Signs Speak for Your Business
How To Avoid Making Ugly Custom Signs And Banners
Lisa Hale
Anyone who looks at the custom signs and banners that are everywhere these days has seen some ugly work. Many of the worst products fail at the concept phase, and it's important to make sure your project doesn't. Take a look at 5 ways you can avoid such terrible results.
Keep the Color Count Down
Folks walking past your custom signs only have so much mental bandwidth, and one of the biggest ways to lose their attention is excessive color usage. Try to employ between two and four main colors in your design. It's fine to have photographic elements that take you over this count, but you don't want to have large blocks with several solid colors. There's a thin line between a sign looking festively colorful versus creating an assault upon the viewer's senses.
Don't Use Too Many Fonts
Multiple font faces can create confusion. One or two fonts in design is ideal, and you don't want to go over three if at all possible. Bear in mind that you should count different sizes, italics, and bolding as separate faces even if they employ the same font.
Likewise, avoid mixing and matching font families aggressively. If a viewer has to process something in a script style that's next to more traditional fonts, you're testing their willingness to fight through the confusion and comprehend what the sign says.
Use Appropriate Materials
Some products start out looking great and then end up ugly due to age and weathering. It's best to choose materials that will hold up well under a wide range of conditions to avoid wrinkling, discoloration, and crumbling. Vinyl banners, for example, will outperform many other solutions in settings where weathering occurs. Your signs and banners will look better, and they'll last longer, too.
Size Matters
Use custom signs and banners that make sense for your purpose. You should have about one inch of text height relative to every 10 feet your viewers will stand away from your message.
Contrast
Light-on-light and dark-on-dark designs rarely look great in settings where viewers don't have time to process something that only succeeds as a more artistic choice. White letters against darkly colored backgrounds stand out, and the reverse is true, too.
It's also a good idea to use lines to offset lettering from noisier elements. Signs with letters over photographic elements, for example, should have contrasting lines around the outside of the letters to separate the text from the noise.
For more information about signs and banners, reach out to a custom sign service in your area.
Share
Hi. My name is Midge Holly. I owned a small arts and crafts supply store for over twenty years. During those years, I saw many changes, including the World Wide Web come into play for businesses. People scrambled to learn how to make a basic website. A few years later, they were learning to make more complex sites. Then came online sales and shopping cart programs. It was all fun and exciting, and I was right up there with the others. However, there is something that didn't change in my years of retails sales. That is the importance of signs for your business. Your business's sign is the hallmark of your business. It catches the eye of those passing by; it is what people remember you by. I want to share more about signs and their value. I hope you find this to be helpful information.