Commercial signs get an enormous advantage that political signs never get, and it explains most bad campaign layouts.

Familiar words are recognised, not read

SALE, OPEN and FOR RENT are shapes a driver identifies before decoding letters.

An unfamiliar surname has no shape memory at all: every letter has to be read.

So the name gets the space

Bigger than the office. Bigger than feels balanced in a design program.

High contrast, no thin weights, no script, nothing reversed out of a photograph.

What comes off first

The slogan. The website. The year. Usually the party. Often the office.

Each one steals size from the only word that has to survive the drive-by.

Check it the way it will be seen

Print it small, stand back, and read it in the time a car takes to pass.

If you can only get one thing, the name is the thing.