Choosing Business Goals

The Role Of Color Contrast In Creating A Successful Business Sign

25 September 2020 by Wade Wheeler

Business signs are everywhere, but it's not until you try to put one together yourself that you really realize just how much consideration goes into those simple graphics. To customers, the signs merely represent a company logo and let them know who's in a particular strip mall. But for the businesses, those signs are yet one more way to draw people into their offices or stores.

One quality of successful business signs is contrast. The background color and colors in the logos need enough contrast to make the non-background colors stand out. This helps catch people's attention in more ways than one.

Better Readability

If the text on a sign contrasts with the background color, that text will be more readable. Think about black lettering on a beige background or blue lettering on a light yellow background. Those letters are going to be much more visible and thus more readable to people passing by. If people can't read what's on the sign, they're not going to stop to consider what is being advertised; they'll just ignore the sign. And different colors alone don't equal good contrast. There are combinations that have been shown to work better. When you create a business sign, you'll want to work with a designer who understands which colors have better contrast.

Better Emphasis on Color Psychology

That contrast also helps emphasize colors that you may have added for psychological reasons. If people can't really see the colors that well (think yellow on white, green on purple, and so on), the mood effect that those colors are supposed to have will be muted at best. If you want people to feel a certain way when they see your sign, you want color contrast that emphasizes the colors that correspond to the mood you want to evoke.

Better Variety of Fonts

The more readable and eye-catching a sign is, the larger the pool of readable fonts that will be available to you. Yes, your logo already has a font for any text, but you can choose additional fonts for auxiliary information on the sign, such as directions and hours. When a sign isn't that readable because the colors don't contrast well, you have to use very, very readable, clear fonts. You can get a little fancier when you have good color contrast.

Contact some sign printing companies; many have in-house designers who can put together model signs for you. Take advantage of their knowledge to create signs that draw people to your business.

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