What colours work best for an illuminated sign?

One of the most important aspects when it comes to the design of illuminated signage is the colour scheme.

It will not matter how effective the lettering and imagery is if the colours are wrong. This blog will outline what you need to think about.

Creating contrasts

If you plan to use more than one colour, you must create contrast. This means bold primary and secondary shades will work a lot better than pastel ones in most cases.

There is an innovation called the colour wheel that will help you in deciding, with the key point being to avoid combining shades that are adjacent to each other on the wheel. For example, it’s recommended not to mix red and pink, black and dark brown or yellow and orange. These are low contrast combinations that will make your sign harder to read.

Avoiding clashes

Some colour combinations produce contrast, but are still not ideal for your illuminated sign. An example of that would be green and red. They are far apart on the colour wheel, but have similar warm hues. The result can be a vibration effect leading to nausea, or produce a sign that is difficult to read.

Consider psychology

It’s typically a good idea is to mix high contrast colours with warm and cool values. You should also pay attention to colour psychology; for instance, blue has associations with trust and security, so is ideal if this is what you wish to project.

At Ainsley Signs, we offer creative design in Manchester that can help with the production of signs for your business. Contact us for details.