By signcraft
Posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2025
Many customers choose a generic name for their businesses, but by the time they arrive at your shop, it’s too late to suggest they come up with a better name. Instead, you have to use your design skills to carefully balance the messages so that what they do or sell gets at least equal billing with their generic—or unrelated—name.
Randy Howe runs into this a lot. Many businesses in his area are named for the town or the region.
“Up here,” Randy says, “it’s Dover this and Dover that. Lake Erie this, Lake Erie that. Norfolk this, Norfolk that. A local term often becomes a popular name for all sorts of businesses—and it’s on so many signs. Often that word gets the most of the emphasis. But do you really want readers to just see ‘Norfolk’ one more time?”
That’s why on this design Randy chose to give equal weight to both Norfolk and Electric so that it would read as one thought. You’ll see and hear more about the importance of this in “Misplaced emphasis can wreck a sign’s effectiveness.”
