes:
- Frosted glass. Creates a frosted appearance by applying a film or by sandblasting or acid etching the glass
- Satin glass. Smoother and more opaque than frosted glass, this finish is created by applying a self-adhesive film or by sandblasting the glass.
- A self-adhesive film with a printed message, textures, or other effects.
- Tinted glass. Here, a translucent, colorful film is applied to the surface of the glass.
- Reflective glass. The principle is the same as with tinted glass, but one of the sides of the film is reflective, creating a mirror effect.
Each type of glass finish offers different degrees of transparency allowing you to easily manage privacy and illumination levels according to your needs.
Elevator Wraps
Elevators are a common sight in healthcare facilities, but their potential to convey visual messages is often overlooked. You can seize this communication opportunity by using an elevator wrap.
Elevator wraps are self-adhesive graphics that can be placed either outside or inside an elevator for a variety of purposes. Some of the messages you can convey with an elevator wrap include:
- Branding/corporate advertising
- Personal safety/hygiene messages
- Wayfinding graphics
- Directory signage
- Decorative graphics
- Warnings and restrictions
Promotional Graphics
Just like any other enterprise, healthcare companies and medical practices also need to advertise their services, and promotional graphics can be their best allies in this regard.
Promotional graphics let your community know about seasonal campaigns or about new services that potential clients may find useful.
These are some of the visual solutions that companies in the healthcare industry can utilize as part of their advertising efforts:
A seasoned team of designers can help you determine the best combination of promotional graphics to reach your audience and achieve your marketing goals.
Outdoor Healthcare Signage
Healthcare facilities are complex structures that require both indoor and outdoor signage. While indoor signage fulfills all the functions outlined above, outdoor signage helps with other vital tasks, including:
- Making it easy to spot the facilities themselves
- Marking entrances and parking areas
- Directing the flow of ambulances and other vehicles
- Creating a more friendly exterior appearance
- Branding vehicles
Banners and Graphics
Banners are a versatile visual solution that can be deployed in all types of facilities, and the healthcare industry is no exception. Vinyl banners are durable, highly visible, and cost-efficient. These are some applications of banners and graphics in healthcare facilities:
- Uplifting messages
- Commemorations
- Promote special/seasonal events
- Display fun images and characters (important for pediatric institutions)
- Advertise services
For more information about building signs and outdoor signage, read this previous post.
Vehicle Wraps
The healthcare industry is more than brick-and-mortar facilities. Vehicles are also essential to the day-to-day operations of a hospital or clinic and must display the same graphic identity as the facilities they serve.
The importance of the visual factor goes beyond mere branding: vehicles used for medical emergency purposes must bear warning signs that make them stand out from ordinary vehicles.
A wrap can enhance the appearance of many vehicles commonly used in the healthcare industry, for example:
- Ambulances
- Motorcycles
- Vans
- Rescue trucks
- Mobile clinics
Parking Directional Signage
While in many industries parking is a secondary aspect, its importance to the healthcare industry is almost impossible to overstate. In a hospital or clinic, seconds can make a crucial difference. That’s why it’s important to have parking directional signage that allows visitors and staff to find their way around your facilities almost intuitively.
The parking directional signage most commonly used in the healthcare industry includes:
- Parking garage signs
- Caution signs
- Entrance markers
- Outdoor wayfinding signage
- No parking signs
- Handicap parking signs
Custom Indoor and Outdoor Healthcare Signage: Wrapping It Up
If you are in charge of a hospital, clinic, or a similar structure, healthcare signage is key to promoting your facility, bolstering brand recognition, and ensuring that foot and vehicle traffic flows smoothly.
Healthcare facilities are so complex that they require both indoor and outdoor signage solutions.
Indoor healthcare signage includes window graphics, wall murals, wayfinding signage, glass finishes, elevator wraps, and promotional graphics.
Digital printing on vinyl is the best alternative for indoor healthcare signage because it’s created using materials and printing methods that are safe to use in any environment.
Outdoor healthcare signage, on the other hand, includes banners and graphics, vehicle wraps, and parking directional signage.
Outdoor signage is particularly important in the healthcare industry because patients often arrive by car and an efficient parking and traffic plan is instrumental in saving seconds that can be precious in many situations.
CR&A Custom: High-Quality Healthcare Signage Solutions
CR&A Custom is a Los-Angeles-based large format printing company proudly serving customers of all types and sizes in the United States and abroad.
When you choose CR&A Custom, you get all the benefits that come with working with a leader in the large format printing industry:
- Fast turnaround times. Thanks to our in-depth experience and our advanced technical capabilities, we can bring your healthcare signage to completion in time and without stress for you.
- Comprehensive expertise. From design to installation, our in-house team includes experts in every aspect of large format printing. This ensures maximum quality in all our products.
- Our culture of excellence is backed up by some of the most stringent certifications in the industry, including the G7 Master Qualification, the 3M MCS Warranty, and the SB/DVBE Certification. You can check the full list here.
- A proven track record of success. For more than 25 years, businesses of all types have trusted CR&A to help them reach their customers and boost awareness of their brand.
Whether it’s a hospital, a clinic, a medical practice, or any other type of healthcare structure, our team of designers, technicians, and installers has the expertise and technical capabilities to create the visual solutions you need when it comes to promoting your facility.
Contact us today by telephone (213-749-4440), email (info@cracustom.com), or social media (Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn) for a free quote or to learn more about our wide range of visual solutions: vehicle wraps, window graphics, wall graphics, building wraps, and more!
By CR&A Custom Inc April 6, 2021
