Most office signage projects involve one or two sign types — a lobby sign, some window frost, maybe wayfinding. China Unicom Americas’ San Jose office needed six, across two floors of conference rooms, private offices, a curved lobby wall, and a break room. Here’s how it came together as a single scoped project instead of six separate vendor calls.
The Project
China Unicom Americas — the U.S. arm of one of China’s largest telecom carriers — leased office space at 100 Century Center Court in San Jose and needed the interior built out to match their brand. The scope covered privacy and branding for the executive office, both conference rooms, a curved glass lobby partition, the main reception wall, and ADA-compliant room identification throughout.
Frosted Glass — Privacy Without Losing Light
The private offices and both conference rooms got cut vinyl in a silver etched-glass finish, sized to each opening:
- Executive office: 48"×46", partial coverage
- Small conference room: two panels at 48"×35"
- Large conference room: 48"×58"
The etched-glass look reads as permanent, sandblasted glass without the cost or the fabrication lead time — it’s cut vinyl, precision-sized to each pane, so the rooms keep natural light while getting real visual privacy. The pattern used was China Unicom’s own knot-and-clover mark, repeated at scale across each panel rather than one central logo, which is what gives the glass its “always-there” look instead of reading like a decal.
The Curved Glass Lobby Mural
The building’s lobby has a curved glass partition — six panels wrapping the entry. Rather than frost it and lose the interior view entirely, we printed a Silicon Valley skyline silhouette across all six panels as one continuous printed vinyl mural (108"×24" per panel, printed on clear vinyl stock and laminated for UV/scratch protection), with the same knot pattern framing the top and bottom.
Printing on clear stock instead of frost film was the right call here specifically because the space behind the glass — a small planted nook — stayed visible through the un-printed areas, so the mural reads as a design feature instead of a wall.
Dimensional Logo Wall
The main reception wall got the highest-visibility treatment in the project: a printed wall covering in China Unicom’s brand pattern, with the company’s dimensional logo and wordmark mounted directly on top.
- Wall covering: digitally printed wall media, 108"H × 180"W
- Dimensional element: 1/2" painted acrylic, stud-mounted with a satin interior finish, sized to a 36"H × 66"W overall footprint
Layering a dimensional sign over a full printed wall covering — rather than mounting it on painted drywall — is what gives this wall its depth. It’s a combination we don’t see requested often, but it’s a strong move for any office that wants its reception wall to do double duty as both branding and a background for photos or video calls.
The same dimensional logo treatment was repeated on a second wall in one of the conference rooms, on painted drywall without the printed backing — a simpler version of the same idea for a secondary space.
ADA Wayfinding and Conference Room Function
Beyond the visible branding, the scope included the functional pieces that a full office buildout needs and that are easy to overlook:
- Seven ADA-compliant room ID signs — 8"×8", curved to match the building’s architecture, with raised tactile lettering and Braille
- Dry-erase glass panels in both conference rooms — 3/8" glass, mounted on 1" brushed aluminum standoffs, doubling as a whiteboard and a design element instead of a bolted-on accessory
- A corkboard wall treatment for the break room — a 4’×6’ sheet of colored cork on a mounted backer, framed
None of these are the pieces a client photographs for their own marketing, but they’re the pieces that make an office actually function day to day — and they’re where a lot of vendors cut corners on precision sizing or skip the tactile/Braille requirement entirely.
What Made This One Work
One vendor, one schedule. Six distinct sign types — frosted glass, printed vinyl, dimensional acrylic, wall covering, glass/standoff assemblies, and ADA signage — went through one production and install schedule instead of being split across specialty vendors. That’s the difference between a coordinated office buildout and a stack of separate projects that all have to line up on their own.
Material choice matched the job, room by room. Frost film for privacy where light mattered, clear print vinyl for the lobby mural where the view behind the glass mattered, and a wall covering plus dimensional acrylic where visual weight mattered most. None of that is the same material used everywhere for convenience.
The small stuff got the same attention as the lobby. Raised tactile lettering and Braille on every room ID sign, precision-cut frost sized to each individual pane rather than one-size-fits-all — the details that don’t show up in a walkthrough photo but do show up in a compliance inspection.
Clear Line Signs handles full-office signage buildouts — from lobby branding to ADA wayfinding — for companies across San Jose and Silicon Valley. Get a free quote for your office.