Students notice signs all over campus — on classroom doors, in parking lots and outside bathrooms. Although seen daily, few know the majority of these signs on campus are made in-house by the BYU Sign Shop.
The shop is located in a tiny section of the Brewster Building located in the southeast corner of the BYU campus. Despite the small location, the shop plays a large part in helping campus function by producing important signs.
Abby Bates, a student assistant floor worker in the shop, helps to design, create and install many of the signs for campus and the Missionary Training Center.
“The sign shop creates signage for most of campus including nameplates, road signs, directional signs, banners and vinyl lettering,” she said. “Because of the scope of our work, our products can be seen in virtually any part of campus.”
Marissa Shipley, a student studying communication disorders, also works as a floor worker. She performs a variety of tasks ranging from cutting out the signs to applying vinyl lettering.
Shipley said a good portion of her day is spent designing the signs and placing them in respective areas around university grounds. They keep records and templates of signs for future use.
Shipley said she appreciates that she and her coworkers play an important role on campus and said she likes knowing her job matters. She agreed various parts of the BYU community wouldn’t be able to function without them.
“You do not really have to work with people all that much, but you get to see your work around,” she said.
Pre-communications major Kate Monroe, a Sign Shop secretary, said they outsource jobs to companies like Creative Signs & Graphics if the job is too big to do in-house.
The BYU Sign Shop is a nonprofit and is used only by BYU facilities, according to Shipley. She said they do what they can to cover campus projects, but if they run too large, they have to go elsewhere.
Workers still take pride in the signs recently created in-shop for the new Richards Building swimming pool, the School of Education and the BYU stadium, among other places.
“I bragged to my husband because I did most of the RB signs. When we went to the pool it was like, ‘I did that. I did that,'” Shipley said.
Monroe said job orders come in often, counting up to ten items per day.
The biggest project Shipley said she worked on was creating 300 signs for the BYU stadium, including yard signs and A-frame signs all over campus.
“A project we are still working on is a puzzle wood frame for the education department,” Monroe said. “We do unique projects, but most of the time people come to us and (say) ‘Please, make this (sign).'”
