The importance of business signage can’t be understated; whether you’re advertising your business to vehicle traffic or foot traffic, or you’re creating indoor signage to improve the customer experience, a great sign can help your business grow.

Choosing the right colours is a key part of creating great business signage. This guide will help. 

Why Sign Colour Matters For Your Business

From creating signage that reflects your brand to the unique, subtle effects that colour psychology can have on how your business is perceived, sign colours can have a tremendous impact on the success of your signage.

There are almost endless ways that the colours you choose can influence the effect of your signs. Contrasting colours can help improve visibility. Analogous colours can convey warmth and approachability. 

Before you even begin to think about the colours you want on your sign, ask yourself a few questions:

• What are my brand’s colours?
• What actions do I want customers who see my sign to take?
• What does the environment around my sign look like?
• What message do I want to convey?

These questions will help you determine the colours that you want to select for your sign as we explore sign colours in greater detail! 

What Are the Best Colours For Business Signs?

There is no single best colour or group of colours for business signs; we’ve seen signs that run the gamut from hot pink to cool grey, and they’re all effective in the appropriate contexts. Colours are also never used alone; it’s better to think of which colour combinations work best for signage (something we’ll talk about in greater detail in the next section).

Given that colours are more appropriate in different contexts, it’s worth discussing where different colours should be used to maximize their effects:

Highly saturated colours are often best for outdoor use because they stand out from the more muted palettes surrounding them. Blues, blacks, reds, oranges, and yellows are often excellent choices. Greens can also be used, but be careful about their placement and shade, as they can blend in with lawns and plants.

Indoors, more muted palettes are more acceptable; you’re not trying to get attention, you’re trying to create an atmosphere. Browns, greys, and even some pastels can work well in these contexts. Of course, some indoor signage still relies on saturated colours and lots of contrast; wayfinding signs and accessibility signs are a good example. 

 

Finally, if your branding calls for it, you can forget all of the recommendations above. Brand consistency is one of the most important things when it comes to choosing colours for your signage; repetition legitimizes, so you want your brand’s colours to be present in as much of your branding as possible. 

Sign Colour Combinations That Work

There are practically endless sign colour combinations you can try, so we won’t go through every possible shade and hue (though if you come into one of our SpeedPro locations for a consultation, we can go into greater detail). Instead, let’s start with a couple of rules of thumb:

• Opt for two colours (a primary background colour and a secondary text colour) or three colours (an accent colour for text highlights or images). Fewer colours keep your signage clear and easy to read.
• Opt for complementary colours (colours located on the opposite side of each other on the colour wheel) for outdoor use, where contrast draws attention. Inside, analogous colours (colours that are beside each other on the colour wheel) can create a more cohesive look.

Here are a few colour combinations we absolutely love for signage:

• • White background + black text: Incredibly high contrast, excellent for visibility. Can be a bit plain, so try to use bold, sans-serif fonts.

• White background + saturated text: Another high contrast, high visibility option; the secondary (text) colour should reflect your brand. 

• Black background + white text: Similar to a white background with black text, but bolder and edgier.

• Blue background + white text: Can convey a more formal, trustworthy look. Opt for a dark blue background, as light blue with white text can be harder to read.

As a rule, you should be cautious with red and white, yellow and red, or yellow and black signage. Road signs and warning signs often have these colours; they have their place in business signage, but they should be used very intentionally. 

How To Choose Colours That Fit Your Brand

When your brand already has colours, choosing signage is easy; pull colours from your brand guidelines and incorporate them into your signage. When you’re building a brand, finding the right colours can be a bit more difficult; that’s where colour psychology comes into play.

Colour psychology is not an exact science; it’s extremely culturally informed, so knowing the culture of your target demographic is key. We’ve compiled a table of colours and their meanings below; these meanings are informed by common colour meanings in a typical North American context. We hope they can give you some inspiration for your business signage:

 

Colour	Meanings/Psychology	Best For
Blue	Calm, professional, trustworthy	Financial institutions, tech companies
Red	Hunger, excitement, passion	Restaurants, flash sales, real estate
Yellow	Optimism, warmth, joy	Restaurants, toy companies, apps
Black	Power, authority, wealth	Wealth management, high-end events
Orange	Playfulness, competitiveness, warmth	Restaurants, candy manufacturers, toy companies
Pink	Creativity, passion, femininity	Toy companies, bakeries, businesses targeted to women
Green	Tranquility, harmony, trust	Financial institutions, eco-friendly companies, wellness
Purple	Royalty, imagination, creativity	Creative industries, spiritual businesses, confectioneries

When To Modify Your Brand’s Palette

Outdoor signs perform best when there’s a lot of contrast; if your brand’s palette features mostly analogous colours or colours that are low in saturation, you may want to modify them slightly. Consider using your brand’s colours on a sign with a white background, or pumping up the saturation of one of your colours for higher contrast. 

Other Factors That Affect Sign Colour Success

Lighting is one of the most important factors to consider when it comes to choosing sign colours. Indoors, lighting is fairly tightly controlled, and you can even use direct lighting to emphasize your signage.

Outside, things are a little different. You can consider taking swatches of colour to the place where you plan on putting your sign, then watch as those colours change throughout the day and night; this can help you find the right combination, especially if your business is open morning, noon, and night.

Another major consideration is the type of sign you’re creating. Digital signage and neon signage both stand out in the dark; neon signage should have enough contrast and vibrant colouration to still be visible in the day, however. With digital signage, lighting is far less of a concern; digital signs basically light themselves. 

The materials you’ll choose can also affect the colours you want to opt for. On a matte sign, metallic colours can add contrast; the opposite is true for metallic signs. 

Common Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing Sign Colours

Now that we’ve covered what you should do to choose the right colours for your signage, here are a few tips on what not to do:

Don’t use low contrast designs outdoors. Indoors, low contrast can be acceptable, though you’ll still probably want to choose a font that contrasts well with the background of your signage. Outside, high contrast is king.

Don’t use too many colours. Two colours? Excellent. Three colours? Also excellent, especially if you want to incorporate an image along with your background and text. Four colours? For most signs, that’s too many. The goal of any sign is to get someone to take action. More information means more processing time, and that means less of a chance that your viewer will bother reading your sign. Colours are information. Keep it simple.

Don’t incorporate complex patterns. When you think of signage, think clean lines, simple images, and monocoloured backgrounds. It’s tempting to get creative and add more elements to your sign, but that creativity can hurt readability; remember, we don’t want to overload viewers with too much information. Keep complexity for your interior design or your video advertisements. Signage should be simple. 

Final Thoughts: Make Your Sign Colours Work For You

Brand recognition. Readability. Inspiring viewers to take action. Whether you’re creating indoor or outdoor signage, the right sign colours can improve all three of these key factors.

We’ve given a lot of advice, from using white lettering for contrast to avoiding analogous colours on outdoor signs, all with the goal of helping you create eye-catching signage. Of course, rules are meant to be broken; if breaking these rules makes your signage work for you, we can help you break them in the right way.

There’s a SpeedPro location near you that makes custom signs; signs that can help your business thrive. It’s what we do best, and with in-house graphic designers, your SpeedPro team will help you create signage that will leave a lasting impression.