By Rob Cooper
Posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021
Here is a prime example of a border, which are the legs in this case, fighting with the lettering. Those white legs always bothered me, so I fixed it on the replacement sign eight years later! Painting them to match the background added valuable negative space around the message and eliminated the distracting left and right white borders.
About three years ago, I sent some photos to my good friend Lane Walker of Solo Signs in Reno, Nevada. I got a reply that said, “Looks like you’re having some negative space issues on this one.” I was surprised, but when I looked at the photo he was exactly right. Then, as I looked back through all my photos, I realized that on most of them the lettering had been creeping closer and closer toward the edge of the sign!
From that day, I made a point of keeping lots of space around the lettering on my signs, and the difference is noticeable. 20% more space looks 100% better!
When the lettering is too close to the edge, the letter fights for attention and is distracted by the edge. It leads the eye off the sign. That’s the last place we want the reader’s eye to go.
For this reason, I almost never use a border on my signs. Most of the time, you should focus the reader’s attention on the message rather than the edge of the sign. The “unused” space around the text is actually put to very good use—it frames the lettering and focuses the reader’s eye on the important message.
Having enough negative space around the lettering is critical to the success of the layout. Sure, you still have to think about design, contrast, color, letter weight, etc. But if you do a great job on them, but cram the lettering right out to the edges, it will not read comfortably.
After two years on social media, I believe lack of negative space is one of the biggest sign layout issues. But it’s easy to fix.
Take a close look at the photos of your own work and see if you also generally let the lettering creep out to the edge of the sign. Make a conscious effort to increase the amount of negative space around the message and watch the results. It is really cool how such a small change can make such a big difference on a sign. And I want to thank Lane for helping me to be a better signwriter.
