New businesses can spur their growth by using custom made signs to give their brand gain a larger presence, but it helps if their is especially memorable and interesting to the public. Sometimes, to come up with an image that works for a new company, designers need to turn to something old to get inspired.
The Atlantic recently featured an article on the history behind AOL's famous yellow "running man" symbol, and according to the designer who worked on it, this symbol was meant to be a throwback to classic ad campaigns from the earlier half of the twentieth century,
JoRoan Lazaro, the man behind the initiative, said that the cartoon, which was meant to suggest the profile of a person in motion, is a nod to some of the stylized images that appeared in postwar advertising.
"If you go through the history of '40s and '50s design, you'll see there's a sideways man with a round head that was very similar," he said. "Back then, the brands were using a lot of anthropomorphic if not outright people figures. The brands were trying to communicate essentially that they were reliable, authentic, they had quality and personality." He said that his take was meant to be a simplified version of those images using one of the few appropriate colors available.
Translating old images into new, potent brand signifiers could help your business make a name for itself and use old effective strategies to greater purpose. On that same note, the signs made by custom screen printing could help this kind of classical image stick with the customer more and stand out among competitors. It's important that all of the proper colors and shapes are rendered clearly.