Delivering the message day and night

With all the advances in technology, which weren’t available years back, signage today is so much more diverse. These same advances can be good if they’re utilized correctly and not overdone. With so much graphic clutter on our streets and highways, the basic principles of sign design hold firm when electricity gets incorporated. You know my usual approach: less is more. Five words or less with hard contrasts in color and type.

Simple architectural inspirations usually can be found somewhere on the main structure of a building when surveying a client’s sign needs. Architecture usually provides simple design cues like the one shown here of the sainted Xavier University window shapes and mullions.

Most of the electric signs that we see look like they could be a painted plywood or a PVC cutout, mounted on a pole or store fascia. During the daytime, who could tell otherwise? Unless you’re in the sign business, you probably wouldn’t even notice. The only physical difference is the thickness of the electrical cabinet and the extra shiny sign face. From a distance, most people don’t notice that at all, do they?