Signarama Gets the Word out for New Businesses 

When George Pappas was preparing to open a new wine shop and coffee bar in Collegetown last spring, the number of tasks he had to deal with seemed 
overwhelming, from buying display racks to ordering stock and getting a state liquor license.

Yet he found one company in Ithaca that could provide two of the key services he needed:  designing a logo and creating signs. After he called Signarama of Ithaca, Diane Beckley, owner of the company, produced the logos and signs for his two stores - Ithaca Wine and  Spirits and Chatty Cathy's - which have been attracting customers ever since the wine shop opened on Oct. 31.

"We're nothing without those signs," says Pappas, whose family has owned the Souvlaki House three doors down on Eddy Street for the past 40 years. "Branding and creating something visually appealing are everything."

Beyond designing signs, Signarama will also secure the proper municipal permits to install them on buildings. The size of business signs is regulated by municipal codes, and in Ithaca, they cannot exceed 1.5 square feet of signage for every one linear foot of building frontage.
 
"This is part of what we do - we have to negotiate between the city codes and the architects and our customers," Beckley says. "If customers don't have to deal with it and it's done right, it's something that we can take off their plate."

The permit process to install the signs at Pappas' two businesses took three days, and he was happy he didn't have to handle it himself. "It was done so seamlessly," he says.
   
Although Pappas moved back to Ithaca from New York City, where he worked with numerous contractors for a bar he owned, he wanted to hire local businesses to help him open his wine shop and coffee bar.

"If we open any other businesses in the future, we'll be doing work with Diane and her alone," Pappas says. "She was great throughout the whole process."

If you'd like to talk to Diane about branding or signage for your business, please contact Signarama of Ithaca.