The art (and frustration) of signage

I've been on a signage rampage in our shop. When we first opened years ago, I hand-wrote every tag and every little sign. We even designed and hand-painted our outdoor shop signs. Uh huh, that was fun. I designed them and printed a small copy to stick under a projector: from there we penciled in the outlines onto big pieces of plywood. For evenings on end we worked on those signs, hand painting every little bit -- including some pomegranates -- which we later had to paint over because they weren't allowed under ODOT regulations. Sigh. That's what you get sometimes when everything is DIY.

That was a long time ago. They were in dire need of a make-over, so we designed new shop signage and had them professionally made this time. That was number one priority when we closed up our downtown shop and redirected all our attention to our "off the beaten path" location. Hopefully, they're more visible now. I'm happy with them.

For little signs inside the shop, I've been experimenting with all kinds of sizes and looks, and have decided that this is an art unto itself. There's a lot of learning to do. What looks good on the computer screen isn't necessarily legible or eye-catching propped up as a little note on a table. It's been a kind of Goldilocks experiment lately after I make a little slew of small signs: "too boring, too fussy, too pale, too dark, too small, too big..." Once in a while it's just right.

I think it's human nature to ignore signs, instruction, labeling, so it takes extra effort to make it attractive and make it work. The other night my dear husband briefly warmed up some bread I bought for our dinner. I took one bite of the doughy, raw stuff and knew that he hadn't seen the big red letters on the package that said: "take home and bake." It's okay. I bought a combo package of what I thought was shampoo/conditioner (one of those big, honkin' ones from Costco), used it for two days and couldn't figure out why my hair was all flat and limp and weird. I finally looked at the package and realized that I had bought a big container of conditioner, packaged with a little container of conditioner. Whoopsie!

For some really great, cutting edge, inspiring, and professional examples of packaging and graphics, check out this website: www:thedieline.com