Small Biz Survival

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New business sign design? Don’t use cursive script

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A grocery store building entrance with a sign that says "Alva's Market"
Fewer and fewer kids learn to read and write in cursive, so it’s time to stop ordering business signs with cursive or script lettering.

You might have seen the memes and jokes.

Someday all us old people will use cursive as secret code.

But you might not have thought about how this applies to your small business signs.

And we’ve all seen signs we couldn’t read because they used dense Old English script lettering.

Absolutely have to have script or cursive for your brand? Make sure any words in script are optional.

In the picture of the Alva’s Market sign, it would probably be ok to make the word “Alva” cursive since that’s the name of the town you’re standing in when you look at it. You don’t have to understand the word Alva to understand the business. The word “Market” is essential to understanding that you can buy food here. For all future signs, best to put that in plain block letters.

If you have existing signs with cursive lettering, start saving now for replacements.

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

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