COMPANIES

COMPANIES

Aiwa Kogei Co., Ltd.

Eco-conscious signage solutions through recycling
The super sign expert crafting memorable encounters with strategic signage

Since our founding in 1968, Aiwa Kogei Co., Ltd. has been dedicated to creating the "face" of stores and businesses, specializing in production of indoor and outdoor signs and exterior renovation.
Our strength lies in making strategic signs and external renovations with many years of accumulated knowhow, which helps clients increase sales. We propose designs for strategic signs that enhance brand value and business strategies, not just mere nameplates.


Proven expressiveness shaped by expertise throughout our history Aiwa Kogei has been in business for over fifty years and completed over 30,000 projects. Maximizing our expertise and design capabilities, we can suggest strategic proposals that enhance customer attraction to the next level, especially for storefront businesses such as restaurants, bonesetters, acupuncturists, beauty salons, clinics, athletic gyms, and real estate agency offices.

Our "super sign expert" concept At Aiwa Kogei, we see our role as that of bridging businesses and customers, facilitating the ideal mutual encounter. Realizing that ideal absolutely requires a strategic approach, one in which managers clearly visualize their business's appeal and values and conducts market and competitive analyses.
We use comprehensive interviews and business frameworks to help our clients maximize and visualize their potential value. In addition, we evaluate customer behavior with onsite surveys and detailed market analysis, integrating the relevant data into the design at every stage to optimize its effectiveness in attracting customers.
Signs are powerful promotional tools for acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers. A sign acting like a master sales associate and winning the customer's hearts becomes a key asset in a business's sales strategy. Our mission as a "super sign expert" is to ensure comprehensive support for the client's success and maximizing their brand value through sign production.

Polished craftsmanship While ready-made signs are highly convenient, providing even greater added value requires the appeal of an original hand-painted sign. With craftsmen who are highly skilled in handwriting techniques, Aiwa Kogei specializes in producing hand-painted signs with superior design and impact.
We also handle exterior renovations, including exterior walls using corrugated materials and other uneven surfaces. Our sign artists' exceptional craftsmanship makes the building itself unique and original, maximizing advertising effectiveness to support medium- to long-term business. We also provide post-construction repairs and other after-sales support and maintenance.

Consistent support for advertising strategies Aiwa Kogei not only offers signs and exterior renovation, but also provides total support in setting up venues and event booths at exhibitions, producing flyers and banners, vehicle advertising ("car marking"), website production, and other tools for enhancing customer awareness.
In attracting customers, it is important to develop strategies from all angles and to sustain appeal through branding. Businesses also need to pay attention to other companies' successes and new trends, always adopting approaches based on the latest information. We support both aspects, fully committing to differentiating the customer's advertising strategies and achieve outstanding results.

Production Examples

  • Acupuncture clinic as a turning point in life

    We assisted the Sugiyama Clinic in Ama City, in Aichi, with signage renovation work following the renaming to the Furumichi Acupuncture Clinic. We started by creating a logo. As the target market is young women, we designed it from a woman's point of view so that they would find it easy to visit. We believe that the logo expresses Dr. Sugiyama's belief that "an acupuncture clinic can represent a pivotal moment in someone's life.”

  • Exterior branding to liven up the city

    The Asumiru Osteopathic Clinic specializes in beauty acupuncture for women, so in designing the color scheme and logo, we narrowed down the target to women, especially those who are interested in beauty. The location was originally an internal medicine hospital that opened more than 20 years ago, for which we renovated the exterior. It faces a street that runs from the Shiogama-guchi to the Yagoto areas in Nagoya, leading from a bustling student-oriented town to an elegant residential area with fashionable stores throughout. We believe that the clinic’s appearance blends in with the townscape while also standing out.
    Although the advertising restrictions for a clinic do not allow for symptoms or prescriptions to be displayed on the sign, we proposed a design that would create colors and shapes that would impress the target demographic.

  • Created an artistic wall surface

    During our meeting with “Art paint'z,” they agreed with our proposal to use the entire exterior as one big signboard, and this was a very enjoyable project for all of us to work on.
    The exterior painting industry is locked in a strict price war, where many customers with no knowledge of exterior painting would not recognize the quality difference in paint and finishing techniques. However, it was different at Art paint'z, a company with "Art." The owner's studious and sincere personality allowed for a unique and special design that was not simply a repaint, but rather something with a little bit of vintage feel, that would give a sense of the effort and artistic creation.

  • Large turtle illustration draws the attention of people on the street!

    We assisted in creating the exterior of TAKARA Corporation, which relocated its headquarters to Nakamura Ward in Nagoya. The company performs exterior wall repair work and various types of waterproofing, with both the passion of its young president and its own proprietary technology.
    “Turtle” was chosen because of the animal’s longevity and good luck and a compass was added to the turtle's belly in the mural as a nod to the fact that turtles can swim across the world's oceans and always find their way to their birthplace. Since this is a BtoB company, the aim was not to appeal to end-users. We would rather see this building become a landmark in the area so that people passing it would see it and remember, “Oh, that’s the turtle building!”

  • SATO SPORTS’ exterior renovation

    Sato Sports, an old sporting goods store in front of Nakamura Koen Station in Nagoya, Japan requested us to renovate the exterior of their store upon their shop renewal.
    Prior to the renovation, the store had deteriorated considerably in terms of both the walls and signage, with the appeal of the signage having completely faded. The area also generally had a gloomy atmosphere due to the overall deterioration of the surrounding storefronts.
    That was why we decided to boldly highlight the store in a bright blue color. This has greatly increased the store's appeal as well playing a role in community revitalization by brightening the area itself. However, since people tend to dislike overly-flashy colors, we kept a balance of conspicuous but not too outrageous colors by unifying them with a refreshing, sporty color in the sky blue range.

Company Profile

Company Name Aiwa Kogei Co., Ltd.
Founded 1968
Capital 10 million yen
Head Office 183, Miyatsuka-cho, Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, 453-0845 Japan
Representative Takeshi Yokochi, President
Number of Employees 9
Business Activities Products and services for sales promotion in various stores
【Services】
・Exterior renovation
・Signboard production: Facade signs, Road signs, Project signs, Stand signs, Suspended banners, Tents, Car markings, etc.
・Trade show and event setup
・Sign painting
・Production and installation work
・Strategic design
・Trade area analysis and site surveying

Efforts to develop new environmentally friendly products

Developing "Re-Sign," a product that reduces environmental burden through the reuse of base materials of signs

【Product Features】

Aiwa Kogei has developed an environmentally friendly product that repurposes a sign’s existing base and frame, with only the advertising surface being remade.

Partial production of signs is often avoided due to the time and effort required, resulting in entire renewal. Old signs are often discarded, which poses both economic and environmental impacts. In developing “Re-Sign,” we have reviewed the conventional sign production process and identified those elements contributing to environmental sustainability. Following this, we explored various measures to enable reuse of materials, reduce waste and energy consumption, and achieve other aims. As a result, we established a business model for reusing existing signs, which includes assessing the condition of the signs to ensure safety measures such as preventing fall accidents. In addition, the system is designed to allow regular updates of the advertising board, thereby contributing to the sustainable growth of the sign owner’s business.


【Points leading to green innovation】


After obtaining CO2 emissions data for reused materials such as PVC boards from manufacturers’ information, we summarized the system’s effect in reducing environmental impacts and developed a product with new advantages as part of our environmental initiative. When compared to conventional production methods, this product not only reduces CO2 emissions but also contributes to reducing waste.


One restaurant’s freestanding illuminated road sign (1,000mm wide, 4,000mm high) saw an approximately 27.2% reduction in costs and 72.31% reduction in CO2 emissions following the renovation.


Interview

Background on Participation in this Project

With our slogan“Sign production that goes beyond the conventional sign maker’s,” Aiwa Kogei had been working on new developments in exterior renovation that leverage our company’s major strength, i.e., craftsmanship in hand-painting. As development proceeded, we came to see a recent increase in the number of customers who are conscious of environmental issues and social contributions such as SDGs. We applied for the project because we wanted to take a new approach to product development.

Findings and impressions after participating

Calculating CO2 emissions requires invoice-based data, and we felt the need to manage things based on accounting data. As we expanded the business, we noticed the difficulty of managing operations. However, setting reduction targets and examining the data in details allowed us to discover clues for capital investment plans that enable new cost reductions and energy savings.


In this project, we started by thoroughly examining our previous sign manufacturing processes and identifying aspects related to environmental considerations. We considered which materials could be reused and how to reduce waste and energy usage, and then established a business model as an environmentally focused program with new advantages.


Future proposals from our company

Over the last fifty years, Aiwa Kogei has amassed a wealth of expertise in sign manufacturing. Now, based on a new review of our manufacturing processes by an outside expert, we realized that our know-how and the routine processes that we had taken for granted included factors contributing to CO2 emission reduction. We also learned that labor-intensive processes such as washing the signs and peeling off the sheets were, in fact, meaningful steps towards environmental consideration and contributing to a low-carbon society. All these provided us with a renewed sense of fulfillment and highlighting our company’s strengths, which was encouraging. Going forward, we aim to promote our products so as to effectively utilize these values and continue to offer strategic sign production proposals that support both our own SDG initiatives and those of our clients.