Signs are made to be seen. There’s no point in having a sign designed, and then manufactured, if you intend to keep it in a place where it can’t be seen, or where people won’t notice it. Signs don’t belong in drawers, or in corners - they should be displayed as if their sole purpose was to declare the existence of your business. But you can’t have people squinting in order to read your business’s sign, can’t you? You need clear, easily readable lettering, which means you need to think carefully about the colors you use for your sign.
Luckily, since signs have been around for a while, and colors have been around for even longer, people have determined which color combinations produce the best contrast. This contrast will make the letters on your sign stand out from the background, and be much easier to notice and read.
Let’s say, for example, that you’ve chosen black to be the color of your sign. Black is a very popular color for signs, because it looks very sophisticated. The colors of letters you should choose if you want maximum contrast would be white or yellow. If, on the other hand, your sign is white, another popular choice, the letters can be black, or red, or blue, or even gray. White gives you the most options for contrasting colors. Red signs can use white and yellow letters to achieve the desired effect, and yellow signs can use red, black, and even blue letters, but not white. Blue goes with white and yellow. If you have a sign made out of metal, with the silvery-grayish color, you’d be surprised how well white letters go with it. With metal signs, yellow and black should be your backup choices.
And that’s all there is to it. Of course, pairing different colors of signs with different colors of letters will produce different visual effects, but if you want your sign to be noticeable, matching contrasting colors would be the way to go. And after all, signs are there to be noticed, right, so there’s little point in making them in any other way.
