Signage for a care group

A group specification is a short document that fixes the decisions you only want to make once:

• the color or colors the group uses, from the eight we make;
• which sign type goes on which kind of room — bedroom, bathroom, lounge, office;
• how a room is named, in the words your own staff and residents use for it;
• which icon stands for which room, so the same picture means the same thing everywhere;
• what a resident’s own bedroom sign carries, where you personalise it.

Every building’s schedule is then written from that one document rather than designed again. Our group orders are, in practice, the same products in different quantities — which is what makes a standard across sites a straightforward thing to hold rather than a promise.

Describe one building and see the list · Get a budget range for a building

See the itemised, priced list your managers and finance officer get

We read the plans and write the schedule out: every sign, the wording on it, the room it belongs outside, the sign type, the color and the quantity — then price it. You get one per building, so each care facility has a document and a figure of its own, and you get a total for the group by adding them up.

If the plans are not yours to send — they sit with a facilities team, with an architect, or inside a tender pack — say so in the form below and tell us where they are. We will tell you what we can work from. A room list and a bed count is often enough to start.

It matters to a group more than to anyone else. Nothing in your specification depends on a third party’s catalogue, so the same colors, the same sign types and the same artwork can be held across your buildings rather than re-sourced for each one. When building seven is signed, it is made from the same files as building one.

DSDC publishes an Accredited Products Directory. In the July 2023 edition the Signage section lists one company — Wayfinders, who manufacture Signage for Care — with a 2018 entry for a toilet sign in eight colors. DSDC's own guidance says the logo is awarded on the merit of the individual product and, where applicable, its color-way, so an accreditation belongs to a product rather than to a company.

Which is why the useful question to put to any signage supplier, including us, is “which product does your certificate name, and what date is on it?” We are not going to describe a wider scope, a rating level or a renewal date we cannot put in front of you. If it is going into a group specification or a tender, ask us for the certificate and ask DSDC to confirm it.

What 1A DSDC accreditation is, with DSDC's ten design principles

A quote per building is a budget per building

A group rollout does not have to be one purchase. In our own order book the buildings of a group have been quoted and ordered separately, weeks and months apart. Each building’s quote stands on its own, so it can be approved by whoever holds that building’s budget — the home’s manager or the head office, whichever you run. We have taken orders both ways and have no preference.

We accept purchase orders. Choose Purchase Order at the checkout payment step.