CMA prepares production-ready ACRYLITE® digital print Pop touch sign blanks that give fabricators a head start while preserving complete design flexibility. For customers seeking a turnkey solution, CMA also manufactures fully customized tactile signage.
The ‘Magic Sheet’ Behind CMA’s Flawless Printed Signage
When Every Sign Matters
Every sign CMA creates plays a critical role in how people move through and experience a space. Their work helps guide visitors, support accessibility, and shape the overall impression of these environments. Since 2020, co-founder Lanier Munn, the Chief Operating Officer, has built a team of seasoned signage professionals in North Carolina known for craftsmanship, precision, and deep industry expertise. From intricately thermoformed and printed ADA and Braille signs to large-scale custom installations for clients like Netflix, MoMA, Under Armour, and the Armani Hotel in Dubai, CMA has earned a reputation for delivering high-quality signage that enhances spaces while meeting compliance standards.
“We’re very well established in the market as producing the highest quality product in our industry,” said Tim Stecker, President and co-founder.
That standard leaves little room for failure. CMA’s signs are not simply decorative pieces. They help people navigate buildings, communicate accessibility, and reflect the quality expectations of the brands and institutions they serve. When a printed sign chips, peels, or has to be repaired after installation, the problem is not just cosmetic. It can disrupt project timelines, add labor costs, and undermine confidence in the finished result.
Even the most skilled teams run into the wrong material
Despite CMA’s experience and strong production capabilities, one issue kept resurfacing: UV ink would not reliably adhere to acrylic. Even after sanding, using chemical adhesion promoters, and adjusting their process, signs could still chip or peel, sometimes after they had already been installed.
According to Michael Pasierb, Technical Engineer at POLYVANTIS, this is a common challenge when printing directly onto standard acrylic. Ink adhesion can vary depending on the ink formulation, but the substrate itself is often the real limiting factor. The issue often emerges during fabrication steps such as cutting or routing, where weak adhesion can manifest as edge chipping, delamination, or premature failure.
“We were doing a lot of our own adhesion promotion, whether through sanding or different types of adhesion promoters,” Stecker explained. “And even with that, we were still having issues.”
The costs added up quickly. Sanding created inefficiencies and a mess. Touch-ups consumed valuable labor. In one extreme case, Stecker had to drive from North Carolina to Maryland to repair signage in the field.
“We were spending a fair amount of labor dollars having to touch up or replace entire portions of jobs,” he said.
CMA did not need another workaround. They needed a material that would solve the problem at the source.
Small defects. Big consequences.
A chip at the edge of a sign may seem insignificant, but for architectural signage programs, it can mean costly replacements, on-site repairs, or a compromised customer experience. Eliminating these seemingly small failures helped CMA deliver the level of quality their clients expect.
Enter Polymershapes and the “Magic Sheet”
That is when Diane Cimato, Logan LaHood and Hunter Clark from Polymershapes, an authorized ACRYLITE® acrylic distributor, entered the picture, not just as suppliers, but as problem solvers. During routine visits and candid conversations, CMA shared the challenges they were experiencing with acrylic sourced from another vendor. CMA’s initial thought was that a corona-treated acrylic might improve direct print performance.
Logan quickly recognized the issue. It was not an isolated problem, and it was not unique to CMA. Other Polymershapes customers had experienced similar adhesion issues when printing directly onto standard acrylic, particularly when the finished graphics then had to withstand routing, cutting, fabrication, and handling. In those situations, the problem was rarely solved by another process tweak alone. The substrate itself was not designed to deliver the kind of durable, fabrication-ready print performance those applications required.
That perspective mattered. CMA did not need another temporary fix, another secondary treatment, or another added production step. They needed a sheet designed specifically for direct-to-substrate UV printing, one that could deliver reliable adhesion without sanding, priming, or chemical adhesion promoters. Logan knew exactly what to recommend: ACRYLITE® digital print pop touch acrylic by POLYVANTIS.
CMA tried it and saw immediate results. No flaking. No extra surface preparation. No added adhesion promoters. Just clean, consistent UV print performance right off the printer.
“The first time they used it, they said they were never going back,” Logan recalled.
“We now just refer to it as the ‘Magic Sheet’ because it does so much, so well,” said Stecker.
What makes it different?
ACRYLITE® digital print pop touch acrylic is not coated with chemicals or treated after production. Instead, it features a coextruded polymer layer built into the sheet itself, engineered to bond ink at the molecular level.
“It’s not a surface coating. It’s part of the polymer,” explained Pasierb. “The polymer science is what helps it stick better. No coatings or anything like that.”
That distinction is important because it changes more than print quality. It changes the workflow.
In many sign shops, achieving dependable print adhesion on acrylic can mean adding sanding steps, using adhesion promoters, or turning to laminated engraving stock and other surface-applied solutions designed to create a printable face. Those approaches can work, but they also introduce extra material cost, additional handling, and more process complexity. They may solve one problem while creating others, especially once the sheet moves into routing, cutting, edge finishing, or fabrication.
For CMA, ACRYLITE® digital print pop touch acrylic eliminated that trade-off. Because the print-receptive layer is built into the sheet rather than applied as a separate surface layer, the material gave them a more direct path from printing to fabrication. There was no need to build extra steps into the workflow to compensate for unreliable adhesion, and no need to rely on a laminated construction simply to get the ink to hold. That meant fewer touch points, fewer opportunities for failure, and a cleaner production process overall.
The formulation also underwent multiple rounds of testing with leading router and printer manufacturers, resulting in a product designed to perform across a range of UV digital printing and cutting systems. During those trials, printer experts noted exceptional dot resolution and minimal dot gain, helping produce crisp graphics and consistent color accuracy across each print.
For CMA, the impact was immediate and measurable: no more adhesion promoters, no more sanding, and most importantly, no more do-overs. Prints held up even when using spiral cutters, which tend to aggressively pluck ink from the edges of a sheet.
“It’s the consistency that’s probably the biggest thing,” Stecker said. “The confidence we now have in the product is huge. It gives us peace of mind when fabricating frameless prints.”
That consistency matters because CMA’s signage does not live in one controlled environment. Their signs are installed everywhere from restaurants and rest homes to football stadiums and science labs. In those spaces, appearance, durability, and accessibility all matter at once. Being able to rely on one print substrate across such a wide range of end uses gives the team greater confidence not only in the print itself, but in how the finished sign will perform once it is fabricated, installed, and put into service.
From emergency egress maps to access-control signage, every detail was designed to endure.
ACRYLITE® digital print acrylic helps CMA deliver that consistency without compromise.
A material solution becomes a business advantage
The impact of the switch extended beyond print performance. Polymershapes continued working alongside CMA to help simplify operations and improve efficiency. From pre-cutting and labeling sheets to coordinating weekly deliveries, they helped CMA stabilize inventory and streamline ordering.
“Once they began cutting our material for us, that became a huge game changer,” said Stecker. “The ink adhesion is the real game changer for our process, but the support from Polymershapes made a big difference too. It’s just such an improvement over the adhesion we were getting previously, and now we’re consistently ordering from them once a week.”
What began as a search for a better print substrate evolved into a stronger working partnership. Together, CMA Signs, Polymershapes, and POLYVANTIS turned a recurring production risk into a meaningful operational advantage.
“We say ‘people over profit’ and both Polymershapes and POLYVANTIS reflected that mindset,” said Stecker. “They didn’t just sell us a material. They solved a problem and supported our success.”
By choosing ACRYLITE® digital print pop touch acrylic, CMA gained more than a new acrylic sheet. They gained a more dependable print process, fewer fabrication headaches, and greater confidence that every finished sign would reflect the standard of quality their customers expect.
ACRYLITE® digital print Pop touch signage applications showcase its non-glare surface and high-quality printed detail across hospitality, transit, and specialty environments.
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Discover how ACRYLITE® digital print pop touch acrylic can help you reduce extra processing steps, improve print consistency, and produce durable signage with confidence from the first print to the final installation.
