Signs Made Easy - Vehicle graphics and van sign writing industry is ‘strong’ as more people quit jobs to start their own businesses

A LEADING vehicle graphics and sign writing business is on the road to greater heights, boosted by the record number of people quitting their day jobs for the self-employed lifestyle.

While these entrepreneurial devotees are skilled, they are faced with the momentous task of marketing their business and becoming well-known.


Kerron Hughes, Managing Director of Signs Made Easy, one of the UK’s leading sign writing and vehicles graphics businesses, believes this is the core reason why the market is growing.

“I would say the market is strong at the moment,” he said. “A lot of people are going from working for larger companies to being self-employed and sole traders, setting up businesses on their own.

“We find that a lot of people are coming to us and saying that they’ve left their job and they’re now going out into the world on their own. They really need some help marketing their company and van sign writing can provide a real boost to business.”

Kerron’s van sign writing and vehicle graphics company, which evolved from a 25-year-old family business, has grown from strength to strength since 2008 and the efforts of his five-strong team in Clacton-on-Sea have helped to define some of the best known brands in the UK.

“We’re moving into vehicle wrapping,” Kerron explained. “We are able to offer more coloured printing and print more striking images for people on their vans.”


The vehicle graphics and van sign writing division of Signs Made Easy is part of a much larger business which creates signs for shops, hotels, restaurants, bars, emergency services and the NHS.

“I have been talking to a massive fire service lately about the possibility of doing some of their fire and rescue vehicles and fire engines. So it would be nice to get into that. It’s reliable work.”

Kerron is no stranger to creating vehicle graphics for government organisations, having previously worked with Essex Fire and Rescue Service. “We did some safety vehicles that were putting across the message for driving safety campaigns, the dangers of using mobile phones while driving and also reminding people to renew their fire extinguisher batteries. We helped Essex Fire Service get their message across.”

But what makes Signs Made Easy particularly special is not just the high quality products Kerron’s loyal employees create, but also the methods by which he does business in a market where ‘there are plenty of people doing van sign writing’.


“We’ve all got our own individual styles and ways of dealing with customers,” he said. “I don’t really try to compete as such with them. There’s plenty of work to go around. Each company I see has got their own style of doing things so that’s how we set ourselves apart.

“If anything, I get on well with the local competition and we do actually help each other out. We don’t really believe in making enemies out of the competition. We can all work together.

“Sometimes we’ll send business to each other or do printing for each other. If we we’re to say what makes us unique, it’s always doing the people side of the business. Customers always say how nice it is to come and chat to us and how much time we’ve got for them. It’s the face to face side of things that people say makes our business good to deal with and makes them happy.”

Immersing himself in Japanese culture and tradition, practicing the grappling and soft martial art of Aikido and the more modern samurai sword-fighting art of Iaido, Kerron’s love of the Far Eastern culture was inspired from a friendly chat with a customer.


“I was doing some graphics on a van for a chap that I knew and he was in my place and as usual, we were chatting about the brief and what design he wanted. But I’ve always got time to talk to people about other things outside the business so we just got talking and he said that he was Sensei at a local martial arts club. I got along with him quite well and decided to go and have a look and the rest is history.”

Making sure customers are truly happy goes beyond simply providing them with the beautiful signs and vehicle graphics.

“We always try to focus on the design and the business side of things with a customer but also take the time to chat with them in general and see what else is behind the business. What sort of person are they? What do they do? Sometimes it can lead to special things like my martial arts.

“I would say I like to make friends with customers - some of them I get along with really well and with others, I would socialise as well as do business with them.”