A sign can look great on your screen and still fail on the street. Most of the signs that fail make the same few mistakes: too many words, letters too small for the distance, weak contrast, or a design nobody checked at night.
We design and build signs for businesses across New Jersey and New York City from our shop in Linden, and we see these ten mistakes on almost every redesign we quote. This guide gives you each mistake, the research figure behind it, and the fix. Most fixes cost nothing if you catch them before the sign is built.
In this guide
The Ten Mistakes at a Glance
1. Putting Too Much on the Sign
Your main sign gets a few seconds of attention. The United States Sign Council Foundation’s standards count about one tenth of a second for every letter a driver reads, on top of the time it takes to notice the sign at all. Every extra word on the sign takes time away from your name.
The fix: put your name and what you do on the main sign. Move the phone number, hours, website and services to the windows, the door and a blade sign. Our guide to first impressions at the front door shows where the details belong.
2. Letters Too Small for the Distance
Letter height should come from the distance people read your sign from, not from the size of the wall. The industry chart published by Signazon gives about 10 feet of best viewing distance for every inch of letter height. A sign read from across a parking lot 120 feet away needs letters about 12 inches tall.
The fix: measure from where your customers decide to turn in or walk in. Our guide to designing signs for different viewing distances walks through the math, and our guide to choosing the right size for your sign checks it against the town limit.
3. Weak Contrast
Two strong colors can still have no contrast. Red on green and blue on black both look bold up close and blur together from the road. The color ranking used across the sign industry, attributed to Outdoor Advertising Association of America tests and reproduced by Identity PR, puts black on yellow, black on white, yellow on black and white on blue at the top. Pairs with red sit at the bottom.
Yellow on black is one of the most readable color pairs at a distance
The fix: pick your sign colors for brightness difference first and brand color second. Our guide on how color affects sign visibility covers the full ranking.
4. A Typeface That Breaks Up at Distance
Thin scripts, condensed faces and novelty fonts lose their shape from far away. A Signs of the Times summary of the USSC research found that all capital text needs about 15 percent more letter height to read as well as upper and lower case.
The fix: use an open sans serif in mixed case for the words people need to read. Keep a script for your name only, set large. Our typography tips for readable signs explain why.
5. Letters Crowded Together
Tight letter spacing looks sharp in a logo file and turns into a smear at 200 feet. It is worse on a lit sign, where the glow fills the gaps. The ADA Standards set letter spacing for accessible signs at 10 to 35 percent of the letter height, and that range works well outside too.
The fix: open up the spacing, especially on lit channel letters, and leave clear space between the sign and the edges of the sign band.
Lit letters need room between them so the glow does not merge
6. Ignoring the Building and the Street
Your wall is part of the design. Red letters on a red brick wall disappear. A sign that fills the sign band from edge to edge looks crowded. On a busy block, your sign also has to stand apart from the neighbors on both sides.
The fix: photograph the wall and the storefronts around it, then lay the design over the photo before you approve it. A backer panel or a raceway in a contrasting color often solves a wall that fights the brand.
7. Forgetting the Night View
Most designs are approved in daylight on a white screen. The Penn State study for the USSC Foundation found that at night, light letters on a dark background read further than dark letters on light, and signs lit by floodlights from outside performed worst. A sign that trades after dark needs a night check.
The fix: ask to see a night view of the design, lit the way it will be built. Our guide to illuminated vs non illuminated signs covers the options.
8. Poor Placement
A perfect design in the wrong spot still goes unseen. The USSC standards put the zone where drivers notice a sign at about 10 degrees either side of straight ahead. Trees, awnings, parked trucks and the sign next door all block the view.
The fix: walk and drive the way your customers arrive before you pick the spot. Our guide to exterior sign placement has a checklist.
9. Designing Before Checking the Rules
In New Jersey, your town limits the size, height and lighting of your sign, and your landlord may limit it further. Garwood, for example, caps total sign area at 2 square feet per foot of building frontage and a maximum of 40 square feet, and does not allow signs above the roofline. A design drawn without the rules usually gets drawn twice.
The fix: get the town ordinance and the landlord’s sign criteria first, and design inside them. Our guide to avoiding permit delays shows what to check. In New York City the Zoning Resolution sets the limits instead, and our sister shop covers them in its NYC storefront sign regulations guide.
10. Inconsistent Branding Across Signs
Your main sign, door lettering, window graphics and van all tell customers who you are. When each one uses a slightly different logo, color or font, the business looks less established. The same goes for brands with several locations.
The fix: keep one set of brand files with Pantone color references and use them for every sign. Pixel Wraps, our sister graphics shop, covers the same mistakes on vehicles in its guide to common truck wrap design mistakes.
A sign that worked ten years ago may not fit the brand or the street today
The Same Mistakes Indoors
Interior signs fail for the same reasons, just at a shorter distance. Lobby signs get crowded with taglines. Room signs use a script that looks elegant and fails the ADA rules. Glossy faces reflect the ceiling lights so nobody can read them. The ADA Standards call for a non glare finish, characters that contrast with the background, and visual characters that are not italic, script or highly decorative. Our guide to ADA sign requirements covers the full list.
When a Redesign Is Worth It
You do not always need a new sign to fix these mistakes. A new face on an existing light box, new vinyl on a panel, or window graphics that take the extra words off the main sign can solve most of them for much less. A full replacement makes sense when the letters are too small for the street, the sign no longer matches your brand, or the structure is worn out. Our guide on when to replace a business sign helps you decide.
What the Fixes Look Like
Most redesigns we do follow the same pattern. The name gets bigger, the message gets shorter, the contrast goes up and the extra details move to the windows. The sign is often smaller than the original and reads from twice as far.
A short message on a clean panel reads in a glance
A Quick Design Check Before You Approve
Our shop floor in Linden, open to visitors
- Count the words. If the main sign has more than your name and what you do, cut.
- Check the letter height. About 1 inch for every 10 feet of viewing distance.
- Squint at it. If the letters blur into the background when you squint, the contrast is too low.
- Look at it at night. Ask for a lit view of the design.
- See it on the wall. Lay the design over a photo of your building and the storefronts next to it.
Our sign design team runs these checks on every proof. Our guide on working with a professional sign designer explains what to expect from the proof stage.
Common Questions About Sign Design Mistakes
What is the most common sign design mistake?
Too much text. Owners want the sign to say everything, but a driver reads a few words at most. Put your name and what you do on the main sign and move the rest to the windows and door.
How big should the letters on my sign be?
Are all capital letters harder to read?
From a distance, yes. Research summarized by Signs of the Times found that all capital text needs about 15 percent more letter height to read as well as upper and lower case.
What colors are easiest to read on a sign?
Should my phone number be on my sign?
Usually not on the main sign. Drivers cannot write it down and it takes space from your name. Put it on the door, the windows and your vehicles.
How can I check a design before it is built?
Ask for the design laid over a photo of your building, a night view if the sign is lit, and a full size paper print taped to the wall. Then read it from where your customers will.
Get a Design That Works on the Street
Send us a photo of your building and your logo files, and we will check your design for these ten mistakes before anything is built. You get a proof laid over your actual wall, a night view if the sign is lit, and a clear price. Request a free quote or see our gallery of finished signs.
Sources and further reading
- United States Sign Council Foundation: best practice standards for on premise signs
- Signazon: sign letter height visibility chart
- Identity PR: tips on how to create effective signage, OAAA color ranking
- Signs of the Times: the USSC best practices standards
- Penn State Transportation Institute for the USSC Foundation: sign legibility, the impact of color and illumination
- Borough of Garwood NJ: signage ordinance amending the land use code
- U.S. Access Board: guide to the ADA standards, chapter 7 signs
