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Serif or sans serif?
A serif font has “notches” at the end of each word (like this one—Times New Roman)—while a sans serif font doesn’t (like Arial). The rule of thumb is that serif fonts should be used for copy, while sans serif fonts are best for headings…and that’s equally applicable to signs and other printed materials.
Many signs are all “headings,” so using a sans serif font is a good choice. For instance:
That font is Calibri. It’s clean and easily readable, unlike the following:
That font is Garamond. Since it’s a serif font, it’s a bit more “busy” than Calibri or other sans serif fonts, and thus lacks the same impact.
All caps or sentence case?
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to sign capitalization, but the more copy a sign contains, the less likely you should capitalize all the letters. For instance, our example above has only five words, so it’s fine to capitalize everything, but see what happens when you start adding copy:
NO SWIMMING POOL IS CLOSED
DIVE IN AT YOUR OWN RISK
NO LIFEGUARD IS PRESENT
PLEASE DON’T RISK YOUR LIFE
All those capital letters are a bit mind numbing. Perhaps this reads better:
NO SWIMMING POOL IS CLOSED
Dive in at your own risk
No lifeguard is present
Please don’t risk your life
You can also choose to keep the sans serif font for the “heading” and use a serif font for the “copy”:
NO SWIMMING POOL IS CLOSED
Dive in at your own risk
No lifeguard is present
Please don’t risk your life
What’s the moral to this story?
Don’t overlook the importance of fonts when designing signs. Those of us who make signs for a living can certainly assist you with making good choices, since the last thing you want to do is create compelling copy that gets lost due to the use of a less-than-ideal font.
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