For our premiere survey, we culled 968 respondents living in six big cities throughout Korea, including Seoul. We delivered and collected our survey from them. After all, this would be the second survey. In 1998, we made a survey for a special feature on our third anniversary. These survey statistics enable us to compare the results from 1998 and make inference by analyzing commonalities between the questionnaires.

Here are a few of the survey's major findings:
- Most of sign shops have less than three employees.
- 67.4% of respondents earns less than $83,333.00 annually.
- Flex sign is the type of sign which was the most produced in 2002.
- Neon sign is the most preferred type of sign.
- Sign-manufacturing methods has greatly changed in the 2000's
- Digital printing is the most profitable area.
- 70.7% of respondents owns a cutting system.
- Around half of sign-makers uses more than 20 times digital printer for their jobs.
- Resolution is the most critical consideration for digital printing
- 46.6% of respondents leans toward buying a new digital printer in the immediate future.

Each questionnaire we deliberately selected identifies the number of employees, annual sales-volume and the size of its business. Sign shops with less than three employees (67.0%) revealed that our sign industry was still a family-oriented business. We concluded that expensive and increasing labor costs did not allow sign shops to employ highly qualified workers. The lasting economic recession also dealt the sign industry a heavy blow. When it comes to annual sales volume, most sign shops (67.4%) reported earning less than $ 83,333.00 annually. Also, the majority of businesses are less than 80 sq., yds.

This survey indicates the kinds of signs that were manufactured the most in 2002. 66.1% of respondents pointed out that flex signs were the most produced type of sign, followed by banners(14.0%) and neon signs(9.6%). This figure for flex signs is an increase of approximately 3% from the 1998 survey. In fact, flex material will likely continue to hold its market share. However, dimensional signs like channel increased 40% from 1998(4.7%) to 2002(8.1%). The result showed that many people became sick and tired of the static signage, and more accustomed to high-impact and multi-dimensional graphics. Interestingly, until the middle of 80's before flex materials were introduced, signs incorporating acrylic were considered the preferred type of sign. Yet, the percent of acrylic signs dropped dramatically from 10.8% to 2.9% in 2002. According to this survey, a majority of respondents tended to avoid the application of acrylic material on signs. Other types of signs are as follows : electric signs, interior signs, digitally printed signs and billboards.

In terms of the type of sign which sign makers want to produce in the immediate future, approximately one-third of respondents(32.6%) reported that neon signs were the most preferred type of sign, followed by flex signs(24.3%) and channel letters(18.9%). According to our last survey, flex signs(41.6%) were described as the most preferred type of sign. These results showed that sign makers were more likely to produce a greater variety of signs this year. Others choices included electric signs and LED signs. As people become more accustomed to hi-impact, multi-dimensional graphics, we expect moving screen signs will have demonstrated a greater popularity than static signs. Also a slight number of signmakers want to make signages, using digital printing, interior signs, molding art and special signs(EL, optical fiber)

As for manufacturing methods, 67.5% of respondents reported manufacturing methods has greatly changed in the 2000's while one third(30.7%) said there was no significant change in manufacturing methods. However, considering that flex sign and neon sign, which have been the most manufactured since the 1980's, have still been popular, a majority of respondents seemed to show a subjective point-of -view on this question.

78% of respondents indicated that they applied unique materials on less than 30% of their whole job. 40.4% reported less than 10%. It means that a majority of sign makers try to use common materials for making signs. We can concluded that most sign makers are unwilling to try new sign-making methods.

We asked sign makers which sign area was going to be more profitable. The results are as follow: digital printing(45.1%), sign design(12.4%), interior sign(9.8%), computer engraving(8.0%). As sign-making industry become more competitive, areas that are not traditionally related to sign manufacturing, such as maintenance and repair and sign design, will become more popular among sign makers.

Of all respondents, 70.7% reported having a cutting system. The figure eclipsed 1998's result, increasing 24.1% over the last four years. More than two thirds of sign makers is said to own their own cutting system.

When it comes to the number of times a company uses a digital printer while making signs, 43.7% of respondents claimed to have used more than 20 times digital printer. This is a increase of 27.4% over 1998's numbers. Since many sign makers describe digital printing as the future in the sign industry, we expect the popularity of digital printing to dramatically increase.

Over half of all respondents (61.6%) reported that resolution was the most critical consideration for digital printing, followed by durability and color fidelity. Surprisingly, in 1998, about half of all respondents considered the cost of production as the most important key for digital printing.

On whether to plan purchasing a digital printer or not, 46.6% of respondents leaned towards buying a new digital printer in the future. They are proved to be the potential consumers for a digital system. The results are more than double 21.7% of 1998. Among them, 14.9% have already owned digital printers. For companies owning a cutting system, 51.6% of respondents have a plan for purchasing a digital printer. Companies having a cutter system are more likely to need a digital printer than shops not possessing a cutting system.