Understanding The Impact Of Sign Design On Business Success

Imagine a sign that’s completely cluttered: The title of the sign is in the middle, it’s in a small font with a light border, over a grey background, completely surrounded by random imagery and text in bolder, brighter colours than the title itself. The designer used 10 different fonts—and worst of all, it’s a billboard, but the lettering is only a few inches / 7.6 cm tall, rendering it completely illegible by anyone driving by.

This over-the-top, extreme example shows you exactly what bad sign design can do—stop anyone from absorbing the message, and reduce confidence in your brand.

A clean design with balanced elements working together in an easy-to-understand hierarchy is going to be a lot more legible and drive a lot more interest. By learning about the basic principles of sign design, you’ll be able to make a focused, effective sign that will help you grow your business. Let’s dive in:

The Fundamental Elements Of Sign Design

Balance And Hierarchy In Signage

Balance and hierarchy are two related, but distinct elements of sign design: 

Balance is how elements of a design are weighted against each other to create a cohesive look.

Hierarchy is arranging elements to make the most important elements of your design stand out.

You can already start to guess how these two elements play together. An element of your design with more weight (say, your sign’s headline) is going to draw more attention. That’s a good thing because you want your headline to stand out—it’s the most important element in your sign’s hierarchy!

Leaving your call-to-action hanging in the middle of a bunch of white space without anything to balance it out, however, would be bad sign design—the balance would be thrown off. You’ll need to add other elements to restore the balance of your sign.

Balance can be achieved through a lot of different means—it’s not just about adding objects. Here are some other elements that can influence weight and balance:

• Colours all have weights—darker and more saturated colours seem heavier than lighter, duller colours.

• Textured elements have more weight than elements without texture.

• Position will influence weight—elements higher up have more weight, as do elements further from the centre (that’s why you want your headline to be at the top of your sign).

• Size is one of the most important elements in balance—larger objects have more weight than smaller ones.

Using these and other design principles, you can create a balanced sign all while maintaining your desired visual hierarchy. Signs can be balanced in many ways, and though symmetrical balancing may be the first thing that comes to mind, asymmetrical, radial, and other forms of balancing are also possibilities! 

Colour Theory And Contrast In Sign Design

Colour theory is another important element of your sign design—as explained above, darker colours tend to have more weight. Contrast is another important part of balance because starkly contrasting elements tend to weigh more than elements with less contrast.

Another factor you can consider is colour psychology—different colours evoke different feelings in people. Broad generalizations don’t quite cover this phenomenon; browns can evoke a rugged, Western feel, but they can also evoke chocolate. The goal shouldn’t be to choose one colour that has the same effect on everyone (that’s too broad), but to choose colours that resonate with your brand—and what you’re trying to sell.

Contrast is also extremely important; contrasting elements have more weight. This means it can be a good idea to create calls-to-action on your sign that contrast with the rest of the sign; the contrast will tell people that the element they’re looking at is important (because it stands out from everything else), so they’ll naturally pay more attention to it. 

Typography And Readability In Sign Design

The font you choose for your sign design will have a serious impact on your sign’s overall effectiveness. This is a pretty important topic, so we’ve created a whole article on fonts in sign design. Here’s a brief summary of some of the points we made in that article:

• Sans-serif fonts are usually best, especially for titles.
• Fonts should be scalable.
• At long distances, you’ll want fewer details on your fonts.
• You want at least 1 inch / 2.54 cm of letter height for every 10 feet / 3 metres of expected viewing distance.
• Thick lines can make your font much easier to read at a glance.

 

Following these tips and keeping your copy short and sweet can dramatically improve your sign’s effectiveness. 

How SpeedPro Canada Elevates Your Sign Design

Professional Design Services And Brand Enhancement

Signage design is complicated, and the elements we’ve touched on here are just the tip of the iceberg. Our team can help you enhance brand recognition with expert signage design.

SpeedPro Canada has in-house graphic design teams that go well beyond the basic principles of graphic design to create signage that aligns with your brand identity. Our goal is to help you boost brand recognition and draw potential customers into your business. We’ll help you develop a brand identity on all of your signage that resonates with your target audience. 

Transform Your Business With Expert Sign Design

Need a new sign for your business? Whether you want channel letters to display over your front door, signs for a sale or event, banners for a trade show, or signage for just about any other reason, your local SpeedPro can help. Call today; they’ll help you design beautiful signage, print it out, and even install it for you.