In Korea, dimensional signs such as channel letters and pan-formed signs have recently been in slight increasing demand. But a flexible-faced sign is still prevalent around the whole country. In the case of Japanese market, an acrylic sign and dimensional sign has been primarily applied to deliver business identity.

The Trip to Japan Sign Shops

In Korean, dimensional signs such as channel letters and pan-formed signs have recently been in slight increasing demand. But a flexible-faced sign is still prevalent around the whole country. In the case of Japanese market, an acrylic sign and dimensional sign has been primarily applied to deliver business identity. Let's take a closer look at the difference between outdoor advertising markets of Japan and Korea. Acrylic Signs Depicting Business Identity Generally, most of the stores in Japan are relatively small-sized and charmingly decorated. Each store design is unique and individual. Accordingly, there are a variety of types of signs in order to match unique store designs. In these days, large sized billboards incorporating with digitally printed graphics have begun to be displayed on the streets. Some sign shops have dealt with a flexible-faced sign, which can be assembled with simple tools. However, Unlike Korean situation, a flexible-faced sign market is still not as large as we think. A flexible-faced sign is not familiar with Japan market. A worker of a sign shop in Japan mentioned, "because of cramped streets, the size of sign is also small, and that is why a flexible faced sign, which is suitable for a large sign, is not widely used as outdoor advertising system." In Japan, the most popular sign type is an acrylic sign. Most of storeowners want to give distinctiveness to their buildings with acrylic signs. Because of this, dimensional signs including a channel letter and a pan-formed sign have been extensively employed in Japan. Sign shops design and produce the well-developed and standardized dimensional signs. Exploring a New Market with Originality In Japan, signmaking companies struggle to survive in the harsh market, which has been affected by business turndown and on-going changing market environment. To survive in the competitive market, all sign companies should advance production capacity, decreasing the production cost, and developing the added value of products. Daikan, the total sign company, has possessed a new market with its creative and original products like a steel channel letter and a steel plate. Daikan has been doing sign business since 1964. With state-of-the art automatic facility and high quality products, the company has been recognized as No. 1 in the field of manufacturing metallic signages. A metallic sign is also considered as high-class item because of its high price. Recent economic slowdown has made most of the companies think of the price of products as the most important, not products quality. However, Daikan is overcoming the aspect of production costs by showcasing new products with high added value to the market. Creative Products Being Competitive Power Based on the idea of producing the most creative product, which other companies cannot imitate, Daikan regards the originality as the most significance to compete with others. Lately, Daikan has introduced a new line of various channel letters products into the market. The product line includes Cube Letter, Taft Lite Sing, and D-Letter. The company has produced Cube Letter since 1992, engraving Stryofoam or rigid urethane foam materials, and coating the letters for finishing work. These products have special characteristics worthy of alternating the existing channel letters with stainless steels. And they feature lightweight because they are made of plastic materials. And the Taft Lite sign is one seventh lighter than stainless channel letter. In this reason, the product can be easily applied on the designated spot with double-sided adhesive tape. Moreover, lightweight allows Taft Lite product to be installed on even windows and the outer wall of buildings where it is impossible for stainless channel letter to be installed. The Law of Supply and Demand As mentioned above, in Japan, one of the most conspicuous peculiarities is that an acrylic sign is extensively used in outdoor advertising market. It is why Japan acrylic material is superior to any other materials in quality. An acrylic material is easy for manufacturing and simple application onto the outdoor environment. With state-of-the art facility, most manufacturers have produced high quality acrylic materials. As a result, sign companies are making the best use of the acrylics as sign materials. In addition, Japan's Environmental Preservation Regulation helps to increase the demand of the acrylics, which is harmless for environment around whole country. In fact, flexible-faced materials, one of PVC product line, are hard to recycle, and create environment pollution. While despite of the fact, acrylic materials were losing its place by flexible-faced materials in Korea, an acrylic sign has still been in a significant position in Japan. And a pan formed sign is being given a great deal of weight on the acrylic sign. Generally acrylic pan-formed sign is more in demand than another type of acrylic signs. So, Japan sign industry has been also formed from the law of supply and demand. In Japan, there are about 20 companies that produce a pan-formed sign. Screen Printing Suitable for the Mass Production An official of a sign company in Japan said that a pan-formed sign accounts for around 15~20% of the outdoor advertising market. While Korean sign market, recently, starts to show an interest on pan-formed sign because of the excessive prevalence of flexible-faced signs, Japan's pan-formed sign market experiences the business slowdown. However, He denied the fact, saying that the current depression of pan-formed sign is all due to the entire economic status. A pan-formed sign is suitable to the mass production for retail stores. And dimensional pan-formed sign features include high visibility and easy installation and maintenance. The manufacturing methods of a pan-formed sign are vacuum, compressing air and press pan-formed. As for materials available for a pan-formed sign, Korean sign industry uses Polycarbonates, but Japan sign market employs acrylics. A sign maker in Korea explained that because Korean acrylic quality is interior to Japanese, polycarbonates material, which is resistant to shock and fire, is more preferred as the primary substrates for a pan-formed sign. As the way of making graphics for a screen, with an automatic screen printer, Japan sign shops generally print graphics on the back of the pan-formed sign, meanwhile Korea sign shops cut the color sheet and applied it on pan-formed sign. A screenprinter is more appropriate to cut down the cost of production and produce the large quantity of the signs. Ready-Made Sign Products Another different thing of Japan sign market is that a ready-made and pan formed sign is so popular in outdoor advertising market. Korean signmakers are a stranger to a ready-make sign system because all signages are considered as custom-made products. Shinwa SignWork Ltd., the leading manufacturer of ready-made sign (a plastic pan formed sign) has state-of-the art facility, and produces the high-quality goods. Kobayachi Kichiro, design manger of the company unclosed that we had produced the sign products in the ratio of 6 to 4 among the whole items, but we planed to more increase the amount of production for signage. Shinwa SignWork Ltd., has been showing the line of ready-made sign productions as well as custom-made signs. As explained above, a pan-formed sign is more proper for the mass production. Despite of high initial capital, a molding frame outputs a large amount of profits in the case of the mass productions. That is because a small-sized sign shop cannot produce a pan-formed sign. The answer to the question: "cannot a small-sized sign shop do this business?" is the ready-made pan formed sign. Kobayachi Kichiro explained the prospects for a pan-formed sign market in Japan, saying, "sign business has also stayed depressed due to lots of bankruptcy of financial companies resulting from the long-term economic recession. In the reason that the primary customers for pan-formed sign are a conglomerate companies like a bank and a securities company, we can not take an optimistic view of the sign industry."