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Yard Signs

© Hunter

Within approximately a month before each election, a strange new weed comes up out of many people's lawns. It is usually either made of paper with a metal frame or it is made entirely of wood . . . it is what is called a yard sign.

As part of your campaign committee you will want to appoint a field director. The field director's goal is to find good field workers and promote them to yard-sign captains. Captains manage yard-sign workers on four jobs: finding sign locations, constructing signs, putting signs up on designated lawns and taking the signs down by midnight the night before the election.

If you are on the ballot of a fall election, the normal timeline is to have the yard signs up on Labor Day.

About three months or so before Labor Day, the campaign committee or your phone bank should call everyone on your contributors list or supporters list to see if they would be willing to have one of your yard signs displayed in their lawn. This will give you a target number of signs you will need to have made. Always have an extra 25 or more signs made for yards you may get later on. You will find that when or if the candidate is walking door-to-door, he/she has the perfect opportunity to ask each friendly door if they will take a sign. If you don't have the extra ones made, you will have no time to make them, so plan ahead.

It takes time to have your yard signs designed. The best design is one that compliments your brochures in design and color. And while you are having your yard sign designed, if you are going to be using any large commercial signs, you should have them designed at the same time. The cost will be less.

The design should be very clean and you should use colors that will attract attention. Now, I said attract attention, not make people ill. Consider such combinations as black letters on a white sign or dark green letters on a white sign, or perhaps maroon letters on a pale gray sign - the combinations are many, but you want a look that says "classy."

When you have the signs constructed, consider that the paper ones are less expensive and the frames can probably be reused. The plywood ones are more sturdy and will last for years if properly stored in the off-season. If you live in an area with changeable climate, you must take that into consideration. You want signs that will withstand a month of whatever Mother Nature throws at them. If you decide to use heavy paper signs, you should have them made on a paper that is plastic coated, so as to repell the rain as much as possible. The wooden ones can withstand pretty much anything - except of course vandalism.