50 Funny Signs That Might Get You Wondering “Just What In The World Happened Here?”

However, if you want to make a sign for your garage sale or even business, you need to consider more than just getting your point across.

Adrian Geach, who has been a signwriter since 1980, told Bored Panda in a previous interview that, "a good sign should be eye-catching, easy to understand and not too wordy with enough negative space around the text or logo, and have a good color scheme."

Geach lives in Wales but can take his brushes anywhere to work on a project. He left school at 16 to undertake a five-year signwriting apprenticeship and said he was lucky enough to be taught by three master craftsmen steeped in the skills of a brush and a pot of paint.

After learning the trade, Geach set up a signmakers business specializing in exhibition and display graphics and embraced the new vinyl and large format technology that was just coming to the forefront.

Adrian has been successfully involved in all areas of signage and graphics for decades but not that long ago, he went back to his roots and now concentrates on traditional signwriting.

With the current resurgence of interest in signwriting and hand-rendered work, he utilizes his skills to offer clients a more personal, unique, environmentally friendly, and organic signage solution using old-fashioned materials and techniques.

"A sign might only be looked at for a few seconds so it needs to leave an impression within this time frame, hence the less is more approach," he said.

"There are many factors to take into account when designing a sign but the most important thing is to make sure it doesn't get lost in its surroundings," Geach revealed. 

Similarly, writing about signs that raise more questions than they provide answers, my colleague Jonas had a talk about common signage mistakes with Lisa McLendon who is the William Allen White Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications and the coordinator of the Bremner Editing Center at the University of Kansas.

"Don’t carve an error in stone. It’s embarrassing and expensive to fix. Proofreading before you produce, whether it’s stone or not, is absolutely necessary," McLendon said that we should take the time to look over our work before making any permanent decisions.

Lisa also noted that the font that we choose for our sign is incredibly important. "Choose your font with readability in mind. It should be clear and readable at a distance; you don’t want to make people puzzle through a swirly script," she said.

For another Bored Panda piece about editing, proofreading, and kerning—the spacing between letters—McLendon said that word placement, typeface, and kerning are also crucial for effective, professional-looking logos and layouts.

"If it's just a few words, all-caps is fine, but it’s harder for people to read longer blocks of text in all caps. It’s also harder for people to read italic or highly stylized type, or type along a curve instead of a line,” Lisa then explained.

Furthermore, Lisa pointed out that we should look at all the ways in which our words could be misread or read out of order if they’re circled or stacked on top of one another.

If the kerning happens to be too tight, some of the letters could merge into different symbols and result in some (hilariously) embarrassing misreadings.

One example of this is writing the word ‘FLICKERING’ in all caps. If the kerning is too tight, the 'L' and the 'I' merge into a 'U' and you get... That's right.

Of course, you can always get a professional to do it. In fact, for the past few years, many places have been witnessing the revival of the handpainted sign.

Fed up with the chain culture that is slowly making all the streets look the same, city shops are trying to stand out with custom designs.

It's estimated that there are about 300 full-time signwriters working in the UK alone.

And it's not just the experienced painters who may have obtained a now obsolete City & Guilds qualification. There's also a young generation interested in all things bespoke.

One of them, signwriting enthusiast Sam Roberts, told The Guardian, "This is a generation that has grown up with computers at the heart of their work and who are seeking to engage with the physical processes that go into producing letter forms."

Whatever you choose, have fun! As you can see, signs don't have to be boring.