Now that yard sale season is really swinging I thought I would take a moment to talk (once again) about signs. Signs are so important and they are so easy to do right! And apparently, so easy to do wrong. With this I give you three examples from last weekend.

1. The Good.

   

   This examples follows two of the golden principles of good signs: making it obvious that the sign is for a sale (as opposed to an open house, lost cat, or free dirt), and having a big ol’ honkin’ arrow. While they did not mention the location or time, this is OK since the sign was less than a block from the sale. (This assumes that they also took it down after the sale. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt here.) The fringe and colorful circles don’t provide any navigational or functional assistance, but they are cute and might just provide that extra bit of motivation for someone to turn the corner and check it out. Points for these sellers!

2. The Bad.

   

   We got to the address where an estate sale had been advertised, and saw nothing … the door was closed and there was no signs in sight. Or were there? We almost drove on by, until one of us noticed this pitiful file folder hanging on a telephone pole. This is just stupid.

3. The Ridiculous. (In A Good Way.)

   

   These people had some fun with their sign (which tempted folks walking along a busy street to a sale down a narrow alleyway). While I’m pretty sure that “19 days only” and “financing” are technically false advertising, we were completely entertained. And while balloons were present (generally indicating a lame sale), they were not just any old balloons.

   

   We loved these sellers.