Business owners, politicians, and anyone who is going to use a custom yard sign to deliver a message that you want received well, it’s a smart idea. However, it’s one thing to buy a custom yard sign for advertising. But it has to be right.
Here are the ways to get it right with us:
- Head to our website at www.goodguyssigns.com, go to the product page, and you can put in your order right there. It’s well laid out and easy to navigate.
- You can also use our handy, user-friendly design tool on the product page. When you’re there, you can create the graphics, the look and the colors how you want them to be.
- Design your graphics if you have software capabilities, and simply upload them to our website when you’re ready to place your order. These are all easy to do, and we encourage you to take the path you’re most comfortable with.
- Not sure if the above options are right for you? Place an order with our friendly, skilled sales staff pros. Call us at (800) 614-8040 or (813) 447-4770, and our crew will walk you through the process, listen to your needs, and give you some guidance if you need.
This article will provide you with some design tips to help your business or promotion succeed. There are elements of design that we have dealt with since 2009, and for your success, we want to break down yard sign makeup. Among the topics we’ll cover here are:
- Sharing with you the importance of colors
- Explaining why font choice is imperative
- Letting you know how quick and inexpensive the process is with us
Benefits of Custom Yard Sign Design:
If you have the ability to edit with your own software, there are some real benefits for you to design your own custom sign. If you have a good vision of exactly what you want, and are able to edit, your sign design will be that vision.
This isn’t being cocky, just confident here. We are extremely good at what we do. However, you know your industry and target audience better than any printing company possibly can. You know what it is about your company that you will want to accentuate, and what things you just want to list. Lastly, by you handling the artwork for your personalized yard sign, you avoid the possibility of some back and forth with our design team. While our designers are extremely skilled, a design we create for you could possibly not be precisely what you want. What would ensue could be a few rounds of phone calls or emails to make your signage just the way you want it. And that causes time delays for you and your desire to have sign in hand quickly.
Advertising Tools- Custom yard signs are phenomenal ways to advertise for a variety of reasons. First off, they are durable promotional tools. If displayed outdoors in weather that’s not extreme, your custom sign will last two years or longer. Placed inside, it will have a life expectancy of many years.
They are also priced very low. Depending on how many you purchase, you can get them from us for as little as about $3.00 per sign that includes free shipping. Combining that kind of pricing with their longevity, yard signs are the go-to for advertising success.
Let’s break cost down a bit. Compare to other, more traditional forms of advertising, signs are much more cost-efficient. Far more so than television, radio, newspaper, and social media advertising. A single, solitary sign can garner you 25,000 views in a day. With its low price and amount of eyeballs it can attract, a yard sign will “set you back” one-tenth of one cent per impression. Simply put, that’s unbeatable.
Let’s get into those other forms of advertising to make it clear why signs are more promotion potent than they are.
TV- Marketing strategies have evolved significantly with the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix. By the end of 2023, Netflix had approximately 238.8 million global subscribers. This shift has impacted traditional advertising channels, as many consumers move away from cable TV, opting instead for streaming services that often limit or exclude advertisements.
Radio– How about radio? It’s quite difficult to advertise on this medium. Unless you’re willing to spend the money to promote on several different stations, you’ll see growing your client numbers will not easily be raised. Each station has very specific listeners who don’t go to alternate genre stations. Like television, audience numbers are dwindling. The advent of Sirius, Pandora, and others is a big reason. They’ve pulled so many people away from radio.
Junk mail- Next up, the ever-popular, ever-irritating junk mail. This is the vision of something that enrages people on a daily basis.
A rhetorical question for you would be if we asked, “Do you read all that junk mail?” Of course you don’t. They don’t call it junk mail for nothing. More than likely, you toss it in the circular file as soon as you can. Mailing list advertising is most definitely obtrusive.
Your yard sign, on the other hand, is just sitting out there quietly for the public to take in. You aren’t jamming your ad down people’s throats. It’s much more subtle and supremely unobtrusive.
Newspapers- Lastly, that oldest advertising tool on this list…newspapers. When was the last time you dropped some coins into a machine that lives by a grocery store to pick one up? When was the last time you called to get a yearly subscription of your local paper? It’s probably been years, if ever. The truth is that the industry is dying on a daily basis. In the age of cell phones and other digital platforms, we can access information minute to minute. Over the past decade, the percentage of Americans reading a print newspaper has fallen from 41% to 23%.
The yard sign is such a superior way to go than traditional forms of advertising. There’s not even a cost per impression debate to be made. There are so many people driving cars or even riding in public transportation in this country (an estimated 230 million licensed drivers). With that number, it means yard, or lawn sign, cost per impression is easily the lowest of any advertising medium. Custom yard signs cost less than one tenth of one cent per view. Sites on the internet such as Facebook or YouTube will run you 10 times as much.
Custom Yard Sign Common Uses:
Custom yard signs are commonly used for birthday parties, military member homecomings, church events, business, and most definitely by most every political candidate during political season. If you’re someone reading this who’s running for office, we have a little tip for you. Nearly ever campaign goes with 18”H x 24”W size political yard signs. You could experiment and get a bigger custom size to stand out from the herd. Voters will notice yours more. It can also play on the psyche of people that you’re bigger and stronger than other political campaigns. Trying a shape-cut sign can really set you apart as well. In an election, every vote matters, so any fresh tactic you do can help you get into office. Click here to read what every yard sign can mean when it comes to vote totals.
Business- When it comes to business, custom signs are perfect forms of promotion. If you’re a new company trying to drum up a customer base, put one outside your shop. People driving or walking by will be introduced to you, and you may be just what they’re looking for.
If they come in, you impress them with quality pricing and service. They will come back, and you will have earned more business. They tell friends, family, and co-workers. This domino effect will gain you more clients organically…just from the single sign.
If you’ve been in business for a while or several years, yard signage is ideal for promoting a sale or new product you want to push hard. For that, we suggest buying multiple signs. Place one outside to help draw people in, with others sprinkled around by different products you have on sale. This is not us trying to hard sell you to buy more signs from us. With Good Guys Signs, we drop the cost per sign incrementally, the more of them you purchase.
Yard Sign Design:
There are some important design elements that can make or break the success of your messaging. They are:
- Color contrast
- Font choice
- Images
Let’s start with color contrast. We’ve been helping customers with sign design since 2009. The thousands of signs we’ve made has given us the experience to fully understand the vital nature of color contrast. If you want a white or very light background, know that light colored text will not drive engagement. The message will be very difficult to read, even up close. If it’s hard to make out up close, people driving in their cars will certainly not be able to read it. And you will have definitely lost possible income.
Likewise, dark text on a dark background will be indiscernible. Like light on light, if you go with dark on dark, you will lose the opportunity to increase your revenue. This article will explain more on color contrast.
There are great color combinations and color contrast that will deliver you instant readability and recognizability. The Outdoor Advertising Association of America conducted a study on color contrast and its readability. Their analysis provided solid results, and we give you the top 5 color combinations. Take note of the contrast in colors.
#5- Green on white: This color combo should be music to your ears.
#4- White on blue: 2.6 billion worldwide users monthly can’t be wrong, right?
#3- Yellow on black: This tire company has a few different color versions of its logo. This is one of them. Run with this on your plastic yard sign, and you may just have a great year.
#2- Black on White: If you don’t recognize this logo, you are the only person over the age of 3 who doesn’t. They didn’t earn the slogan of “The happiest place on earth” by accident.
#1- Black on yellow: The third best color combination had this in reverse. Two of the top three tells you that you just can’t go wrong with this pairing.
Font Findings:
What have we found out about fonts when it comes to custom yard design importance? Quite a bit. Pop quiz time…which of these three is easiest to read?
We’re guessing you said C. There’s a definite reason for it. The third option is written in Calibri font, and most computers default to that. So it’s very familiar to your eyes. It’s typically a smart move to use recognizable fonts for your signs. Many a potential customer will have the same familiarity as you did in picking C. Some other garden variety fonts are Arial, Times New Roman, and Helvetica.
Using fonts of this nature will give possible clients an instant connection. That’s the general rule of thumb when it comes to font choice, but there are always exceptions. For example, if you own a jewelry store or other upscale, fancy business, cursive or calligraphy fonts would work fantastically. Those fonts deliver a message that you are high-end, a cut above your competitors.
Be aware and careful when it comes to mixing too many different fonts on your sign. If you overdo it, your message will likely become confusing to the eye. We recommend you use one to two different fonts styles—at the most.
Images on Yard Signs:
When it comes to imagery for a customized yard sign design, strongly consider putting visuals into play. There are tried and true reasons for it. Studies have shown that people like and connect with images. Did you know that:
• 65% of America’s population say they are visual learners
• 94% of articles with relevant images receive more views than those that don’t
• 10% of information is recalled three days after a person hears it. When a picture is brought into the fold, that number ramps up to 65%
An image of your face on your yard sign can have a significantly positive impact on your sales or your campaign. First of all, an image of your face is an effective tool. That image will be imprinted in the minds of those who see your yard sign. You will stand out from that ocean of text-only signs.
And here’s something most people don’t know. There is actually a specific area of the human brain dedicated to the task of facial recognition.
With regard to imagery and the role it plays in advertising, know this—your image can be anything you want. It doesn’t have to be your face. It could be a dog, a lawnmower, a t-shirt, and more. Images can work for nearly any business.
Now, for a fun, light-hearted, but important look at sign design, check this link out. In the style of Dr. Seuss, our owner actually wrote this. And one of our graphic designers did the illustrations.
Tips for Creating Yard Sign Design:
At Good Guys Signs, we will always approach a project with you positively. But…let’s talk about negativity for a minute. Negative space is actually a positive, and a must-have for the graphics on your sign. The definition of negative space in graphic design is simply the space that graphics are not on. The empty areas and the background are what constitute negative space. They allow your sign to breathe. They let viewers’ eyeballs take a tiny break from your message. This is an example of signage with very little negative space:
It’s cluttered. It’s overload. It’s too much for the eyes to take in. And thus, this sign would likely send home seekers to another realtor. If you read the Seussian article, it made clear that too much text has bad effects.
Making Your Sign Stand Out- One key to attracting customers or voters is differentiating your sign from the flock of others. One way, which may sound counterintuitive, is to keep it simple. A realtor sign like the one below will have far more impact than the fictitious one above:
It’s simpler. It’s not chaotic. It has contrasting colors. It has the pertinent information in it; real estate agency, the For Sale message, contact number, name, and her picture. These are things discussed throughout this article, and they hold true.
Other items mentioned earlier were going with a bigger size of sign, or even a shape cut one. We hit on color and contrast, and there are certainly ways to go that don’t require intense contrast. They’re more complimentary ones, such as:
Monochromatic Colors– a few shades, tones, and tints of one base color that deliver a subtle, non-contrasting, harmonious combination.
Analogous Colors– three colors that reside next to each other on the color wheel. In this scenario, it’s best to select one dominant color and use the others as accents.
Personalize signs to evoke a strong emotion and subsequent reaction. By putting words like “You” and “Your” tells people that you are in this for them.
Lastly, there’s a term in our industry called kerning. It very much keeps in line with negative space. The letters in your words need to be spaced, not jammed together. So, proper spacing of letters and words will make your message more readable.
Ordering Signs with Your Own Design:
Once the order is placed and you approve the proof we send to you, we have a tremendous turnaround time. We will have your signs printed and ready to ship, or for you to pick, up in just two business days. Note that if you have a large order of, say, 200 signs, and they are printed via silkscreen, it will take a touch longer.
Help With Your Own Design- Even if you do have editing abilities, we are here to help you with your custom signage. If you feel like you didn’t design it quite right, can’t configure the perfect color scheme, or just want our advice, we are ready for any questions you have. We have a staff of amazing professionals that will make your sign sing, one that will help draw customers to you instead of the competition. Good Guys Signs is at your fingertips, so call us at (800) 614-8040.
In Closing:
Hopefully as of now, you are all set when it comes to yard sign design. This was plenty of information for you to dissect. But again, any questions you may have, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call us, or head to www.goodguyssigns.com for anything you need. We look forward to forging a long-lasting and fruitful relationship with you.
