By signcraft
Posted on Monday, July 11th, 2022
When it comes to signage, nothing can look more cluttered than a stock car. There are loads of sponsors who pay to support the racing team in exchange for a spot on the car for their logo or name. And there’s a limited amount of space on the car body—not to mention that it will often be viewed racing around a track surrounded by other cars.
Adding the names of the sponsors to the car typically falls to a sign maker. Their task is to control the clutter so that the viewer’s eye could travel from one message to the next, giving the sponsors the advertising they want. Before wraps, race cars were all hand lettered, and this responsibility fell to the signpainter. Even though many cars are now done with wraps or vinyl lettering, the designer’s job is still the same: get the advertising message across effectively.
Bob Behounek [Berwyn, Illinois] has lettered more race cars than he can count during his signpainting career. The cars had to be done quickly to keep costs down, and they were a great way to put the principles of effective sign layout to the test.
“I would go to the owner’s garage,” says Bob, “and they would give me a list of sponsors in order of priority and where they should go. Then I would go at the car with a Stabilo pencil, yardstick and a clear plastic triangle. I drew the rough layouts on as quickly as I could then started painting them. There wasn’t time to do anyone’s logo—I just made up the layouts for each sponsor as I went along. Those days are over.
“I couldn’t spend all week lettering a car because the owner only had three, four or maybe five hundred dollars to spend for the lettering. I had to figure out how to make it cool but to do it very quickly. I typically did them in 15 hours or less.”
Bob used the same basic approach for each of the “ads” on the car that he used for any truck or sign or banner. The first priority is that it be easy to read—especially the primary message.
“If the advertisement doesn’t deliver that message,” Bob says, “it doesn’t work. It won’t benefit our customer much if at all. You have to face that a design can be very beautiful or very cool or very colorful, but it won’t be very effective if the viewer can’t get the message in two or three seconds. The clock is always ticking when the viewer looks at the sign or truck or race car. The colors or the images may get people to look at the design, but they may not have time to read the essential message, much less to remember it.”
The era of hand lettered stock cars may have nearly passed, but the principles that made them effective and appealing still apply to making signs that work better than the rest. Creative sign designers still use the same approach to give their customers extra value for their sign investment. Here are five takeaways from Bob’s stock car designs that will help make any sign more effective:
Design for legibility. On the track, reading time is seconds. Likewise on the highway—plus viewers on the street are more distracted than race fans. Make sure the sign’s primary message is easy to read.
Give the message blocks room to breathe. Negative space surrounds each sponsor’s “mini sign” on a car for good reason. If the sponsors blend together, the graphics won’t work for any of them, because the viewer won’t take time to sort them out. It’s the same way on any sign. Make sure each message block is legible and that they are read in the proper order.
Glitz and flash aren’t the answer. You’re creating high-impact advertising—not designing “something cool.” The cool effects that design software can do can work against the effectiveness of a sign. You want the sign to be appealing without any distractions.
Use plenty of contrast. Bob used a lot of contrast on these messages—big fat letters with skinny little ones, tall with short, and contrasting colors. It creates interest and avoids monotony.
Clean and simple beats complex and cool. Simple doesn’t mean plain and generic. It means clean, interesting and appealing to look at. “When you see a clean, legible design on the street,” Bob says, “it really sticks out like a sore thumb among all the other cluttered sign layouts. Your eye goes right to it.”
