Design Factors for Political Signs

by CASEY VALIANT on SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

When designing your political signs for your campaign, there are many different factors to consider. Most political advertising signs have a 1 – 3 month lifespan, so the signs need to last at least that long. They also need to be attractive and easy to read. Beyond that, here are three things you need to consider when designing your political signs.

1. Is a Coraplast Substrate a Good Choice… ?
The life expectancy of the sign can be greatly affected by choosing the right material. You can go with Coraplast — corrugated plastic — which is then mounted to a heavy wire frame, which is driven into the ground.

You can print directly to Coraplast with a UV printer, which is a real time saver and lets you do full-color signs. You can also screenprint to the substrate, which is perfect for high volume print jobs, like 400 – 500 signs.

However, if you want to use full color, show a photo of the candidate, or more than one color, than UV printing would be your best bet. These full color signs will also have a greater impact than those single color signs, although they will cost more.

2. . . . or are Bag Signs?
Bag signs are another popular choice for political campaigns. These signs are printed on plastic “bags” that are then slipped over a heavy wire frame. Since the signs don’t need to last longer than three months, they aren’t printed on heavier materials. That really makes the price drop significantly for these signs. Bag signs are typically screenprinted, and people often use this method for its high volume, low cost benefit.

3. Signs Should be as Large as They Need to Be
That may not sound profound, but it’s important. It means don’t stick a 4 foot by 8 foot sign in a front yard, and don’t stick a 12 inch by 18 inch sign on the highway. Typically, political campaign signs come in an 18 inch by 24 inch size, which highway signs are about the size of a piece of plywood — 4 feet by 8 feet — in either corrugated plastic, or even plywood.

Recently, however, we’ve noticed that a lot of candidates aren’t really using traditional sizes. Every single sign starts to look alike, but the candidates want to stand apart from one another.

Here at SIGNARAMA Evansville, we have a die cutter that lets us do different shapes and sizes, which can help a candidate’s sign stand out a little bit more from its neighbors, helping the candidate’s name stand out from the competition.

Photo credit: Mpls55408 (Flickr, Creative Commons)
Source: http://blog.signarama.com/
 
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Design Factors for Political Signs