The sign people actually see when they are walking down your street.
A hanging sign — also called a blade sign or a projecting sign — sticks out from the building at a right angle, so it is read by someone walking along your sidewalk rather than by someone across the street. On a walking street that is the whole difference between being found and being passed.
Caspian Signs & Graphics designs, fabricates and installs hanging and blade signs for businesses in Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver and across British Columbia. The panels, brackets and letters are made in our own shop, which means the sign is built around your building rather than ordered from a catalogue of standard sizes.
A fascia sign — the one flat against the building above your door — is read from across the street and from a car. It is the right sign for an arterial road. The problem is that it is nearly invisible to the person already on your sidewalk, because they are walking parallel to it and it is edge-on to them.
A blade sign sits perpendicular to the wall, so it faces down the sidewalk in both directions. Someone forty metres away looking for your shop sees it. On Water Street, on Pender in Chinatown, on Main, on Commercial Drive and on West 4th, the blade sign is doing most of the work and the fascia sign is doing the rest. Most storefronts on a walking street want both.
Blade signs are quoted per sign, because the bracket, the panel and the mounting are all decided by your building. What moves the price most is size, whether the sign is illuminated, and what the wall is made of.
Send us a photo of the storefront taken from across the street, plus the width you have to work with, and we will come back with a quote covering design, fabrication, the bracket, installation and — where one is needed — the permit work, listed separately so you can see each part.
| Size | How far the sign projects and how deep it is. Bylaws usually cap the projection, which often decides the size for you. |
|---|---|
| Illuminated or not | A non-lit panel is the simplest build. A lit blade sign adds the light box, the wiring and an electrical connection. |
| Panel construction | A flat printed or painted panel costs less than routed metal, dimensional letters mounted on a panel, or a shaped custom silhouette. |
| The bracket | A stock scroll arm is inexpensive. A custom-fabricated bracket matched to the building is a separate piece of metalwork. |
| The wall | Heritage brick, stone and old mortar need different anchors and more care than modern cladding or concrete. |
| Access | A sign at normal storefront height is straightforward. Higher than that needs a lift and a sidewalk closure. |
| Permit | A sign projecting over a sidewalk sits over public property, which is handled differently from a sign that stays on your own wall. |
These are jobs we have actually done, and each one taught us something about the area.
We hung a blade sign with dimensional letters in Gastown. Two things matter here. The first is the wall: these are heritage brick buildings, and anchors go into the mortar joints rather than through the face of the brick, so the fixing can be reversed later without leaving holes in a protected facade. The second is the bylaw. Gastown is a designated historic area and the Sign By-law treats it separately — as the historic-area schedule is published, plastic-faced signs are not permitted there, which rules out the standard acrylic lightbox. A projecting blade sign is one of the permitted forms, which is exactly why Gastown looks the way it does. See our sign permit page for the detail.
We have installed a hanging light box in Chinatown, along with window graphics and 3D letters in the area. Chinatown sits under the same historic-area schedule as Gastown but the rules are not identical — illumination in particular is treated differently. Bilingual copy is normal rather than an extra here, and on a blade sign the layout has to be planned for it from the start, because a projecting panel has far less room than a fascia sign and a second language cannot simply be squeezed in afterwards.
We have hung a sign on Granville Island. The thing most sign companies miss is that Granville Island is federal land administered by CMHC, not City of Vancouver land, so the approval route is not the City's. It is also a marine environment: salt air gets into fixings, and stainless or properly coated hardware is not an upgrade there, it is the minimum. The Island is almost entirely pedestrian, which makes a blade sign the single most effective sign a tenant can hang.
| Gastown | Heritage brick, mortar-joint anchors, no plastic faces. Metal letters on a shaped panel or a painted panel with dimensional lettering. |
|---|---|
| Chinatown | Bilingual layout planned from the start. Projecting and under-awning signs are part of the permitted vocabulary. |
| Granville Island | Marine air, federal land, pedestrian traffic. Corrosion-resistant hardware and a sign built to be read at walking distance. |
| Main Street & Commercial Drive | Independent retail on busy walking streets. Narrow frontages, so the blade sign often matters more than the fascia sign. |
| Kitsilano, West 4th | High foot traffic and strong south-facing sun. Painted and printed faces need UV-stable finishes or they chalk out. |
| Yaletown | Converted brick warehouses in a historic district. Materials get more scrutiny than on an ordinary commercial street. |
| Lonsdale, North Vancouver | Sloped streets. The right height for one approach is the wrong height for the other, so it gets set on site. |
| Burnaby Heights, Hastings | A mix of walking and driving traffic. A blade sign for the sidewalk, usually alongside a fascia sign for the road. |
A blade sign is a lever. All of its weight, plus whatever the wind does to it, is carried on a short arm bolted to your wall, and that is why the mounting matters more than any other part of the job.
On heritage brick we fix into the mortar joints, not through the brick face — it holds properly, it is reversible, and it does not damage a protected building. On older masonry we check what is actually behind the surface before choosing an anchor, because a century-old wall is rarely what the drawing says it is. On modern cladding the fixing has to reach structure behind the panel, not just the panel. For a rain-screen wall the penetration has to be sealed correctly or you have made a water path into the building.
Wind matters here too. A sign that swings looks charming for about one winter, then the bearing wears and the bracket loosens. Unless you specifically want a swinging sign, we mount it rigid.
A blade sign projects over public property, which is handled differently from a sign flat on your own wall, and the rules vary between municipalities. There are usually limits on how far it can project, how high the bottom edge has to sit above the sidewalk, and how much sign area you are allowed in total. In the historic areas there are further restrictions on materials and illumination.
We check the bylaw for your address before any design work starts, prepare the drawings the city asks for, and submit the application for you — see our sign permit service. The one thing we normally need from you is the landlord's written consent, so it is worth asking for that early.
They are the same thing described three ways. A blade sign projects out from the building at a right angle so it can be read along the sidewalk. Some hang from a bracket, some are fixed rigid to one, and the names get used interchangeably in the trade.
Usually yes, because the sign projects over public property. There are limits on projection, on the height above the sidewalk and on total sign area, and historic areas add rules about materials and lighting. We check your address and handle the application.
Yes, and it is one of the forms the historic-area schedule permits — which is part of why Gastown looks the way it does. What is not permitted there is a plastic-faced sign, so the standard acrylic lightbox is out. Metal letters, shaped panels and painted faces are the way through.
Yes. We anchor into the mortar joints rather than through the face of the brick. It holds properly, it can be reversed later, and it does not leave damage on a protected facade.
Yes — as a double-sided light box, with halo-lit letters, or with push-through letters in a metal face. An illuminated sign may need a separate electrical permit, and in the historic areas illumination has its own restrictions. See our light box page for the lighting options.
Only if you want it to. A swinging sign wears its bearing and loosens its bracket over a few winters here. Unless the look matters to you, we mount it rigid.
The bylaw usually decides that before taste does — permitted sign area is normally tied to the width of your storefront, and the projection over the sidewalk is capped. Tell us the address and we will tell you the size you are working with.
Across Greater Vancouver — Gastown, Chinatown, Granville Island, Yaletown, Main Street, Commercial Drive, Kitsilano and West 4th, Mount Pleasant, the Broadway corridor, Lonsdale in North Vancouver, and Burnaby including the Heights on Hastings.
We make hanging, blade and projecting signs for storefronts, restaurants, studios and offices across Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia — from a small under-awning panel to a custom bracket and a shaped double-sided sign.
Caspian Signs & Graphics carries liability insurance and WorkSafeBC coverage, so your project is protected from start to finish.
Or call +1 236-591-3235 — we answer during shop hours.
Also see: Light Boxes | 3D Letters | Channel Letters | Window Graphics | Sign Permits | Sign Shop in Vancouver, BC | Sign Shop in Burnaby, BC