Turn Your Vinyl Banner Design Into an Advertising Masterpiece

An excellent post from the Entrepreneur….

The purpose of advertising is to increase the public’s awareness of you. What  better way than through good signage?

Most business signs are well-proportioned, carefully balanced, tastefully  drawn and perfectly color-coordinated. In other words, utterly predictable and  effectively invisible.

The five most common mistakes made in business-sign design are:

1. attempting to be understated or elegant;
2. attempting to “fit,” or blend into, the surrounding  environment;
3. underspending;
4. including too much information; and
5. placing the sign too high. (The eyes of drivers tend to stay  focused at windshield height. Low signs are better in town. Tall signs are  better on freeways where they’ll be read–at windshield height–from great  distances.)

Great signs are always the most interesting piece of scenery in their  vicinity. This is why they’re noticed even when people aren’t looking for  them.

Would you like to have such a sign? Believe it or not, it’s possible–not  cheap or easy, but possible.

Consider the sprawling white letters stretched across a hillside in Southern  California: HOLLYWOOD, a landmark known around the world. Did you know that sign  was originally erected by a real-estate developer to identify his remote  suburban subdivision, Hollywoodland?

Not all business signs will become famous landmarks, but it doesn’t hurt to  keep these common denominators of business signs that do become landmarks  in mind:

• They’re dramatic. This can be due to the fact that they’re:
• • grossly oversized,
  • strangely placed or
  • 3-dimensional.
  • The Hollywood sign fits all three  criteria.

• They’re different , contrasting sharply with their surroundings due  to:
• • Color. For example, snow-white Hollywood letters against a hillside  of dark brown and green.
  • Installation. The famous Hollywood sign isn’t on a pole or a board.  Its individual letters sit directly on the ground.
  • Context. There’s nothing immediately around it to distract from it.  Or if there is something important nearby, it’s incorporated into the sign  itself.

• There’s something “wrong” with it. Ever notice how the Hollywood  letters aren’t level, but rise and fall with the terrain? This makes it far more  memorable.

I doubt if the builder of the Hollywood sign did these brilliant things  intentionally. But they worked, even if some of them were accidental. Do you  have the courage and determination to repeat on purpose the things he did  right by accident? If you do, the public will soon be using your sign as a  reference point when giving directions.

If you’re able to bulldoze past these roadblocks, I’d love to see your  fabulous new landmark sign.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/82734#ixzz2PLybjmRx