Sign Making for Designers 3 Easy Steps

Sign making is very different than designing for other mediums--even different than billboard because you have images to work with. Making a text only sign seems simple, but it's that simplicity that will ruin the effectiveness of a sign faster than you can say Helvetica, if you don't apply a few basic rules. Rules that I will kindly detail for you now:

Distill the Message
It's fairly common that people will ask for what basically amounts to a paragraph on a sign. Paragraphs belong on paper, in books or magazines, NOT on signs. So what do you do? Distill it.
A woman came to the shop needing a sign because her dog ha behavioral issues and she needed something more specific than "beware of dog." She suggested to me that "warning, dangerous dog on premises" go on the sign. The size of the sign she wanted was about the size of a sheet of paper. Putting all that on a sign would make the letters too small to be a warning. I asked her what she was trying to alert people of. She said it was that the dog would bite anyone who it was unfamiliar with. I suggested "Why not just put, 'Warning DOG BITES' on the sign." She was skeptical, until she saw the difference.

By distilling the message, we determined purpose. A sign's purpose will dictate a lot about its design. Which brings us to step 2, Deciding on Emphasis.

Decide on Emphasis
Not every part of a sign can be bold or it will lose it's meaning. The various parts of a sign must be broken up in order to create an information hierarchy. Going back to the dog example. The words "Dog Bites" are the largest things on the sign. Why? Because the word "warning" is almost irrelevant. If you were going to enter this woman's yard to attempt to sell her a vacuum cleaner and saw "DOG BITES" you would go to the next house right away because you wouldn't want to be bitten.

When deciding on how a sign should be laid out, you first have to determine which parts you will emphasize. Once you've done that, you can move onto step 3, arrangement.

Arrange the Message
Lets go back to our design again and change it up a bit. If we were to go with her original idea and try to arrange it, we'd end up with something like this.

Not bad. A different arrangement but not as effective. "Dangerous" is far too long to try to stretch on a sign this size. And being placed inside a box, it now competes with "dog" for supremacy on the sign. Arranging the sign means bringing all the elements together to look cohesive. The purpose of the sign is the message, the message should never get lost on the sign.

The "New" Elevator Speech

A few weeks ago while wrapping up at my sign shop I was approached by a very friendly Middle Eastern man who wanted to share his business with me. Working out at a flea market, people are always trying to sell me something but this guy's pitch was so amazing I just had to share it. Maybe, with any luck it will help some budding salesman out there.

Why it was awesome 1: He had a great opening
I was tidying up at the end of the day when he approached me. It had been a long, busy, Sunday but Mr. Salesman walked up briskly with a smile, handed me 2 business cards and said "Help keep us busy." Wow. I know that it's not much in the way of catchphrases as things go but the take away point is: a good opening is your foot in the door. If he'd come at me fumbling with his words, no eye contact or like he was going to go right into a lengthy pitch I would have slammed the figurative door in his face. Also his opening gave him a way out. Since he'd handed me a card, if I seemed uninterested he could thank me and leave without needing to explain further. He'd already told me he wanted by business in his greeting, the card would tell me what that business was and how to contact them if I ever needed or wanted to. His job would be done at that point if I hadn't given off vibes that I wanted to hear more...which of course I did.

Why it was awesome 2: He had visual aids
The business Mr. Salesman was trying to sell me on was pretty unusual...they sold tires, furniture, and were mechanics. The card he handed me was decorated with automotive stuff and had absolutely nothing to do with furniture. No problem, he had pictures. In just a few seconds he had his smart phone out and was showing me and a friend of mine pictures of the furniture. Granted they were just regular phone snap shots but they were easily accessible and organized into categories so if he was pitching to parents about kid's furniture it was an easy skip to the right set of pics. Handy and a time saver for both him and his customers.

Why it was awesome 3: He kept it brief
For as much as he showed my friend and I his pitch was around 7 minutes. The typical elevator speech is between 3-5 minutes but we did ask a couple of questions so I'll give him a break. Most people will give you 3 minutes if you talk fast, 5 if they're interested in your product. His quick speaking, just like his walk, didn't seem unnatural at all. On the contrary, it seemed appropriate. He was straight to the point. In. Out. Boom. Before you could really reach full annoyance (unless you were already having a bad day) he was wrapping it up and getting ready to leave. Customers are less likely to talk to you again if they didn't enjoy talking with you the first time.

I could go on and on about all the little things that made this a fairly effective pitch (not completely cause I haven't spent any money with the business yet) but I'd rather just refer you to a man who knows a lot more about speaking than I do. Ron Hoff. You can read the first pages of his most awesome book "I Can See You Naked" on Amazon...you can also buy it too!.