Signs are a brilliant way to add curb appeal to a business property, attract customer attention, and promote a new product.
With a stylish, well-designed sign you might even be able to steal customers away from nearby competitors. Of course, this will only happen if the sign is clearly visible and readable by members of the general public who might see it. That’s why you need to understand the connection readability has to the distance of a sign.
Distance And Readability
When we think about distance and readability for the sign, it’s important to realise that we’re not really thinking about how large the sign is. It’s more important to look at how large the lettering or graphic that you’re using is. Although ultimately, the size of your lettering will determine the size of your sign. After all, you don’t want a tiny piece of text, and a massive blank space for the rest of your sign do you?
Thus, you need to think about three factors here. These are:
- The length of the lettering used
- The optimum distance
- The max distance that the sign will be viewable
You could choose a sign with lettering that is approximately 8cm in height. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly half the length of the average smartphone. The optimum use of a sign with lettering this size would be to attract people roughly 9 meters away. You have probably ascertained that this wouldn’t be that far.
Remember, we’re not looking at 10 meters away from your business, though. We would be thinking about 10 meters from where the sign is positioned. Thus it would be the diagonal distance from the sign to people on the ground that you would need to measure. So, the higher your sign is, the closer people would need to be to get the full effect.
Don’t forget that the distance we just mentioned is the optimum. The max would be closer to 30 meters which is far more beneficial. You can see this shown more clearly in the table below.
| Letter Height (Cm) | Distance For Best Impact (Meters) | Max Distance Of Sign For Viewability (Meters) |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 9 | 30 |
| 10 | 12 | 45 |
| 15 | 18 | 60 |
| 20 | 24 | 106 |
| 23 | 27 | 122 |
| 25 | 30 | 137 |
| 30 | 36 | 160 |
| 38 | 45 | 192 |
| 46 | 54 | 228 |
It’s useful to give these numbers a little context. So, in one instance you might be displaying a sign inside your shop to advertise your product, in this case, you can have lettering that is 5cm or lower.
If you are advertising to people outside your business, a sign should have lettering of at least 8cm.
If you want to attract customers that are roughly a football field length away, the lettering needs to be at least 20cm.
It’s also worth thinking about speed if you’re advertising to cars passing by on the road outside your business. So, let’s say that the average speed since you’re near the main road is 80KM/H. At that speed, there will only be a few seconds of visibility for your sign. So lettering will need to be at least 56cm high for maximum readability!