Size Matters
Sep 22nd 2009adminAdvertising & Business & Marketing & Signage
When It Comes to Signs, Go Big Or Go Home
In our shop, we put up a simple sheet of coroplast (corrugated plastic) with a series of lines depicting the size of letters. The sign is high up on the back wall about 75’ from the counter. It looks something like this:
and so on…We find it helps customers decide how large their lettering should be from different distances. Many people who are accustomed to reading from a page or computer screen have no idea what size lettering is effective from 10’, 50’ or even 100’ away. We have charts that show optimum size for readability from different distances, which we believe in but our customers need an “eyes on” demonstration of that.
So how large should the lettering be on your signs? “Go big or go home” is an appropriate saying here. If the lettering is too small to be easily read from the distance between your sign and the audience, you wasted money on the sign. I don’t like wasting money and I’m sure you don’t either.
Perhaps your sign is visible and legible from a short distance, say a plaza parking lot, but is a blur on the horizon from the road. You have the attention of those people in the parking lot but are missing the multitude of people walking, biking and driving on the road. Therefore, your sign is only effective for a small percentage of the potential audience. It’s a shame to miss all those people. On our trips north we see huge billboards about a kilometer back from the highway with monstrous lettering and graphics. These are very effective – skilled sign makers who know a thing or two about size and distance put these together and I applaud them.
The other important consideration is the font used for text. At Instant Custom Signs, we groan every time we see a layout using Times or Times New Roman. It’s greatly overused and not effective for readability from a distance. The serifs (the little tags on the corners of the letters) create confusion for our eyes when read from a distance. Sans serif (excuse my French) letters are easier to read. Try to pick one that suits your business. Your designer or sign maker should be able to steer you in the right direction.
Before placing an order for a sign we encourage people to think about this. Sometimes we have to modify the layout so that there are fewer words and the ones left are larger (remember my mantra: “The best sign says the least.”)
How is your sign working for you? Click on the comment button below and share your stories!
Happy signing!
Drew.
