Cover photo: Miss Kokomo – Randy Howe

There’s more to creating an interesting, effective sign layout than grabbing a cool typeface and typing the text into the layout. The spacing, colors and effects that you use all influence the success of the layout. You can see how Randy Howe gets the most out of type in “6 type tricks that make sign layouts more effective.”

“Once you have a good layout,” Randy says, “you can accent it with a special effect. I prefer to see effects as accents. You add them to lettering only to add a little extra interest—not to ‘make it pop’ as we so often hear. That’s really the layout’s job.”

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