Teksign builds on decades of experience to fulfill challenging signage projects

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teksign pioneer

Teksign, Inc. based in Brantford, Ontario traces its roots to 1946 as a pioneer in the plastics sign industry. The business has evolved through the decades, from its foundation of servicing petroleum signage and expanding its expertise into a business that has delivered more than two million signs to every continent other than Antartica.

General manager Drew Mullin says the company adjusts its program management model to accommodate the demands of very different sites and projects. The Teksign team’s interface with other trades features a constantly changing variety of architects, engineers, city permit officials, designers, installers and contractors.

Mullin says the business’s history dates back over 70 years. As a postwar pioneer, Teksign produced a broad range of products including window mouldings and household appliances before evolving into blacklit signage.

Drew is in his family’s third generation associated with the company, though he says he sees the enterprise as a collaborative group rather than family business. “Our company has evolved,” he said. “The outfit has shifted to a boutique style organization.”

“We emphasize working in small teams, where company/customer expectations are met collectively, and every member works to achieve a common goal.”

Teksign continues to serve large clients at a diversity of locations. When a national business decides on a rebrand, it may need new signs to be produced and delivered to every province. Site conditions, the building environment, local ordinances, and other details mean that each sign is a custom project.

“This is not a massive assembly line production environment,” he said. “The company model as a mass assembly line is dated. Today’s sign industry has elements of advertising,
construction, design innovation, and logistic all while protecting the customer’s brand integrity. Everything is different. The communication, the people involved, the different trades . . . it takes more of a small team with diversified skill sets approach to push
everything through.”

Many of Teksign’s clients continue to be from the petroleum industry – for example, the business has served Imperial Oil since 1956 – but the company also delivers signs to hotels, restaurants, manufacturers, government agencies, and other clients.

Currently the company’s business encompasses most parts of Canada and the U.S. “Depending on market demand, we’ve shipped highway enclosure signs to the U.S., we’ve installed fiberoptic signs in Hong Kong and even sent installers there, provided signs for service stations in Russia and an Esso Station in Panama, and, in the early 1990s, provided
signs for the Bank of China.”

“There’s an image in our files where we needed to use a helicopter to put a sign in place, and we have images of bamboo scaffolding from Hong Kong,” he said.

Most of the work these days – about 3,000 installations a year – is less dramatic, but it still vitally important for significant construction projects across Canada.

“We work as a fellow trade within the construction industry,” fulfilling specifications and integrating with other trades and suppliers, Mullin said. These relationships, along with an understanding of the requirements of building owners and corporations for which signage is a vital for business identity, ensure that the signs are delivered the way they should, and the clients return for more.

For more information, contact Drew Mullin at admullin@teksign.com or phone (519) 756-1089 ext 250.

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