Make Your Yard Sign Stand Out

YARD SIGN ESSENTIALS

For low-budget campaigns, branding is vital, and yard signs provide your most visible branding tool. Though they can be pricey, yard signs remain crucial to down-ballot political campaigns. Combine them with an engaging, interactive campaign Website, a quality promotional piece, and a coordinated door-knocking effort, and their effectiveness grows even more.

So if you’re tempted to forego yard signs, don’t. Their importance to down-ballot campaigns is too important, especially for local races where regional, high-cost TV broadcast advertising is not a financial option.

Getting the Most for the Least

Layout

We’ve all seen self-defeating yard signs displaying small print, low color contrast, and/or poor layout. Avoid it by making your name and the office you seek so clear that they hook in voters’ minds.

Start with your last name. Make it the most prominent element. Display it to best advantage by surrounding it with ample space because your sign has just two or three seconds to convey your message to drivers passing at 30 mph or faster.

Next your first name. If you go by a nickname, AND it will appear on the ballot, use it on your sign. For example, if your first name is Robert, but you go by Bob, then register as Bob. If you’re running in a partisan race, include your party’s name in small print.

Keep it simple to make it memorable by adhering to standard 80/20 formatting: Devote 80 percent of space to name and logo and 20 percent to position and party affiliation, if applicable. Include at bottom, in small print, that your campaign paid for the sign. And unless you’re a local TV personality whose face is familiar, don’t waste sign space with your photo. It’s your name that shows on the ballot, not your photo.

Colors

Effective color combinations play vital roles in political campaigns, so give your combo the attention it deserves. Stay away from red, white, and blue. There are plenty of them every campaign season. Your goal is to make your sign stand out, not blend in.

High contrast between lettering and background makes it happen. Aim for a sign that stands out from others and can be read easily from a distance. And avoid using your opponent’s colors. Instead, stake claim on the colors you want by getting your signs out first.

Remember that choosing a one-color instead of two and using the white card or plastic stock as text or background not only saves money, it can offer effective contrast when paired with a strong color as the sign below demonstrates.

Though one-color printing costs less because white lettering and background come free, opt for two colors if finances allow and use the white stock to provide a neutral third. A high-contrast, two-color sign sporting a unique design costs more but can be worth it. The first image in the next section demonstrates visual punch of two colors with good contrast. Compare the following to see the value going with two colors:

Logo

Political campaigns sell. The products they sell are candidates. Products have brands. Brands have logos. Logos link brands to products. As a candidate, you need a brand and logo. Together they create the hook connecting you to voters.

Think about it: Coca Cola’s distinctive logo signifies soft drink while Nike’s swoosh signifies athletic shoes. Such indelible impressions are never made by a political campaign, but links still are made in voters’ minds when all your promotional materials, yard sign included, show your name and logo. It’s called branding.

A logo can be straight forward, like your name in block letters for example. It can support a theme like the silhouette of a skyline or a recognizable local feature like an iconic bridge. Or you can decide on a stylized logo like the star below. Whatever you decide, keep it simple yet distinctive.

Make name, logo, and, position sought so clear that it is readable from a distance, and make it striking enough that it stands out among competing signs. As campaign seasons peak, yard signs accumulate at major intersections in large groups known as sign forests. Rising above the clutter visually is crucial for your sign. The distinctive one below did because citizens often told the candidate, “I’ve seen your stars all over town.” Their use of the word “stars,” instead of, “signs” was proof of the sign’s lasting impression in voters’ minds.

So keep sign forests like the one below in mind as you create your eye-catching sign, one that stands out alone AND from others.

Sizes and Materials

Once you have a design, you might think you’re ready to order. But before you do, apply the 30-mph rule: Can yours be read and understood by someone driving by at 30-mph? Smaller signs, 18” x 24” and 14” x 22” work best along streets where traffic moves at or below 30 mph. On thoroughfares where traffic moves faster, signs of 2’ x 4’ or larger are better.

Poly-coated, weather-resistant card stock comes standard at 14” x 22” as opposed to

18” x 24” for weather resistant, corrugated polypropylene with other sizes available as well.

If finances put standard sizes beyond reach, going smaller can be quite effective if done right. Jim Cooper, successful candidate for city council in Olympia, Washington chose this striking 9”x 22” corrugated polypropylene sign for his campaign.

Putting Signs to the 30-mph Test

When it comes to testing readability of political signs from distance, there is no middle ground: they either pass or they fail. The three signs in the photo below illustrate.

Center Sign

Though visual contrast appears adequate when viewed close up, at a distance the text becomes less distinct against the white background. Also space is wasted with star not coordinated with the sign's layout For these reasons it fails the 30-mph test.

Left Sign

In a nod to the town’s dueling citizens’ movements over a growing infestation of non-native rabbits, the candidate supports her side of the issue by devoting precious sign space to the outline of one. Add it to the fact that “for Mayor” in light green melds too much with the periwinkle background, so it also fails.

Right Sign

The whale’s tail fluke, a tie to the town’s popular whale-watching excursions, guides the eye to the candidate’s name in standout bronze letters above the office sought. The layout and graphics combined with good contrast and size has it passing the 30-mph test.

Getting It Right the First Time

When Abrahamson and Malzone, challenged two incumbents for sewer and water district commissioner, they first deployed a sign depicting a toilet pulling in dollar signs set inside an international ‘No,” symbol. It was meant to show their disapproval of a proposed $40 million sewer project the incumbents favored. While their idea scored high for cleverness, the sign missed in vital ways:

• It was not only cluttered, the text was dense making the overall effect unclear.​

• The international no sign obscured the toilet and took up space better needed for the candidates' names and offices they were running for.

• Its message assumed that voters knew about the sewer plan.

Fortunately they revised their sign, and the do-over did the job to great effect.

Now look at each version in this road-side view: The one in the foreground passes the 30-mph test with ease, while the original version just a few feet behind fails.

Abrahamson and Malzone went on to win by a 75 percent margin, a testament to being on the right side of the issue. With such a landslide, they very well could have kept their first sign and still won by a similar margin. But as one of them said, “We didn’t want to take any chances.” So take a lesson from Abrahamson and Malzone and create a sign that stands out and passes the 30-mph test the first time.

The Take Away

“These signs are for only one thing. They’re for name familiarity. Large names, lots of contrast, bright, even gaudy, so people see the sign when they’re driving by at 40 miles an hour. They must be readable!”

______________________________

Art Boruck, owner of Boruck Printing & Silkscreen, Seattle, Washington

Posted by JOHN SHARIFY / KING 5 News posted on November 1, 2010

Important as they are, yard signs never win elections by themselves. But when paired with a coordinated marketing campaign, their power to promote the brand multiplies. You are the brand. Your yard sign promotes you. That makes them vital to low-budget, down-ballot campaigns like yours.