Most people drive past their work every single day without knowing it. That’s kind of the whole point — and honestly, it’s impressive.
Hancock Sign Company doesn’t do flashy press releases. They don’t run Super Bowl ads. They just put up signs. Really, really good ones. All across the Dallas-Fort Worth area and beyond. And they’ve been at it since 1969 — which means they were doing this before the internet existed, before digital displays were a thing, before most of their competitors were even born.
That kind of longevity doesn’t happen by accident.
Quick Facts
| Category | Details |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Founder | Jay Hancock |
| Headquarters | Irving, TX (also listed at 745 109th St, Arlington, TX 76011) |
| Phone | (817) 640-6441 |
| Employees | 11–50 (small but mighty) |
| Revenue | Under $5 million |
| Company type | Private, family-connected |
| Licenses | 54+ across multiple Texas municipalities |
| Associations | International Sign Association (ISA), Texas Sign Association, MET US |
| National partners | Federal Heath, Icon Identities, Allen Industries, Chandler Signs, Arkansas Sign and Neon |
| Contractor license | #18032, regulated by Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation |
| Website | hancocksign.com |
1969: When Jay Hancock Started With Magnets
Here’s a fun one. When Jay Hancock opened the doors of Hancock Sign Company in 1969, he wasn’t making neon signs or digital LED boards. He was making magnetic signs for vehicles.
Think about that. The company that now installs massive monument signs for hospitals and church campuses and national retail chains across North Central Texas started with car magnets. The kind of thing you’d peel off your door to go to the grocery store.
But Jay was smart. He wasn’t trying to conquer the world on day one. He was building a base. Learning the craft. Figuring out what Dallas needed.
And 1969 was a wild time to be starting a business, by the way. Neil Armstrong had just walked on the moon. Woodstock happened that same summer. Gas cost 35 cents a gallon. The sign industry was on the edge of some serious technological change — and Jay Hancock was right there, watching it, waiting.
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The Pivot Nobody Talks About
After the magnetic sign days, Hancock expanded into hand lettering and screen printing. Then fabricating and installing commercial signs. Industrial real estate signage. The company was always moving forward, always adding something.
But the real turning point came in the mid-1980s. That’s when Hancock made a deliberate, calculated pivot into electric signs. Cabinet signs. Monument signs. Channel letters. Neon. Pole signs.
This wasn’t a desperation move. It was a strategy. The electric sign market was developing fast, and Hancock wanted it — properly and early. Schools, churches, retailers across the Metroplex started coming in. They wanted visibility. They wanted the newest technology. And Hancock was there to deliver it.
That pivot, made over 40 years ago now, defined everything that came after.
What They Actually Build (And Why It’s More Complicated Than You Think)
You might be tempted to think a sign company just… makes signs. Slaps them up. Cashes the check.
Absolutely not how it works. Not here, anyway.
Hancock designs, fabricates, installs, and services a staggering range of products. Cabinet signs. Cast stone signs — those heavy, architectural-looking ones that give a building real presence. Channel letters, those individual backlit letters you see on retail storefronts. Church signs with changeable copy reader boards. LED message signs. Interior signs. Monument signs. Pole signs. School signs.
Then there’s the permitting. Hancock handles that too. They don’t just build the sign and say “good luck with the city.” They pull the permits. They pursue variances if the standard permit won’t cut it. They do the site surveys. That’s not nothing — local sign regulations in Texas municipalities can be genuinely complicated, and having someone who knows the system is worth real money.
Their fleet includes full crane trucks and service vehicles. Small jobs and massive installations both. Do you need one window sign? Fine. Do you need a complete corporate rebranding across multiple locations? Also fine.
The National Accounts Thing Is Actually Kind of Wild
Here’s where Hancock’s story gets genuinely interesting — and where a lot of people underestimate them.
Hancock doesn’t just serve local DFW businesses. They’re a subcontractor of choice for some of the biggest sign companies in the country. Federal Heath, Icon Identities, Allen Industries, Chandler Signs, Arkansas Sign and Neon — these are major national firms that call Hancock when they need installation work done right in the Metroplex.
Federal Heath, for context, just celebrated 125 years in business. They’ve done signage for Target, Whataburger, Texas Roadhouse, and thousands of other major brands. When they need someone on the ground in Dallas, they call Hancock.
That says a lot. National firms don’t hand their biggest brand clients’ projects to a local shop they don’t trust completely. Hancock’s reputation with these companies wasn’t built on marketing — it was built on showing up and doing the work correctly, every time.
“When quality work is a requirement, the top brands call us.” That’s right on their website, and it’s not an empty boast.
The Church Sign Business: Bigger Than You’d Expect
This one might surprise you. Church signs are actually a meaningful slice of Hancock’s portfolio. And there’s a real reason for that.
According to data from the National Evangelical Association that Hancock cites on their site, 10% of new church members said the outdoor church sign was the deciding factor in joining a congregation. Word of mouth is number one. But after that? The sign.
Hancock has built church signs for a pretty remarkable range of clients — First Christian Church, Church of Christ, Calvary Baptist, Saint Demetrios (a Greek Orthodox church with a carved cast stone sign and a custom dome, which sounds gorgeous), St. Mary’s, Journey Fellowship, and many more.
Their church sign portfolio alone covers bell tower monuments, brushed aluminum with routed letters, electronic message centers, cast stone faces with waterjet cut metal letters. The variety is genuinely impressive. These aren’t cookie-cutter installations.
And for churches operating on tight budgets, Hancock actually walks them through the logic of letter sizing — how big the letters need to be based on how fast traffic moves past the sign, how far readers will be standing. That kind of consultative approach matters. It’s the difference between a sign that works and one that nobody can read from the road.
Monument Signs: Their Bread and Butter
If you’ve driven around the DFW Metroplex recently, you’ve almost certainly seen Hancock’s work without knowing it. Monument signs are a huge part of what they do.
Animal hospitals. Dance studios. Oil tool companies. Apartment communities. Credit unions. Rehab centers. Law firms. Banks. The portfolio on their website shows dozens of clients across basically every industry you can think of.
What Hancock pushes hard here — and they’re right to — is the quality gap. Not all monument signs are the same. The cheap ones look cheap fast. Materials degrade, lights fail, the whole thing starts communicating exactly the wrong message about your business.
Hancock builds to last. Cast stone, concrete foundations, aluminum faces, illuminated cabinets. Their philosophy is that a monument sign isn’t just identification — it’s a signal to customers that your business is stable and established. That you’ll be there when they need you. A sign that falls apart undermines that message completely.
Service After the Sale: The Part People Forget
Wind damage. Traffic accidents. Signs that just go dark after years of use. It happens to everyone.
Hancock runs a full service operation. Bulb and ballast replacement. On-site repairs. Sign troubleshooting. Contracted lighting maintenance — meaning a regular scheduled service contract so you’re not scrambling every time something goes out. Turnkey installation. Complete restoration.
And here’s the thing they state clearly on their service page: it doesn’t matter where you bought the sign. Hancock will service it anyway. Your sign from another company broke? Call them. They’re not precious about that.
That’s a confidence move. It says they’re not worried about being compared to whoever made the original sign, because they’re pretty sure their work will hold up.
What the Employees Actually Say
The Indeed reviews for Hancock are thin — only two — but they tell a consistent story. One former employee described it as “small, family owned,” noted they enjoyed working with most of the family members (emphasis on “most,” which is honest). Another called the boss “great” and described a classic generalist office role supporting the whole operation.
The overall rating sits at 4.0. Work-life balance at 4.0. Not a place with flashy perks or fast promotion tracks. But it sounds like a place where people are treated decently and the work is real. Small company, tight team, everyone knows each other.
That actually aligns perfectly with what their clients experience. When you call Hancock, you’re talking to people with names. Melanie Hancock runs sales. Gary Palmore handles operations. RL Blackstock manages service. Jim Dir runs the art department. Dean Krause handles permitting. It’s not a call center. It’s an actual team.
The Birdeye Rating Says More Than You Think
Hancock has a 4.7-star rating on Birdeye based on Google reviews. One HOA reviewed them — they requested a quote for a backlit entrance sign, went back and forth with Melanie on design and pricing, and came away happy.
That “back and forth” detail is worth noting. HOAs are notoriously difficult clients. Everybody has an opinion. Nothing gets approved without a committee. The fact that Hancock navigated that and left the client satisfied tells you something about how they handle complicated stakeholders.
A 4.7 with seven reviews isn’t a massive data set. But for a B2B commercial sign company serving primarily businesses and institutions rather than individual homeowners, seven public reviews is actually pretty normal. Most of their clients aren’t the type to leave Google reviews. They’re property managers and facilities directors and church boards. They just call Hancock back for the next project.
Being Local in DFW Is a Real Advantage
This is something that gets underestimated. Sign regulations in Texas municipalities are not uniform. Arlington has different rules than Irving. Mesquite has different rules than Midlothian. Hancock holds active licenses across at least 10 different municipalities in the Metroplex. They know the variance process. They know the inspectors. They know what will get approved and what won’t.
A national sign company parachuting in for a single install doesn’t have that local knowledge. They rely on subcontractors like Hancock to navigate it. Which circles back to why the big firms keep calling them.
That local expertise is genuinely hard to replicate. You build it over 55 years of pulling permits, dealing with city staff, learning which rules have flexibility and which don’t.
Final Words
Is Hancock Sign Company going to be featured in Fast Company? No. Are they going to raise a Series A? Obviously not. Do they have a social media presence that would impress anyone under 35? Their Facebook page still uses the old-style URL format.
None of that matters.
What matters is that for 55 years, this company has done serious work for serious clients in one of the largest metro areas in the United States. They started with car magnets and grew into a trusted installation partner for national sign companies. They handle everything from a simple monument sign for a small church to complex multi-site rollouts for chains across the region.
That is not nothing. That is actually a lot.
If you’re a business owner in the DFW area looking for signage, you could absolutely go with a franchise operation. Or you could call a company that has 55 years of local knowledge, a full service operation, and the kind of reputation that makes Federal Heath dial their number when the stakes are high.
The sign on your building is the first thing potential customers see. Spend accordingly.
FAQs
1. Where is Hancock Sign Company located?
Their address is listed as both 810 W. Pioneer Dr. in Irving, TX 75061 and 745 109th St. in Arlington, TX 76011. The phone is (817) 640-6441. Their headquarters is firmly in the DFW Metroplex.
2. When was Hancock Sign Company founded?
1969. Jay Hancock started the business originally manufacturing magnetic vehicle signs, then expanded over the following decades into full commercial signage.
3. What types of signs does Hancock make?
Cabinet signs, cast stone signs, channel letters, church signs, LED message centers, interior signs, monument signs, plaques and dimensional letters, pole signs, school signs, and custom electric signage of most varieties.
4. Does Hancock Sign Company do installations only, or do they fabricate signs too?
Both. They design, fabricate, and install. They also provide permitting services, site surveys, and ongoing maintenance contracts.
5. Can Hancock service signs they didn’t build?
Yes, explicitly. Their service page states they’ll repair and maintain signage regardless of which company originally made it.
6. Does Hancock work with national sign companies?
Yes — this is a significant part of the business. They do installation and service work for Federal Heath, Icon Identities, Allen Industries, Chandler Signs, and Arkansas Sign and Neon, among others.
7. How do I get a quote from Hancock Sign Company?
Contact Melanie Hancock in sales at 682-558-8105, or fill out the sales contact form on hancocksign.com. For service requests, contact RL Blackstock at 682-558-8103.
8. Is Hancock Sign Company licensed and insured?
Yes. They carry liability insurance and workers’ compensation. Contractor License #18032 is regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. They hold licenses across multiple DFW municipalities.
9. How are the reviews for Hancock Sign Company?
4.7 stars on Google (via Birdeye, 7 reviews). Employee reviews on Indeed average 4.0. Generally positive, with consistent mentions of responsiveness and quality work.
10. What professional associations does Hancock belong to?
The International Sign Association (ISA), the Texas Sign Association, and MET US.
11. How big is Hancock Sign Company?
Small to mid-sized by commercial standards — 11 to 50 employees, revenue under $5 million. But size doesn’t reflect reach; they serve clients across the entire DFW Metroplex and take on multi-location national account work.
12. Do they handle church signs specifically?
Absolutely — it’s a dedicated service category. They do everything from simple cabinet signs to ornate multi-element monument structures with changeable copy reader boards, electronic message centers, and carved cast stone.
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