Rule # 1 No Handwritten Signs
Rule #2 Never Forget Rule #1

Why you should care (see slideshow)

Up to this point we’ve talked about what the point of a sign is and why it is important. We have shown you some really good signs as well as some horrid signs. But in reality, who cares? Why should you care? A sign is a tool, right? You’re just trying to convey information, right? What does it matter how it looks? Those are great questions to consider.

Let me just make the statement. Being able to design a great sign is very important. Let me say it again. Being able to design a great sign is very important. I’ll tell you why.

Most of you in here are communicators. It’s an essential part of our jobs. It’s what you get paid to do. More than that, it’s what drives many of you to do what you do. Some of you are on stage regularly, communicating to the masses. Others of you are behind the scenes a little more, but regularly sending out those emails, newsletters or making phone calls. In addition to all of these things, we communicate through print. We send home notes. We create slides. We put together signs. Why? Because we have something important to say. We wouldn’t waste the time if we didn’t. As communicators, we want to be heard. Our message is valuable. All we want is for the kids or their parents to take a second and read what we’ve given them. Just read it!

However, if we design the message in such a way that it is confusing or frustrating to read, we have failed to communicate. If you truly care about the message, you should care about how it is communicated. That is why you should care.

If you’re like most of us in ministry, you don’t have access to a graphic designer. If that’s the case, the task falls to you. You are a communicator. You are a designer. Communicate your message so that people will hear what you have to say.

Will this stuff help you to become an incredible graphic designer. Nope. But I do expect that once you understand why this is important and once you understand some simple design rules, what you do create will be significantly better than before. In addition, you’ll no longer tolerate poorly designed signs. You’ll begin walking down the hallway and start grabbing poorly designed signs and throwing them away.

So, now that you know why it’s important to design good signage, let’s walk into what it actually takes to design a great sign. You may never design anything award winning, but what you do design can do what it’s meant to do, communicate a clear message that people see and understand.

Basic Idea behind signs

You are being judged

93% Body Language + 7% Words = Communication

93% Design + 7% Words = Great Signage

Bad Billboards vs Good Billboards (see slideshow)

Basic Design Principles

If you want to design great designs, you have to follow some rules.

Now, you may say, “wait a second… I like to ‘break the rules.’ That’s how I roll. By breaking the rules I’m going to create something original.”

No, it doesn’t work that way. It is true that great signage often involves creativity and originality, but all within the context of certain design rules. If you break the rules, you’re sign isn’t going to stick out… it’s going to blend in. It will become unnoticeable and forgettable. I guess you could design a sign that is so bad that it stands out because it is so horrid, but seriously, you don’t want to be the Rebecca Black of sign designs.

Let me explain why these rules work.

Have you ever noticed how certain clothes look better on you. Maybe certain patterns are more flattering than others and specifically for you, certain colors look better on some people that others. I remember many years ago learning that horizontal stripes make you look wider and vertical strips make you look taller. I understood that. Then I actually learned this last year while here at Orange. I was at the Lennox Mall right after Orange was over and there was a fashion show and they were explaining how you could determine what “season” you were. By determining what color you hair is and whether the veins under your skin appear more blue or green, you could know what season you were. Based on your season, clothing colors within that season will always look better on you. Always. It’s a fashion rule, but really could be considered a design rule as well.

The point is that our eyes often know that something looks better than something else, even if it doesn’t know why. It’s why two people could wear the same outfit and one person might look significantly better… because our eyes know when design is following the rules… even if your eyes don’t know the rules.

These rules help designs look cohesive, they help designs pop and they help guide the eyes toward what to look at. Without rules, your design consists of a bunch of words and images on a piece of paper… with rules, people see a message. Hopefully the message you intend them to get.

So here are four very basic rules that you should NEVER break. Some of them are going to be very hard for you to follow. Everything within you is going to tell you to do it this way, but don’t trust your feelings. Follow the rules. When you’re done you’ll take a step back and say… wow.

Follow the rules.

1. Contrast
As much as possible, you want to avoid everything being alike on your design. When you incorporate contrast, you tell the eyes where to look. You create something that is visually appealing. You say “HEY! LOOK AT ME!”

You can create contrast in many ways.

• Size – We already get this one to a degree. When making a list of some sort, we make our headers a font size bigger, maybe make it bold. This is the same idea…. but you need to blow it out of proportion. Huge. When you think it might be too much… make it just a little bigger. A little contrast is not contrast. It’s boring. Maybe it’s a picture with some text. Blow the picture up and make the contrast between the image and the type significant. Not only is the eye drawn to the super-sized image, but the small text now stands out because it’s so different from the size of the image.
• Color – A lot of us get this one too. Black text on yellow stands out greater than any other combination of colors. Yellow on black is next. This is followed by Black on white. However, what if you have a postcard with 5 words and you want the 3rd word to stand out. Make it a different color than all the rest. Even better, make it bigger too. That’s contrast.
• Font – I have more to say about fonts later, but an easy way to create contrast is to change the font of that word or message or phrase that you want to stand out. Of course it’s even better if you make it bigger and change the color too. Don’t be afraid to take a risk. Ever seen that design with 10 different fonts on it? Boring. Create significant contrast.

2. Alignment
Alignment can be a very difficult rule to follow. We all have design habits that break this rule and like any habit, this one may be hard to break. Alignment states that everything on your page is placed on purpose and everything is visually connected to something else. The alignment rule beings all your elements together into one cohesive unit. Now you know about this one because every word processor has and alignment feature. You can align all your text to the left (the default), you can align all your text to the right (feels awkward) or align everything to the center.

However, most of the time when we are designing, we don’t have access to a “right align” button so people untrained in the rules just put stuff anywhere. Don’t do this. Open a magazine and guess what you’ll see. In nearly every design, you’ll see imaginary lines everywhere. You’ll see how images and text seem to all line up together… like an invisible guide line is keeping everything together.

When you either align to the right or the left with text, you create a strong vertical edge. This edge helps your eyes know what is included in the design.

The habit that most of us have is to center align EVERYTHING! When you center align… the alignment is somewhat vague. Because the outside edges are not always even, you do notice an alignment, but it’s not as cohesive as aligning to the right or the left. Typically, center alignment is a formality. Usually, what we’re designing isn’t formal… so don’t do it.

I challenge you in your design to completely avoid aligning anything in the center. Try it. You’ll notice that it is hard and maybe even uncomfortable, but you’ll come to see that your designs come together better.

3. Repetition
Repetition is a little easier rule to follow. Repetition is finding certain elements that naturally repeat and strengthening them. You want to incorporate repetition to unify your overall design. Repetition shows up in good design in many ways. Sometimes it is seen in color. You pick a color scheme and stick with it throughout your design, repeating the same color in a variety of places, especially in places that are all similar.

Repetition comes in handy with pictures. Maybe your design has multiple pictures in it… repeating a similar look and feel or size to these pictures creates unity within the design.

Repetition shows up best when you’re designing multiple pieces… like a multi-page document or postcards and posters that point to the same event. Now you can break this rule if you’re trying to create contrast… maybe you have one item that is a totally different picture or a totally different size. However, what causes the contrast is the fact that you have some repetition going on and you’ve purposely broken the repetition using contrast.

This is one of the reasons why you never do one bullet point… you always have at least two bullet points. One by itself feels weird. When you have 2 or more, it becomes more visually pleasing because of the repetition.

4. Proximity
The rule of proximity is the one rule that appeals to the logical side of my brain. Ultimately, this rule is about organization. Proximity says that related items should be grouped together. Grouping similar items together while separating items that are not similar create visual cues.

Help the reader out. Not following proximity can create confusion. We jumble a lot of information together in one line or a group of lines… but if we put information here, give some space and then put directions and contact information here and then put that quote you want to leave everyone with down here… creating some space and groupings, you help the viewer know what it reated and what isn’t.

We do this in writing all the time. We call the paragraphs. If writing a 10 page paper, you don’t write it all in one long string of sentences. No, you separate into paragraphs so the reader knows when one thought is ending and another is beginning.

Tools of the Trade

Stop using Microsoft Word to design your signs. Some people use PowerPoint. Meh. If you’ve got a Mac, pick up a copy of pages as a cheap alternative that will give you more freedom to design. Even better, pick up photoshop or illustrator. You can usually pick up a copy that is 2-3 years old for less than $100 and it will do everything you need it to do to design great signs. There are hundreds of youtube tutorials that will teach you how to use the basic functionality or even pick up one of those “classroom in a books.” After a few hours, you’ll know how to do everything you need.

Image Size

If you’re using an image, make sure it’s the appropriate size. If it’s to go on the web or a slide on a screen, 72 dpi is sufficient. However, if it’s going to be printed, never print an image that is any less than 300 dpi. When you see a sign where the image or picture is pixelated, it is because they threw a picture on it that was less than 300 dpi… or they took a picture that may have been 300 dpi and they stretched it to fill the whole design. When you find a picture, make sure it’s at the very least, bigger than you need. you can always make something smaller, but nothing bigger.

Type

The biggest problem a designer gets into is when he or she differentiates images and design from text and type. In our minds we see them as different, but they’re not. Think about it. What is type? It’s simply lines, curves and shapes that we’ve assigned meaning and sounds to. Yes, even type is a design element just like the rest of the design. Treat it that way. Use type that fits with the overall design.

My biggest word of advice for you when it comes to type is to stay away from decorative and funky fonts. Most of the time, these are used wrong. A novice designer might use a font like Algerian or JokerMan to spice up a heading. Why? Probably because the rest of the design looks boring. A funky font won’t fix the rest of the design… it only add insult to injury. Stick with standard, handsome fonts. They’re already very beautiful and if you incorporate them into an already well designed piece… the end result is a masterpiece. To be honest, plain old arial is one of my favorite fonts when designing.

Unintended messages your sign communicates
This is why early on in this breakout we asked you to never hand write a sign again. Why? Because it communicates disorganization, lack of planning and un-professionalism. Sure, it also communicates that “this check-in station is closed”… but the unintended messages often stick with the person longer than the primary message.

Most people hand write a sign or type one up really quick because they’re in a rush. Develop a system for when you need signs in a moment’s notice. Develop a handful of sign templates where you can add content and print in a moment’s notice. Purchase a handful of acrylic sign holders that sit on a desk, mount to a wall or fit into a stand. It’s a small price to pay, but you’ll be ready for the immediate and the only thing you’ll communicate is the intended message.

Resources

istockphoto.com
sxc.hu
vectormagic.com
vectorstock.com
fontsquirrel.com
gimp.org
clipart.com