Doğaner Brings Photopolymer and Advanced Sign Expertise to Turkey

Tactile signs are mainly thought to be prevalent in western countries, but as previous Nova Polymers white papers have shown, tactile signs are expanding into the Middle East and Asia. The companies that are mastering photopolymer are at the cutting edge of sign development in their home country with enormous rewards for their success. A company that has shown the benefits of bringing the photopolymer to new lands is Doğaner Architectural Wayfinding Systems, a leading Ankara, Turkey-based fabricator of custom and modular sign systems and currently a NovAcryl Preferred Fabricator.

Yakup Colak was given the responsibility of bringing photopolymer to the company in April 2014. “ADA compliant signs are an emerging market and we had been producing them using routing, beads, and laminated letters. My boss saw a novacryl sample and he began to investigate. I was given the job to contact Nova and our story began this way.” The work started slowly with the team trying to learn the process from the Nova Polymer video. “They made a lot of mistakes until I translated the materials from the Nova web site. After three months of practice, we reached a high level of quality.” Doğaner today connects with Nova regularly for support and to maintain their status as one of only two Preferred Fabricators outside of North America.

Expanding ADA compliant Signs into Turkish Hospitals

Very quickly after learning the process and after a few small jobs Doğaner was given the opportunity to develop a large tactile sign project. FOM group, a Turkish architecture firm specializing in healthcare, was looking for a new sign solution for the MP hospital group, which manages 14 hospitals. Colak adds, “The chief architect controls every aspect of the design of the hospital interiors including the paintings. We worked with him before using digitally printed signs, but when he was excited by the photopolymer samples and decided to use them for three new MP medical centers in Ankara, Kocaeli, and Merkez.”

The project was a considerable challenge with over 600 signs prepared for one hospital alone in a very short period of time. Colak states, “We were under considerable pressure to finish on time. In one day I had to produce 41 signs and deliver them 500 km away (300+ miles) to be installed.” The sign system was developed in two levels to differentiate the VIP sections of the hospital, using color as a separator. The new signs have received glowing reviews from the architects and hospital management as an essential ingredient in the design of the new hospitals and will be a model for future projects in the country.

Learn more about bringing photopolymer processing in-house by visiting us at Sign Expo 2016, booth #2322.