Skokie, IL Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 82-18 defines an Electronic Message Center, or EMC, as any sign or part of a sign displaying electronically generated images, graphics, video or text using LEDs, fiber optics, light bulbs, pixelated screens, or similar illumination. EMCs must be designed and located so the full message is legible to the traveling public, built from non-reflective materials, illuminated without creating glare, and mounted in compliance with the requirements for whatever sign type (ground, wall, window) it is part of. The message format cannot include flashing, chasing, or animated lights or pictorial graphics, must use uniform color, appearance, and font, and cannot change more frequently than once every 20 seconds.

A sign facing residential property gets relief from these format rules only after the Village reviews the illumination time, display duration, and brightness and finds them non-detrimental to that residential property. Brightness itself is hard-capped at 5,000 nits during daylight and 500 nits from dusk to dawn or on cloudy days, measured at the sign face at maximum brightness, and every EMC must have an ambient light monitor that automatically adjusts brightness to conditions. Before a permit issues, the applicant must submit photos showing how the proposed EMC will appear in daytime and evening.

Every EMC must also carry a default mechanism that stops messaging, freezes the display, or shuts the sign off if the electronic programming malfunctions, so a broken sign cannot be left cycling or stuck on an inappropriate image.