The Science of Signs

When designing your signs, taking into consideration the distance your sign will be from your target audience is of the utmost importance, and there are general rules that apply here. We include this type of data to ensure your signs are properly put together in terms of the size of text and graphics you will want to use depending on the distance.

For every 50 feet, the standard design process dictates that you should increase your text size by 1 inch. In other words if your target audience is 100 feet from your sign, the minimum text size you should use when designing your vinyl banners should be 2 inches in height. The following chart will help you when designing your vinyl banners and will ensure your signs are designed properly.

Now that we have a general rule for distance figured out, a good sign must think about the movement of the general traffic as they pass by the sign. If your target audience is walking or driving, the speed of their movement will also factor into the design of your sign. In order to factor this, we will use some scientific research we have found, which states that a moving audience will need approximately three to four seconds to process a message that contains six to eight groupings of content that exists on your banner. As a general rule for moving traffic, your audience will need a minimum of three seconds or less to process signs that contain four inches of text, and if your signs have too much content, your reader will not have the time to comprehend your message.

If your primary target is foot traffic whether indoor outdoor banners.
If you audience is drivng in their cars, approximately 45mph or under you would want to use text that is at least 5 inches in height and you would want to keep your content grouping to a minimum.
Outdoor signs where traffic is 60mph or slower would require 8 inch height text as your optimum size.

Text Size		View Distance		Speed in (seconds)
inch	mm	foot	meter	25mph	35mph	45mph	55mph	65mph
2	51	100	31	2.7	1.9	1.5	1.2	1.0
4	102	200	61	5.5	3.9	3.0	2.5	2.1
5	127	250	76	6.8	4.9	3.8	3.1	2.6
6	152	300	91	8.2	5.8	4.5	3.7	3.1
8	203	400	122	10.9	7.8	6.1	5.0	4.2
9	229	450	137	12.3	8.8	6.8	5.6	4.7
10	254	500	152	13.6	9.7	7.6	6.2	5.2
12	305	600	183	16.4	11.7	9.1	7.4	6.3
16	406	800	244	21.8	15.6	12.1	9.9	8.4
20	508	1,000	305	27.3	19.5	15.2	12.4	10.5
24	610	1,200	366	32.7	23.4	18.2	14.9	12.6
36	914	1,800	549	49.1	35.1	27.3	22.3	18.9
48	1,200	2,400	732	65.5	46.8	36.4	29.8	25.2
60	1,542	3,000	914	81.8	58.4	45.5	37.2	31.5

Content size, the flow of traffic, and even the environmental distractions including average weather conditions and your lighting will affect the readability of your signs, and taking all of these into consideration will make all the difference in how well your signs get the attention of your audience, and get them coming in to check you out. This article is merely an attempt to get you thinking in the right direction. They are also factors that we have taken into consideration in the many layouts we have created that you can modify to make your own. Making great signs is not a difficult task, but thinking your message through and looking at the conditions your sign will be placed in combined with the audience.