Five storefront signs every brick-and-mortar business should have

FedEx Office's 2012 consumer signage survey found that consumers think a small business should have two to three signs around its storefront. That data is from 2012. The data on incremental sign value has only strengthened since: USD 1997's per-sign coefficient of +4.75% annual sales lift, statistically significant at the 95% confidence level; Pier 1's 100-store time series showing combined lifts averaging 16% when a primary upgrade was paired with two minor signage additions.

Translated to a practical checklist, the right answer in 2026 is closer to four or five signs at a typical Ottawa storefront, because each sign covers a distinct function and the lift compounds when all four signage functions are served. This is the checklist for new small business owners opening a first Ottawa storefront, retail and service operators planning a refresh, and anyone working through what a complete signage program actually includes.

The primary identification sign

The fascia, channel letter, pylon or monument sign that answers "what is this business?" from across the parking lot or street. This is the foundation. Every storefront has one, even if it is inherited from a previous tenant or specified by a contractor with no signage expertise.

USD 1997 - Ellis, Johnson and Murphy at the University of San Diego School of Business - found that new building or pole signs produced revenue lifts in the 5 to 15 percent range. That coefficient applies most strongly to the primary identification sign on a previously underserved site. For most small businesses, this is the highest-leverage signage decision they will make.

The spec questions that matter on the primary sign:

Letter height and legibility from the road. Channel letter heights for storefront signs in Ottawa typically range from 12 to 36 inches depending on the fascia geometry and the reading distance from the closest customer-facing road. A 12-inch letter is comfortably readable at roughly 100 to 150 feet. Larger letter heights are required for sites set back from the road.

Illumination spec. Face-lit, halo-lit, or non-illuminated channel letters all have valid use cases. For most retail and service businesses operating into evening hours, face-lit is the default. For higher-end professional services, halo-lit produces a more restrained brand signal. Non-illuminated is appropriate when landlord restrictions, heritage zones, or budget specifically require it.

Construction quality. A quality channel letter sign has aluminum returns, acrylic faces, current-spec LED modules with bin-matched diodes, weather-rated transformers, and warranty documentation. A cheap channel letter sign at half the cost may look identical at install and look noticeably worse three years in.

For Ottawa-area businesses, commercial outdoor signage including the primary identification sign program covers the typical scope and cost range.

The secondary identification sign

The blade sign, awning, or projecting sign that catches pedestrian traffic walking parallel to the storefront. For storefronts in downtown Ottawa, ByWard Market, Westboro, Hintonburg, Kanata Town Centre, and similar pedestrian-traffic locations, the secondary identification sign is doing work the fascia cannot do.

A fascia sign sits flat against the building. A pedestrian walking past the storefront at a flat angle reads the fascia at a sharply oblique angle, which makes the wordmark hard to register quickly. A blade sign at a 90-degree projection from the building places the brand mark perpendicular to the pedestrian's line of sight at exactly the right distance for them to read it before they decide whether to stop.

Pier 1's directional and secondary signage work inside the USD 1997 study produced weekly sales lifts of 4 to 12 percent across the locations studied, averaging around 10%. For pedestrian-traffic businesses without a working secondary sign, this is among the highest-leverage signage additions available.

The decision points on the secondary sign:

Format selection. Blade signs for pedestrian streets, projecting signs for above-eye-level installations, awnings for storefronts where the awning structure itself can carry brand identification. Choose against the primary traffic flow (pedestrian or vehicle) at the site.

Permit requirements. Most blade and projecting signs in the City of Ottawa require a sign permit, and most plaza or multi-tenant sites require landlord approval before the permit application. Sign permits in Ottawa covers the flow. Timeline is typically four to eight weeks once landlord approval is in hand.

Coordination with the primary sign. The secondary sign should read as the same brand family as the primary. Letter style, colour treatment, illumination spec, and mounting hardware should match the primary sign's visual language. A blade sign that looks like a separate brand identity from the fascia signals a disorganized program.

For more on the per-sign coefficient and which second sign produces the most lift, see the 4.75% rule article.

The wayfinding or directional sign

The sign that gets a customer from the road or parking lot to the specific door. This is the most underutilized category in the research, and one of the highest-leverage additions for storefronts where the entry is set back from the road, located inside a plaza courtyard, behind another tenant, or otherwise not directly visible from the closest customer-facing road.

UC 2012 - Rexhausen, Hildebrandt and Auffrey at the University of Cincinnati Economics Center - documented the San Diego auto-dealer case study where one dealer was forced to relocate a sign for code compliance. After the relocation, 21% of that dealer's customers reported difficulty finding the business. 68% of customers cited signage as important to locating the business in the first place. The wayfinding chain is what carries a customer from "I am aware of this business" to "I am at the door."

For storefronts where wayfinding is weak, a $1,000 to $2,500 directional sign installation often produces more incremental revenue lift than a $5,000 second fascia sign that duplicates identification. The audit comes first. Stand at the closest customer-facing road or parking lot edge and ask: from here, would a first-time customer know how to get to my door? If the answer is no, the wayfinding gap is the priority.

The window graphic

Hours, services, brand reinforcement, certifications, and seasonal messaging. Window vinyl is among the few signage elements that can be refreshed seasonally without recapitalizing the primary sign. For retail and service businesses operating in storefronts with meaningful glass exposure, window graphics close the gap between the fascia sign (which is too far for detailed reading) and the door (which is too close for first-glance information).

The principle that should guide window graphic design is transparency. Kalantari, Xu, Govani and Mostafavi's 2022 study in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services showed that higher window-display transparency is empirically linked to greater perceived attractiveness and entry behaviour. Full-opaque window vinyl on a service business actively works against the message most operators want to send to a passing customer.

The practical default for retail and service businesses: partial coverage that preserves interior visibility. Lower-band coverage for hours and contact information. Top-banner coverage for the brand mark or category identifier. Selective full coverage where privacy specifically requires it (treatment rooms, back-of-house). The full case is in window graphics: when full coverage hurts your business.

Window decals and wall vinyl from Lundon Calling covers the full range of treatments.

The compliance and trust signage

Open/closed signs, hours of operation, payment accepted decals, accessibility compliance signage, and certifications. These are small, easy to dismiss as administrative, and meaningfully affect how the storefront is read by a first-time customer.

The BrandSpark/Better Homes & Gardens 2012 supplemental signage module found that 41.5% of consumers had used cleanliness and quality of signage as a basis for forming judgements about a business's quality. 85.7% agreed that signs convey something about a business's personality. Missing or amateur compliance signage signals an amateur business, even when the primary fascia sign is high quality. The trust signal is doing work whether the operator intends it to or not.

For Ontario businesses specifically, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) imposes specific requirements for accessibility signage on public-facing commercial sites. This includes braille and tactile components on certain interior wayfinding signs, and accessible parking and entry identification on certain exterior installations. The exact requirements depend on the business size, the site type, and the relevant AODA standard. Consult the current AODA guidance directly for the specific obligations at a given site. From the signage program perspective, designing the compliance signage in from the start, with the same quality of construction and visual treatment as the brand signage, produces a coordinated storefront. Adding compliance signage as a patchwork of off-the-shelf decals signals the opposite.

What to skip

A few sign categories that are usually low-ROI for a typical Ottawa small business and can safely be deprioritized:

Sandwich boards and A-frame signs. Most contexts have a high theft and damage rate, a limited weather window, and low incremental lift relative to permanent signage. For specific use cases (a sidewalk sign for a hard-to-find courtyard entrance, a daily-special sandwich board outside a restaurant), they can work. As a default signage category, they rarely justify their attention cost. The operator who is putting out and taking in a sandwich board twice a day is usually better served by a permanent secondary sign that does the same job continuously.

Vehicle-mounted signage on a vehicle that is not regularly visible. Vehicle wraps can be effective when the vehicle is regularly parked in high-traffic locations or used for delivery routes through residential neighbourhoods. They are not effective when the vehicle sits in a private lot most of the time. The cost is fixed; the impression count varies dramatically.

Sign categories that do not match the four marketing functions. Taylor's framework on signage functions (identification, branding, wayfinding, impulse induction) is the right filter. Once those four are served, additional signs add less. An operator who has the primary sign, secondary sign, wayfinding sign, window graphic and compliance signage in place does not typically need a sixth permanent sign category. The capital is better spent on refreshing the existing program (LED retrofits, panel refreshes, seasonal window graphic cycles) than on adding more.

The Ottawa permit and landlord-approval reality

Which of these five typically require permits, and which require landlord sign-off:

| Sign type | City of Ottawa permit | Plaza landlord approval | |-----------|----------------------|-------------------------| | Primary fascia sign | Required | Required at most plazas | | Pylon or monument sign | Required | Required at most plazas | | Blade or projecting sign | Required | Required at most plazas | | Directional sign (post-mounted) | Sometimes required | Usually required | | Window graphics | Usually not required | Sometimes required | | Compliance signage | Not required | Usually not required |

For Ottawa specifically, sign permits in Ottawa covers the full flow including application requirements, fee schedule, and typical timelines. Permit timeline at the City of Ottawa typically runs four to eight weeks once landlord approval is in hand. Plazas with master sign programs may require additional design review against the master program documents, which adds two to four weeks at most plazas.

For new businesses opening a first Ottawa storefront, the sequence that minimizes timeline risk:

1. Confirm what the lease and master sign program require for landlord approval.
2. Design the full signage program (primary, secondary, wayfinding, window, compliance) at the same time, so the landlord and the City see a coordinated submission rather than five separate ones.
3. Submit landlord approval first, then City permit, then schedule fabrication and install.
4. Time the install for the seasonal window that works for the materials (April to November for most exterior installs in Ottawa).

To start a conversation about a specific Ottawa storefront, contact us.

About Lundon Calling

Lundon Calling is a full-service commercial signage company based in Ottawa, serving Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec. We design, permit, fabricate, and install exterior and interior signage for small and mid-sized businesses, dental and healthcare practices, commercial property managers and franchise brands across a 200 km service radius - including Kingston, Brockville, Cornwall, Smiths Falls, Pembroke, Belleville, Gatineau, and Hawkesbury.

Contact us today for a complimentary signage assessment.

(613) 854-9255 info@lundoncallinginc.com lundoncallinginc.com