Did you ever wonder which is the predominant color of storefront signs?

By David McClelland

While driving by Bloomfield Town Square Shopping Center on Telegraph Road, just north of Square Lake Road, I was struck by the predominance of red storefront signs. That made me wonder if the signs in this Center are typical or are an aberration.

In that shopping center, there are 13 stores. K-Mart is at the north end and Costco is at the south end and both have red signs. In between, there are 11 stores and 9 have red signs or 82%. If we include the stores on each end, the percentage increases to 85.

I also checked the Tel-Huron Shopping Center at Telegraph and M-59 or Huron Road. There, I found only 7 open stores and 5 have red signs or 71%

My very small sample of only two small shopping centers revealed that 80% have red signs. If my sample were representative, and it is too small to be statistically significant, I would conclude that, indeed, red is the predominant color of storefront signs.

Other stores that I know of that use red storefront signs are Meijers, Tim Hortons, Save-On Drugs, Fitness USA, GMC, Bell Tire, Footlocker, Office Max, Michaels, Office Depot, Happy's Pizza, Mitsubishi and All Star Pizza, to name just a few.

Why are red signs used so often? Clearly, the sign companies will make signs in any color that their customers require. I expect that red is requested so often because the executives of the companies that buy them believe that red attracts more attention then other colors. I think that they may be correct.

Check it out where you shop to see how many red signs you notice.