Welcome to Sirocco – a leading supplier of interpretive panels with a particular expertise in sandblasted timber and stone signs.  We offer both a graphic design service and a panel printing and finishing service.  Sirocco can work from either your complete and final electronic artwork or can help with the graphic design process for interpretive panels.  Please give us a call or submit the enquiry form for more information.

Interpretive panels provide owners and managers of open spaces with a low cost and effective means of informing visitors about the important features of their site and provide an opportunity to try and influence the behaviour of visitors.  Although quite a lot of work goes into the initial planning and writing of an interpretive panel once it has been installed it is a permanent and low cost feature.  Care must be taken to ensure an appropriate material is selected for the panel – a poorly performing panel will not present the interpretive information required.  Sirocco recommend an innovative aluminium material with the print as part of the anodised finish.  This material has been widely tested in many challenging environments and should prove ideal for use as interpretive panels.

The research and design stage of an interpretive panel is critical to its’ success and care needs to be taken that the most appropriate interpretive messages are presented in an attractive manner.  As a general rule of thumb an effective interpretive panel should have no more than 200 words of text and should have illustrations as the main component of the design.  At Sirocco we see far too many interpretive panels that are text heavy and very offputting for a visitor to read.

Sirocco recommend that consideration be given to employing a freelance script writer or journalist to review and edit the text.  Clients should undertake their own research and draft the content but a professional writer can transform the quality and readability of the final text of an interpretive panel.  Although many will consider this yet another expense an interpretive panel will be in the ground for a long time and attention to detail early on makes all the difference.