Signs of Success

A few years back, a committee at Misericordia University decided to embrace ADA compliance and create new signage across the entire 123-acre campus. After soliciting bids from local sign shops, however, their eyes bulging from the shock of the expense, they decided to consider producing the new signs in-house. So a vice president approached the campus graphics experts at Cougar Prints, the university’s in-plant.

Emily Zavada stands with Misericordia University’s Gravograph IS8000XP rotary engraver.

Manager Jim Sabulski could have protested that engraving wasn’t his in-plant’s area of expertise and turned this task over to the facilities department. But that wasn’t his style.

“I want to position the operation as being so invaluable that nothing could ever happen to us,” he explains.

So in 2010 the six-employee in-plant installed a Gravograph IS8000XP rotary engraver in its Dallas, Pa., facility and began producing ADA-compliant signage with raised letters and braille. In the years since, the in-plant’s reputation as the campus sign masters grew.

“When we became the keeper of that kind of signage, all signage snowballed down to us,” Sabulski says. “It’s a good thing because its under our auspices now … and that makes us more valuable as an in-plant.”

Operated by Emily Zavada, the engraver has produced countless signs for buildings and classrooms all over campus, most of them created using Rowmark engravable plastic: bathroom signs, exit signs, stairway signs and especially office signs, which are designed with a removable name plate, so the person’s name and title can be changed if they relocate. Signs have been standardized to include space at the bottom for a logo or donor recognition.

Engraved signs aren’t the only signage the in-plant is handling. When departments need banners or temporary signage, they now know to come to the in-plant, which uses an Epson 9880 to print vinyl banners.

“We’ve become the keeper of the signage,” remarks Sabulski.

Recently he was approached about a plan to create signage to adorn the university’s entrance driveway promoting campus events. In the past, the department hosting the event would have handled the signage itself, but now it’s understood that the in-plant should be consulted first, to ensure that university brand standards are being maintained.

Though engraving and signage were unfamiliar territories at the time, Sabulski doesn’t regret his decision to take them on.

“I looked at it as an opportunity, and so far it’s worked out well,” he says.