Designing Signs: How Important is Pretty?

There’s a fine line between pretty and effective when it comes to signs. Of course you want it to look good, but you don’t want to go for something that looks nicer but is less effective. Good signage is appealing, it has an impact, but most importantly, it’s legible.

Signs Have a Job

Signs are part of your brand story.  The color, shape, typeface, and overall look are part of that story. And many times people don’t realize that what looks good on paper may not look good on their sign. For example, we’ve seen a lot of logos come through that are in cursive. While it looks nice written down, when you have to look at it and discern what it says, using the same typeface in a sign design could be costly. Some people simply won’t be able to read it! They’ll spend too much time focusing on what that says to take away the message you’re trying to convey.

Keep It Simple

Unless your signs are going to be placed somewhere where people have a lot of leisure time, you generally have 3 to 6 seconds to catch a person’s attention and convey the information you want to convey. An overdone design will also distract people from your message. You don’t want it to be too busy graphically. Clear and concise usually performs better than busy and cluttered.

It’s Not About Personal Taste

Despite what you may think, your signs aren’t a matter of your personal taste. Does it really matter if purple is your favorite color when yellow actually has a higher conversion rate? You have to be willing to let some things go when it comes to sign design. What you find appealing may not always be the same as what your target audience finds appealing. And when the ultimate goal is increased traffic and sales, you need to choose what will draw your customer’s attention to you over what you think is pretty.

Sometimes, Though, Pretty Does Matter

If people are generally grossed out by your industry (think exterminators), you’re going to want to make sure the ugliness of the bugs you kill isn’t associated with the quality of your service. So sometimes you do need to spend some time figuring out how to make something that’s typically unattractive into something that’s aesthetically pleasing while still getting your message across without giving your business a negative connotation.

Pretty Effective Signs

Ultimately, whether you sign is pretty or ugly doesn’t matter as much as the message does. Are you communicating exactly what you want to be communicating? Are people responding to your message? Like most things in life, good sign design is all about balance.

Team Acme is a Henderson-based shop that specializes in sign design and printing, vehicle wraps, window tint, and more. So if you’re stuck with a design idea or need some effective signs designed and/or printed, we’re the shop for you. We’ve been serving Las Vegas for over 10 years now and have helped many businesses create pretty effective signs. Contact us today, tell us what you need, and let us familiarize you with our design and print processes!