Color Effectiveness in Car Sign Design

Visibility is the most important part of your signage.

When designing car signs , less can be more! Leaving space around the edges and not filling the space completely with your text will add impact to what you do use on the sign.

Choosing a single color scheme and sticking with it can give your sign a more finished look. Bright colors will draw attention to your sign, but overuse can take away from your message or make it hard to read.

When choosing a background for your custom design, don't use anything that will make it difficult to focus on the main message. A color wheel will show you the importance of contrast, hue and value when choosing a foreground/background color combination. Opposite colors on the wheel complement each other. For example red and green would be complementary colors. They have a good contrast, but their values are similar, so it is not the best combination.

Colors that are next to each other on the wheel, such as blue and green, make poor color combinations on your sign since their contrast is similar in both hue and value. It is hard to see the contrast.

Black contrasts well with any light color and white works well with colors having a dark value.

For example, yellow and black are different in the contrast of both hue and value. Highest visibility color combinations to use on your sign according to the Outdoor Advertising Assoc. of America (OAAA) is as follows:

Black on Yellow

Black on White

Yellow on Black

White on Blue

Green on White

Blue on Yellow

White on Green

White on Brown

Brown on Yellow

Brown on White

Yellow on Brown

Red on White

Yellow on Red

Red on Yellow

White on Red