Sandton is Johannesburg’s business district: office towers around Sandton City and the Gautrain station, shopping centres, hotels, and the head offices of companies whose brand is held to a manual. It is across town from Northcliff, a drive we make for every survey and every installation.
What is asked for here
Much of the work in Sandton is indoors. A reception sign in built-up letters, glass manifestation on meeting rooms, wayfinding through an office floor, and feature walls that make a rented space read as the company’s own. Fitting can be done early, late or over a weekend, so that an office keeps working.
In the centres, a tenant’s shopfront sign is made to the centre’s rules, and the same brand carries on to the company’s vehicles, its stationery and its website.
Before a sign goes up here
Sandton is in the City of Johannesburg, under its 2018 Outdoor Advertising By-law, but most signs here meet two sets of rules before the City’s. A centre usually sets the size, position, finish and lighting of every tenant’s sign and approves drawings before work begins. An office building’s owner or managing agent decides what goes on the building, and a sign high on a tower has to be large to be read from the street, so it is often beyond the by-law’s exemptions of 8 m², or 12 m² for a lit sign built into the face of the building.
When a permit is needed, the application carries the written consent of the property’s registered owner. We gather the centre’s or the owner’s rules first, design within them, and make the application when one is needed.