Metamark, Fit For Purpose

The gym sector is one of the fastest growing areas of business which is good for the nation's health and it's a very fertile area for top quality decor too. Barnsley based Turner Signs got to exercise its creativity recently...

The shape and complexion of the high street is changing as businesses adapt to the age where more people decide to shop online. Fast rising though are what you might call 'Amazon Proof' businesses where the presence of the buyer is required. Among the fasted growing in this emergent sector is the gym. That's got to be good for the health of the nation and, as gyms try to outgun each other in the branding stakes, it's got to be good for signs and graphics producers too.

With the sector being so densely populated, gym business have to work as hard as their clients in order to create points of differentiation. In the case of Rotherham based Functional Fitness the job's more or less done. Not only is the gym one of only two in the North of England to have achieved the distinction of being a TRX Host Facility, but its cavernous interior has been totally transformed by a simply brilliant range of signing and decor delivered by the team at Barnsley based Turner Signs.

The professionalism and caliber of the Functional Fitness business is impressed upon its clients by a superb sign announcing the business and situated above its entrance. The sign is made of fabricated ACM and is covered with printed Metamark MD5 digital media. With detail announcing the gym's status as a THX Host and routed lettering its Active For Life branding, the sign is lit from the front. It's a masterpiece of simplicity and its quality is obvious.

Turner Signs' work abounds inside the huge premises too. MD5 applied to Dibond panels continue to promote the THX connection and the large fields of unbroken colour are unbroken by any unwelcome print artefacts. Turner Signs clearly knows how to get every ounce of performance from Metamark's reference quality print media.

Space is imaginatively used and to brilliant effect. A body in dynamic repose is applied to a wall lending its own splash of colour to what would otherwise be a nondescript stairwell. MD5 again earns its keep and supports Turner Signs' reputation for quality. Fascia signing gets a continuation with a similar treatment.

Motivational graphics are never far from the customers' eye lines but the whole installation holds itself in check and is never gratuitous. It's a brilliant exercise in branding and in containing the feel of what would otherwise be huge and rather alienating premises.

Even the gyms cool down area is made part of the whole with printed graphics. Its soft furnishings pick up on colour ways established in the printed signing and lend a feeling of professionalism and quality to the whole. In the sum of its parts, Turner Signs work is brilliant. Each and every component in the whole programme radiates quality.

Applied decor and functional graphics is fast becoming a specialisation in the sign and allied industries. Turner Signs has made its own impression on the market with some stunning projects of which the gym is but one example. Quality is the common theme though. And that's how the company distinguishes itself and reaches so many customers.