Excel Sign Systems
Service

ADA interior signage

Room identification · Tactile copy · Grade 2 Braille · Egress and occupancy

Accessible interior signage is the most prescriptive work in the trade. Character height, stroke width, spacing, finish, contrast, mounting height and mounting position are all specified, and an inspector will measure them. The upside of that prescription is that there is no ambiguity about whether a sign is correct.

RESTROOM Copy raised 1/32 in Grade 2 Braille below Non-glare finish 8 in x 8 in
Room identification sign with raised characters and Grade 2 Braille below, non-glare finish.

What the rules require

Signs identifying a permanent room or space need tactile characters. Those characters are raised at least 1/32 in from their background, sans serif, neither italic nor highly decorative, and accompanied by Grade 2 Braille positioned below the text. Character height is governed by the mounting height and the viewing distance. Both the characters and their background must be non-glare, and there has to be genuine contrast between them.

Mounting is specified too: on the latch side of the door, with the tactile copy between 48 in and 60 in above the floor, positioned so someone can reach it without standing in the door swing. Where there is no wall on the latch side — double doors, a glazed partition — the fallback position has to be worked out on site, and it is the single most common cause of a failed inspection.

Directional and informational signs that do not identify a permanent space are held to different requirements: no tactile copy needed, but character proportion and contrast still apply.

How we build them

Photopolymer construction, which produces the raised characters and Braille as a single integral piece rather than applying them separately. Applied plastic characters and drilled-in Braille beads both fail eventually, and they fail by falling off, which turns a compliant sign into a non-compliant one silently. Integral photopolymer does not have that mode.

Braille is Grade 2 with domed rather than flat beads, at the specified diameter and spacing. Faces are painted in non-glare polyurethane after the copy is formed, so the raised characters and the field are the same finish and the contrast comes from colour rather than sheen.

Matching the interior package

Compliance and design intent are not in conflict here, and we spend real effort on this because the alternative is a beautiful interior with institutional signage screwed to it. Sign plates can be backed with wood veneer, brushed or anodised aluminium, or acrylic in a colour matched to the interior palette, with the tactile plate applied as a compliant insert. The insert carries the compliance; the backer carries the design.

  • Room identification and room numbering
  • Restroom identification, including all-gender and family rooms
  • Egress, stair identification and area-of-rescue signage
  • Occupancy load and maximum capacity signage
  • Elevator jamb plates and floor designations
  • Changeable-insert name and title holders

On new construction we produce a sign schedule keyed to the architect's door schedule, so every door that needs a sign has one and the numbering matches the drawings. The Marren City Schools programme covered roughly 2,400 interior signs across eleven buildings on that basis. See also wayfinding systems.