How to Design Church Signs

Church signs should be clear and easy to read.

Whether you are creating a sign to promote a new church service time, community program or a branding piece for your church members, the key to a successful sign lies in the design. An unclear or illegible design is a waste of resources for your church and portrays poorly on your church's brand. Effective wording, crisp coloring, negative space and logo placement are important elements in designing church signs.

Things You'll Need

• Computer

Instructions

1. Determine how and where your sign will be used. This will determine the appropriate size and material of your sign. For example, if the purpose of your sign is to attract new members via drive-bys, it will most likely be used on the exterior of a building and should be made from a durable material and scaled to be very large.

2. Consult with the church's business or branding contact to determine if the church has a high-resolution logo, or specific church colors or fonts that should be used. Using the same logos, fonts and colors on the sign will create consistent branding.

3. Determine the copy and images to be used on your church sign. Copy should be direct, to-the-point and give the reader the information he needs to know without overwhelming him with information. For example, if you are promoting a church play, the copy should include the name and topic of the play, the time, date and location and at least one vehicle to get more information, whether it be a phone number to call or a website to visit. Only use high-resolution images, including logos, on any signage. Photos should be at least 300 dpi.

4. Select your fonts and colors. Limit your sign to one or two font choices and colors. Be weary of colors such as orange or red for text as they are harsh on the eye and may be difficult to read.

5. Lay out your sign design to scale using an advanced design program such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator. If you do not have an advanced design program, lay out your church sign design on a smaller scale using Microsoft Powerpoint or Word. Unless you are using an advanced program, you will not be able to develop large-scaled church sign designs to scale, but you can create the layout you want and then seek the services of a sign printing company such as FedEx Office to create your design in a larger scale.

6. Consult a sign printing professional with your design to confirm that the colors, fonts, photography and images will print correctly before finalizing your design.

Tips & Warnings

• When laying out your design, limit your text and evenly space it to optimize the negative space, space not occupied with text or images, of your sign. The more negative space you have the easier it will be to read your sign.

References

• "Entrepreneur": What Not to Do When Designing Marketing Pieces Yourself
• "Entrepreneur": Designing Your Sign