Custom Signs
Monument Signs Chicago
A low freestanding sign at the entrance, built in masonry, fabricated aluminum or a combination. For a building set back from the road it does the job a wall sign physically cannot.
- Engineered foundation
- Masonry or fabricated aluminum
- Internally or ground lit
- Licensed Chicago sign contractor
- Built in our own shop
- Permits and drawings handled
- One team from quote to install
The problem
When the building is too far back to sign
What customers tell us before we start, and what we do about it.
What usually goes wrong
- Drivers pass the entrance because nothing marks it until they are level with the drive.
- Your wall sign is technically visible from the road and completely unreadable at thirty-five miles an hour.
- The site has multiple tenants and no single place that tells anyone who is in there.
How SignFreaks handles it
- A sign at the entrance itself, sized and positioned for the approach speed rather than for the building.
- Letter height worked back from viewing distance, which usually means larger than people expect.
- A tenant panel layout that can change as tenants do, without rebuilding the structure.
What you get
How a monument sign is built
The parts that matter, and why each one is specified the way it is.
Foundation
Engineered concrete below frost depth, sized for the structure and the wind load. This is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether it stays upright.
Structure
Masonry with a stone or precast cap, or a fabricated aluminum cabinet finished to look like it. The second is lighter, faster and easier to change.
Faces and letters
Push-through acrylic, routed and backed panels, or dimensional letters fixed to the face.
Lighting
Internal illumination for panels, or ground-mounted fixtures uplighting a non-lit structure. Each suits a different look.
Tenant panels
Where the site is multi-tenant, individually removable panels in a fixed frame.
Landscaping interface
How the base meets grade, which is what makes a monument sign look built rather than placed.
Compare
Monument or pylon?
The two freestanding options, and what actually separates them.
| Monument | Pylon | |
|---|---|---|
| Height | Low, typically at or near eye level | Tall, seen over parked cars and landscaping |
| Impression | Permanent, established, considered | Commercial, visible, practical |
| Best for | Corporate, medical, campus, institutional | Retail plazas, highway frontage, fuel and food |
| Foundation | Substantial, spread footing | Deep pier, engineered for overturning |
| Tenant panels | Two or three at most | Several, stacked |
| Typical approval | Usually straightforward | Often needs structural drawings |
Swipe to see the full table.
Approvals
Permits and what to expect
The part of the job most likely to move your timeline.
Freestanding signs bring in things a wall sign does not: setback from the property line, sight-triangle rules at the drive so the sign does not block a driver’s view, and a foundation that has to be engineered and inspected. Some municipalities cap the height and the area quite tightly. All of that is established before design, because a monument sign that has to shrink after the foundation is designed is an expensive revision.
We handle the drawings and the filing as part of the job. There is more detail on our sign permit page.
Our work
Projects we have built
Real installations, photographed on site.
Get a real number for your monument signs
Send a photo, a rough size and your deadline. You get a written quote with line items, not a range and not a guess.
Who uses it
Industries we build this for
The requirements change with the building. These pages go into how.
Corporate Buildings
Learn moreHospitals
Learn moreSchools
Learn more
Coverage
Where we work
The City of Chicago and more than 150 suburbs, from three by-appointment offices. Every village writes its own sign code, so we check yours before we design.
Budget
What moves the price
Roughly in the order they matter.
We do not publish price lists, because a number without your size, site and deadline attached would be fiction. Give us those three and you get a real quote.
- Overall size, which drives the foundation as much as the structure above it.
- Masonry against fabricated aluminum: masonry is heavier, slower and usually dearer.
- Whether it is internally lit, externally lit or unlit.
- Foundation depth and ground conditions on the site.
- Getting power to the sign location, which can mean a trench across a car park.
- Number of tenant panels and how they are framed.
Questions
Questions we get asked
Call (872) 250-4743, Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Questions we get asked
How tall should a monument sign be?
Tall enough to clear parked cars and planting from the approach, and no taller than the code allows. That tension is usually what sets the height. We check the sightline from the road at the actual approach speed rather than designing to a round number.
Masonry or aluminum?
Masonry reads as more permanent and suits an institutional or corporate site. Fabricated aluminum finished to match is lighter, quicker to build, easier to alter later and often indistinguishable from the road. Budget and how likely the branding is to change usually decide it.
Does it need a foundation?
Yes, and it is not a formality. It goes below frost depth, is sized for the wind load on the sign, and in most jurisdictions is inspected before it is backfilled. A monument sign on an inadequate footing will move, and in Chicago it will move in the first hard winter.
Can we add tenant panels later?
If it is designed that way from the start, easily. Retrofitting a panel system into a structure that was not built for it is much harder. If there is any chance of subdividing the building, say so at the design stage.
How is it lit?
Either internally, with the copy pushed through or routed into a lit face, or externally with ground-mounted fixtures washing the face. Internal is crisper at night; external suits a masonry structure where cutting a lit panel into it would look wrong.
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