Sun Studio, a print and signage workshop in Dubai's Al Quoz district, says it produces braille and tactile wayfinding signs in a single pass of a large-format printer, building the raised dots into a panel's ink layers rather than drilling holes and inserting separate plastic domes. The company describes the method on its insights page as building the braille domes and raised lettering from layered white ink in the same production run as the printed graphic, using what it identifies as a Direct Color Systems UV84 flatbed printer.
"Nothing is inserted, so nothing can come out," the company says of the process, its own explanation for why the tactile characters do not loosen the way a glued-in plastic or metal braille bead can. Sun Studio describes the older, drilled method as turning every dot into "an independent mechanical joint whose life depends on the fit of the hole and the adhesive." Sun Studio frames this as a durability claim about its own workshop process, not a statement about a sign's compliance status, and it is the company's account rather than an independently tested finding.
According to Sun Studio, the raised text and the printed graphic come from a single digital file and print in one operation, which the company says keeps the two elements in what its own portfolio page for the Museum of the Future job calls "perfect register" — braille and print aligned on the same panel rather than assembled from separate parts afterward. The claim describes the company's own production method; it is not an outcome verified by a third party.
Two Dubai jobs built this way
Two public-sector jobs in Sun Studio's portfolio illustrate what the process has produced, according to the company's own project pages.
- Museum of the Future: bilingual Arabic and English directional panels, parking boards, lobby boards and exit signs guiding visitors back to Sheikh Zayed Road, each carrying what the company describes as a 3mm embossed tactile relief built into cured ink rather than added afterward.
- Dubai Municipality: bilingual information boards, door and room signage and directional panels across public parks and indoor offices, with raised braille built into the same cured-ink layer as the printed Arabic and English text on every panel, the company says.
Both jobs share a constraint Sun Studio describes across its portfolio pages. On the Museum of the Future job, the company notes that Arabic runs right to left and English left to right on the same panel, and says it set the Arabic typography rather than mechanically scaling it from the English text, since — as the company puts it — "Arabic type does not survive being stretched or re-spaced to fit a box." Its panels carry a soft gradient ground behind the typography, kept consistent across a building the company describes as one of Dubai's most visited. On the Dubai Municipality job, the company describes the result as serving "three readers at once — someone reading English, someone reading Arabic, and someone reading with their fingertips." The two languages were given equal visual weight on each panel rather than treating one as secondary, and the company says the modular panel design allows the signage to be reconfigured later while keeping the same accessibility standard.
What the manufacturer does not publish
Sun Studio names the equipment behind this work as a Direct Color Systems UV84 flatbed printer. Direct Color Systems' own product page identifies the same printer line as the "UV-84DTS Gen2 – Large Format UV Printer," but the manufacturer's page does not publish a bed size, print resolution or maximum material thickness for the unit. That means the specific tolerances that make a 3mm embossed relief possible — the figure Sun Studio cites for the Museum of the Future job — are not independently confirmed by the manufacturer; they rest on Sun Studio's own description of its own workshop process, not on a published spec sheet.
The design code behind the requirement
The standard behind both jobs, according to Sun Studio, is the Dubai Universal Design Code, issued by Dubai Municipality. The company describes it on its insights page as "the accessibility instrument issued for this emirate, covering buildings and the public realm" — the document that, in Sun Studio's account, governs signage projects built in Dubai in place of relying on the United States' ADA standard. Dubai Municipality's own website separately highlights the city's Guinness World Record for the world's longest braille handrail, installed at the Dubai Frame, under a section describing the city as "committed to an inclusive, liveable city."
Specifications, project details and the figures Sun Studio and Direct Color Systems publish for this equipment and these jobs are current as of the time of writing and may change without notice. Readers commissioning comparable signage should confirm current capabilities directly with the companies involved rather than relying on figures quoted here.
Common questions
Who owns Sun Studio?
Sun Studio is a Dubai company within the PRO TECHnology Group. EgyptPulse has separately covered other Gulf businesses under the same group; this article covers only Sun Studio's own account of its braille and tactile signage process, and every performance, durability or capability claim in it is presented as the company's own description rather than as independently verified fact.
Is the braille printer's tactile capability independently verified?
No. Direct Color Systems, the flatbed's manufacturer, names the machine on its own product page but does not publish bed size, print resolution or a maximum material thickness for it. The 3mm tactile relief figure and the "perfect register" description come from Sun Studio's own portfolio pages, not from the manufacturer's published specifications.
What does the Dubai Universal Design Code require?
Dubai Municipality's Universal Design Code is the accessibility document Sun Studio cites as the applicable standard for signage projects in the emirate, covering buildings and the public realm, according to the company. Dubai Municipality's own website separately highlights a Guinness World Record for the world's longest braille handrail, at the Dubai Frame, as part of its wider push on accessibility.
