Guide to Yard Signs That Acctually Work

As the owner of a yard sign company, I see all types of yard signs come across my desk; some good and some bad in design.  Companies seem to try a varied amount of tactics, but they miss  some of the really important parts of what makes a good yard sign that really sells.   
Whether the yard sign is being designed for commercial use, or you’re designing a campaign sign, almost all of the same points apply.   Readability is the key to a good yard sign.  

     There are several ways you can improve the readability of your yard sign.  First, write your words in a font that is readable.  Unless it is a recognizable logo, using unconventional fonts only forces the reader to strain to gather the information on the sign.   

     Second, use Title Case text.  Many campaigns and businesses think there is some advantage to writing their entire yard sign in all in upper case, but in reality it is more difficult to read because most people are not used to reading all capital letter printing.  Think of newspaper headlines, book titles, and other forms of writing.  Almost none of these are written in all capital lettering.  

      Third, keep the amount of words you use to a minimum. A good general rule is no more than 10 words.  This does not mean that if you have a larger space, you can now include more words.  It’s not a matter of the size of the letters on the yard sign, or the size of the sign itself.  It’s the amount of words the human eye can take in within the tenth of a second that they take to look at them.   You can test yourself to see if your sign is saying too much by printing out a copy of the sign and flashing the sign for 1 second or less to someone who is unfamiliar with what you’re doing.  Then ask them, "What was this sign about?  What is the message that you remember from glancing at this sign?"  If it turns out that they were unable to grasp the main idea, think about how you may rework your design to get across your main point.  This may mean making your message more general or whittling down your idea to be more memorable. 
     And finally, white text on a colored background is always more memorable and easier to read.   To see some sample designs that employ these tactics, you may check out these sign templates on our web page by clicking here.  


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