Learning about Chloroplast Signage Design from Election Signs
The Federal Election campaigns are underway here in Canada and it’s difficult to ignore the elections signs that dot every single available lawn space. They’re bright, and convey just the right amount of information. Simply put, they do exactly what they’re supposed to. If you’re planning on designing outdoor signage, there’s some key lessons that election signs do well that we can learn from.
Colours
Colours capture attention. As the first thing people tend to notice, their primary function is to invoke certain emotional responses from your audience. Election signs always use the party colours as the background and they stick to a max of 2 colours. When accompanied by the party logo, it makes it incredibly easy to associate the name on the sign to the appropriate party. Especially with chloroplast signs, this is a pretty good practice to stick to. Keep your colours minimal and resist the urge to make your sign a rainbow.
Fonts
You’ve never seen a script font or a very thin font on an election sign, only a bold, san-serif font. That’s because this ensures that the candidate name is legible and readable even at a distance and if you’re driving past it. Keep the font size large and simple.
Concise
There’s only so much space on your sign and small font sizes just don’t work. While it might be tempting to list out your whole brand’s story on a sign, that’s just not what’s going to make your sign work. You don’t see campaign signs listing platforms on their signs, because that’s not useful. Rather the information they want to take away is the name you should tick next to on the ballot. For you, concise means your brand name, your unique selling proposition and 1-2 ways of contacting you (ie. Phone, website).
Location
This one might be a little less relevant as election signs just show up everywhere but I just wanted to make a point that location matters. Your sign can only work if people see it. This means finding an area of high traffic but considerations include, are you targeting people that’ll drive past or walk past? This is going to influence your font sizes as well as the amount of information they’ll take in.
Taking in account all of the above is what will help you to create an effective chloroplast sign design.
Looking for a printer for your chloroplast signs? Contact us info@elementdisplay.ca here at Element Display to find out more.