A blade sign hangs perpendicular to your building so people walking the sidewalk can see it. A flat wall sign is invisible to someone standing directly underneath it; a blade sign isn't. On foot-traffic streets — South Broadway, RiNo, LoDo, Old Town Littleton — it's usually the highest-value sign a storefront can buy.

The part most people don't find out until later

If your sign projects out over the public sidewalk, it isn't just a sign permit. Denver treats a business sign in the public right-of-way as an encroachment, and encroachments can only be placed there if the City determines they don't impact public use, meet City rules and standards, and are properly permitted. The encroachment permit also carries an insurance requirement naming the City and County of Denver as an additional insured. Denver GovernmentDenver

That's the step that catches people who ordered a blade sign online and assumed the landlord's approval was the whole story. We handle the encroachment application alongside the sign permit, and we check the projection and clearance before you've paid for anything to be fabricated — not after it shows up.

Every jurisdiction on the Front Range handles this differently. Englewood, Littleton and Sheridan each have their own process, and a historic district adds design review on top.

How we build them

Non-illuminated panel signs — routed or printed faces on aluminum or HDU, hung from a decorative bracket. The most common choice, and the easiest to permit.

Illuminated cabinets — a double-sided lit box with printed or routed faces, wired through the wall.

Real neon. We bend the glass ourselves, which almost nobody in Denver still does. A neon blade sign is the single most distinctive thing a storefront on a walking street can put up, and it's the version people photograph.

Brackets and mounting

The bracket carries the whole load and gets read as part of the sign. We fabricate them rather than buying stock hardware, so the arm matches the sign instead of fighting it. Mounting is engineered for the wall you actually have — brick, block, storefront framing and older masonry each want a different anchor.

Blade signs start at $850 for a non-illuminated double-sided panel with bracket. Illuminated and neon versions are quoted individually.