Relying on the square inch transformation above the head to win back the reputation, the millennium old town pedestrian street is said to be "strange"

The People's Street, over 280 meters long, is located in a historic area. It should have been simple, elegant, and full of the charm of Jiangnan water town, but in recent years, it has been described as "strange" by many tourists and surrounding residents. The disorderly and disorderly various store signs are the main reason for this impression.

The continuous renovation and improvement project of store signage from last year to the present has gradually brought back the reputation of the entire street. Under the guidance of financial subsidies and professional design teams at the district and street levels, 77 merchants actively participated in the design of store signs. While meeting relevant requirements, they also took into account the cost-effectiveness of the signs, which were beautiful and elegant, able to attract business without being expensive, adding color and color to the millennium old town.

Design a "menu" to deliver to your doorstep

Huang Li opened a tea shop on People's Street, and the four golden characters on the wooden signboard were very eye-catching, bringing a lot of customer flow to the shop.

But for her, such a sign was not the "first choice" at one point.

At the end of last year, the store signs on People's Street were to be renovated uniformly, and the external hanging "big lightbox" that had been used for more than two years needed to be replaced. Huang Li felt it was unnecessary: "For us who do business, eye-catching signs are the top priority. The blue background and yellow text store signs have been specially designed by advertising companies, and once the light strip inside is opened, it can be seen from more than ten meters away."

"Whether it is beautiful or not is a subjective matter. If we simply tell people that they need to change their shop signs because the shop signs are not beautiful and the style does not match the temperament of the ancient town, how can they cooperate?" said Huang Yifeng, Director of the Social Development Office of Nanxiang Town, Jiading District. To this day, many business owners still believe that "shop signs are done at their own expense, and it is their own business to do what they want." Even though the "Shanghai City Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Management Regulations" clearly stipulate that outdoor signs should be set up in historical and cultural areas, or on style protection streets or roads after approval by the district's greening and urban appearance department.

The implementation of new guidance policies has broken the deadlock. Huang Li was informed that Renmin Street has been included in the key renovation area of outdoor signs in Jiading District, and actively constructed outdoor sign characteristic roads. For roads where eligible merchants are concentrated, the district finance will fully subsidize the overall design, facility demolition, and facade renovation costs, while the finance can bear more than 80% of the sign construction and installation costs.

Faced with such favorable policies, many merchants have changed their mindset of "store signs do not need to be replaced", but what completely moved them was the "menu" delivered by the district's greening and urban appearance department - a store sign design plan provided by a professional team, with over a dozen styles of store sign boards alone.

"You've said it before, there's nothing to oppose such a beautiful design. It's all eye-catching," Huang Li said gratefully. After finalizing the design plan, the street considered further reducing the burden on the merchants and carefully considered the materials used for the sign. They chose polymer anti-corrosion wood with higher cost-effectiveness, which has a safe service life of more than 10 years and a style that matches the ancient town, and only spent less than 600 yuan.

Some merchants' concerns about the unclear visibility of wooden signs at night have also been kindly addressed by the street. Standing under the shop sign and looking up, you can see a row of spotlights hidden inside the eaves opposite the sign. When they light up at night, the wooden sign is eye-catching but not dazzling. Huang Yifeng said that this row of spotlights has another advantage, which is to make the electrical appliances and wires originally hidden in the lightbox shop sign more visible, making it easier for daily observation and maintenance. "In the past, the lightbox shop sign only had observation holes at specific positions when it reached a certain thickness, and thin ones were not drilled, so it was not necessarily known if they were burned inside."

Comparison of new and old store advertisements by Chen Xi

In Nanxiang Ancient Town, a large number of stainless steel shop signs and lightbox shop signs have been updated to wooden shop signs that are more in line with the style of the ancient town. Photo by Chen Xi

Balancing freedom and norms

The investment cost and aesthetics of many store signs are directly proportional. But many merchants operate on a small scale and do not have enough funds to create high-end store signs, and many of them believe that the beauty of store signs is not necessarily related to the quality of business in the store. In this case, creating a legal and compliant signboard with the least amount of money, without the need for meticulous craftsmanship, has become the choice of most merchants.

Wu Guoyu, Deputy Director of the Greening and Urban Appearance Bureau of Jiading District, admitted that this situation is quite common. Many commercial formats and their practitioners are not high-level, and the store signs they create often do not match the surrounding style, and some even produce strong visual pollution. For example, some merchants blindly seek to be big and eye-catching on their signs, "standing tall and upright", even reaching the doorstep of the neighboring merchant, making it "suffocating". For example, in some streets, the buildings are mainly white, but the shops along the street use red, yellow, blue and other primary colors as the background color for their signs, which is too bright and disharmonious.

Some street shops, in order to save design costs, package the design and construction of all signs to the construction unit, replacing design with construction, resulting in unsatisfactory effects such as "one store per thousand" and being out of place with the regional style.

On the one hand, the main responsibility of a sign lies with the merchant. Under the premise of legal and compliant signs, merchants have the right to freely choose the form, style, and other aspects of the sign; On the other hand, signs are also seen as a type of "urban furniture", and in terms of their impact on the surrounding city's appearance, they also have a certain public attribute. Allowing them to grow wild may affect the image of the city. How can this contradiction be resolved?

Wu Guoyu stated that after conducting research, the greening and urban appearance department has decided to take a step forward and encourage some merchants to increase investment in sign design through funding and technology, creating a number of "beautiful neighborhoods". At present, Jiading District has completed the preparation of guidelines for setting up outdoor signs on major roads in the region and established a supporting expert database for outdoor store signs.

In the Juyuan New Area, combined with the creation of Shanghai's outdoor sign characteristic roads, 16 shops on Pingcheng Road and 38 shops on Wuxiang South Road are directly connected to the expert database. There are dedicated personnel responsible for dispute resolution, design consulting, management guidance, and opinion communication related to store signs, promoting the enthusiasm of merchants to participate in the renewal and governance of the block. Chain brands such as Lai Yifen have even abandoned traditional store signage design for the overall coordination of their road style, and the more convincing design proposals provided by experts are the decisive factor.

Several chain brands on People's Street did not adhere to their usual store signs, but instead matched their designs with local styles, which impressed them with Chen Xi's stunning photos

The premise of precise policy implementation is to understand the bottom line. According to the Regulations on the Administration of Urban Appearance, Environment and Health in Shanghai, except for outdoor signs that require approval from the district greening and urban appearance department before installation, the creators of other outdoor signs should complete the registration procedures with the street office or township people's government before installation.

Jiefang Daily's Shangguan News reporter learned from the Shanghai Greening and Urban Appearance Bureau that various districts in Shanghai are conducting a new round of screening for outdoor signs in the city, in conjunction with the filing work, to help more small and medium-sized merchants improve their store image according to local conditions on the basis of legality and compliance. As of now, Shanghai has created 211 outdoor signature characteristic roads.