Room signs people can read with their fingertips.

Which signs need raised letters and braille

Under the 2010 ADA Standards, the signs that must be tactile, with raised letters plus braille, are the ones that name a permanent room or space, along with a few others:

• Permanent rooms and spaces: restrooms, room numbers and names, suite numbers, conference rooms, break rooms, mechanical rooms, and similar labels that will not change (section 216.2).
• Exit doors at exit stairways, exit passageways, and exit discharge (section 216.4.1).
• Elevator hoistway entrances, with the floor designation on both jambs (section 407).

Signs that give directions or information, such as hours, rules, an employees-only notice, or arrows to the restrooms, only have to meet the visual rules, with no raised letters or braille. And some signs are not covered at all: building directories, menus, occupant names, building addresses, company names and logos, and temporary signs posted for seven days or less.

One thing people don't expect: the ADA does not require you to label a room. But if you put up a sign that names one, that sign has to comply.

The specs a tactile sign is built to

Unified English Braille, the official braille code in the United States since 2016, is accepted as Grade 2 under the ADA Standards.

Where the sign goes

• Beside the door, on the latch side.
• At double doors with one active leaf, on the inactive leaf. With two active leaves, to the right of the right-hand door.
• No wall space on the latch side? On the nearest adjacent wall.
• With an 18 by 18 inch clear floor space, centered on the raised characters, outside the swing of the door from closed to 45 degrees open.

Placement is part of compliance: a perfectly made sign in the wrong spot still fails. That is one reason we install the signs we make, and why every proof lists each sign's mounting height.

How we make them

• Raised print on acrylic or metal. The raised letters (1/32 inch) and the braille are built up by a UV-cured printing process, so the braille is part of the sign, with no applied beads to loosen or pick off. It prints in full color, so the sign can carry your brand colors, a texture, or a logo next to the tactile copy.
• Tooled metal. Aluminum, brass, or bronze signs with the raised copy and the braille machined from the same solid piece, in 13 standard styles or a custom design.
• Grade 2 braille as standard, with California braille available where a project calls for it.

Signs mount on studs or with double-face tape. Matching directional signs, door signs, and directories can be made in the same style, along with your lobby sign.

How ordering works

1. Send the room list, sign schedule, or floor plan. One sign or a whole building.
2. We lay out every sign: message, braille translation, pictograms, size, and mounting height.
3. You proof them all at once, against the schedule.
4. They are made to order, and we confirm the date with the proof.
5. We install them to the placement rules above.

Finishing a tenant space for a final inspection? Tell us the inspection date when you ask for a quote.

Compliance, honestly

We build signs to the section 703 specifications of the 2010 ADA Standards. Which signs your project needs is decided by your architect, your code consultant, or the local building official, and the building code your city or county has adopted can add requirements of its own. This page is general information, not legal advice. For dedication and donor pieces in the same metals, see plaques.