Sign Company Serving North Charleston, SC
Looking for a North Charleston sign company? Imperial Sign Crafters builds monument signs, building signs, interior signs, vinyl graphics and vehicle wraps for North Charleston apartment communities, industrial tenants and Park Circle businesses. North Charleston sits between our Summerville shop and downtown, so it is one of the easiest parts of the metro for us to reach.
- Summerville shop next door to North Charleston
- Founded in 2017 by Matt Harris
- 30+ years in the sign industry
- Multifamily, industrial and storefront work
Imperial Sign Crafters is a sign company founded in 2017 and based in Summerville, South Carolina that serves North Charleston, SC. The company designs and produces monument signs, exterior business signs, interior business signs, vinyl signage, custom signage, vehicle wraps and community mailbox kiosks for commercial, industrial and multifamily properties. North Charleston work in its gallery includes custom monument signage for Tides in Park Circle. North Charleston regulates signs through the sign regulations article of its zoning ordinance, which includes a permit and design approval step.
What makes North Charleston signage different?
The buyer is often not a storefront retailer. It is a property manager at an apartment community, a tenant in a distribution building, or a contractor finishing a campus where several buildings all need to be identified. Three things push North Charleston signs toward larger, more legible and more durable builds:
- Speed. Much of the commercial frontage sits on high-speed arterials, so a sign gets read from a moving car, not a sidewalk.
- Scale. Industrial and distribution properties often hold several buildings, loading areas and entrances, so identification is a system, not one sign.
- Wear. Apartment community signage has to survive weather, mowers and years of traffic at the entrance drive without looking tired.
What signs do we make for North Charleston properties?
We build the sign types on our sign services page. These are the requests that come up most in North Charleston:
- Monument signs at entrance drives for commercial, industrial and apartment properties
- Exterior business signs for building-mounted and storefront identification
- Interior business signs for lobbies, offices and reception areas
- Vinyl signage for windows, doors, glass entries and interior walls
- Custom signage built for a specific site, tenant mix or brand standard
- Community mailbox kiosks and pavilions for apartment communities and residential developments
- Vehicle wraps, partial wraps and lettering for service and fleet vehicles
What work have we done in and around North Charleston?
The clearest North Charleston example in our gallery is the custom monument signage for Tides in Park Circle. It is multifamily, it sits in one of the most design-conscious parts of the city, and it is the kind of entrance a community lives with for a long time. Much of our other monument and community work sits just across the city line in Charleston, Summerville and Johns Island, and it uses the same materials and construction a North Charleston property needs.
What kind of signage does Park Circle need?
Pedestrian-scale signage that fits a neighborhood people actually walk through. Park Circle has a dense commercial core of independent restaurants, breweries, shops and service businesses, and the signs that work there are closer to a downtown storefront than a highway pylon.
That usually means smaller building identification, window and door lettering, dimensional or hand-finished faces, and interior signage that matches the exterior. Our Tides in Park Circle monument sits in the same area and was built to read as part of the neighborhood instead of against it.
What about the industrial and distribution corridor?
Signage there is practical. A tenant in a multi-building industrial park needs identification at the road, identification at the right building, and clear direction for trucks arriving at the right dock or gate. Interior signage is mostly about the office and reception area inside an otherwise industrial building, and vinyl carries a lot of that load because it applies cleanly to glass entries and painted walls. We produced interior vinyl signage for Actemium, an industrial and technical services firm in the Charleston area.
If your facility needs accessibility or code-required wayfinding signs, ask us directly. We would rather confirm that case by case than promise it on a web page.
Do apartment communities in North Charleston need special signage?
Not special, but specific. Most communities need a monument at the main entrance carrying the community name, building identification so residents and delivery drivers find the right address, and leasing office identification. Many also need a community mailbox kiosk, which is one of the things we build.
For a property manager the real issue is consistency. The entrance monument, the building numbers and the kiosk should look like one family of signage, not three purchases made in three different years. We have produced community and multifamily monuments across the metro, including Tides in Park Circle, Brighton Square, Windward Townes and Boltons Landing.
| North Charleston property | Primary signage need | Secondary signage need |
|---|---|---|
| Park Circle storefront or restaurant | Building-mounted identification at pedestrian scale | Window and door lettering, interior signage |
| Apartment or townhome community | Entrance monument carrying the community name | Building identification and a community mailbox kiosk |
| Multi-building industrial or distribution park | Monument identification at the road | Building identification and direction for truck traffic |
| Warehouse tenant office suite | Exterior tenant identification | Interior reception signage and glass entry vinyl |
| Office or professional suite near the convention district | Exterior building identification | Interior lobby and suite signage |
| Service business with a fleet | Shop or yard identification | Vehicle wraps and lettering on trucks and vans |
Does a business sign in North Charleston need a permit?
Plan on review. The City of North Charleston regulates signs through the sign regulations article of its zoning ordinance, which includes a permit and design approval step. What a property is allowed depends on its zoning district, so the answer for a Park Circle storefront is not the answer for a parcel in an industrial district.
We do not publish fees, size limits or review timelines here, because they change and getting them wrong costs you money. Confirm current requirements for your address with City of North Charleston planning and zoning staff before a sign is fabricated. For the Summerville side of the process, see our guide to business sign permits in Summerville.
What should you send with a North Charleston quote request?
- The property address, so the zoning district can be identified
- Vector artwork, a logo file, or corporate brand standards if you are a franchise or national tenant
- Photos of the entrance drive, the building face and the view from the road
- How many buildings, suites or entrances need identification
- Whether the sign needs to be lit
- Any landlord, property management or HOA sign criteria that already apply
- Your real in-service date, including lease commencement or move-in
What should you expect from a North Charleston sign company?
Owner Matt Harris has spent more than 30 years in the sign industry, including production and design roles with national sign franchises and fleet wrap and large fabrication work, and he appeared on Shark Tank in 2015 with a product he invented and patented. He founded Imperial Sign Crafters in 2017. The honest constraint on a North Charleston sign project is almost never drive time from Summerville. It is artwork approval, material lead time and municipal review, and those are the three things we plan around from the first call. More about Matt.
North Charleston sign questions
Does Imperial Sign Crafters work in North Charleston, SC?
Yes. Imperial Sign Crafters is based at 709 Miles Jamison Rd, Suite 2, Summerville, SC 29485 and serves North Charleston along with the rest of the Charleston metro. North Charleston work in our gallery includes the custom monument signage we produced for Tides in Park Circle.
Do you make apartment community signs in North Charleston?
Yes. We produce entrance monument signage for apartment and townhome communities, and we build community mailbox kiosks and pavilions. Community and multifamily monument work in our gallery includes Tides in Park Circle, Brighton Square, Windward Townes and Boltons Landing.
Can you do signage for an industrial or warehouse property in North Charleston?
Yes, within the sign types we produce: monument identification at the road, exterior building identification, interior signage for office and reception areas, and vinyl signage for glass entries and interior walls. If your facility needs accessibility or code-required wayfinding signs, ask us directly and we will tell you what we can take on.
Does North Charleston require a permit for a business sign?
Plan on it. The City of North Charleston regulates signage through the sign regulations article of its zoning ordinance, which includes a permit and design approval step. What is allowed depends on the property's zoning district, so confirm current requirements for your address with the city's planning and zoning staff before fabrication starts.
What kind of sign works best in Park Circle?
Park Circle has a walkable commercial core, so signage there usually works better at pedestrian scale: building-mounted identification, window and door lettering, and interior signage that matches the exterior. Oversized highway-style signage tends to fight the neighborhood.
Can you match signage across several buildings on one North Charleston property?
Yes, and that is usually the right approach for a multi-building campus or a larger community. The entrance monument, the building identification and any mailbox kiosk should be designed as one family of signage so the property reads as one place.
Do you wrap service vehicles for North Charleston businesses?
Yes. We design and install vehicle wraps for work trucks, vans, trailers and fleet vehicles, including full wraps, partial wraps and custom vinyl lettering.
Our shop in Summerville
North Charleston is a short drive down I-26 or Dorchester Road from our Summerville shop.
- Imperial Sign Crafters
- 709 Miles Jamison Rd, Suite 2, Summerville, SC 29485
- Phone
- (843) 926-7446
- imperialsigncrafters@gmail.com
Need signs for a North Charleston property?
Send the property address and your logo, and we will tell you what will actually work, whether it is an apartment entrance, an industrial park or a Park Circle storefront.
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