Small Caps:

For names, titles, logos, or the most important text in any layout, you cant go wrong with small caps. Many text layout programs will do it for you automatically if you take the time to learn. I use this one a lot. A good size for the small caps is about 75% of the full size letter. It also looks nice to slightly raise the baseline of the small caps above the baseline of the large caps, rather than to leave everything lined up on the bottom.

Extra spacing:

Opening up the letter spacing can be a very handy trick for important secondary text that needs to be fairly small, but also needs to block out to a certain length in the design. You can also include small bullets or shapes between the letters as in the second example. I find this adds a bit of elegance and refinement to a layout if used sparingly in the right places. Be careful and stick to a fairly plain and clear typestyle, or the overall readability of the phrase may suffer.

Mix styles:

Using a sharply contrasting typestyle for the initial letters in a word or phrase can also lead to exciting designs. Experiment with your font collection here, sometimes two fonts that you would never think of putting together can look great when used this way. In general, the two styles should be as different as possible to achieve an attractive effect. Using two fairly similar serif styles, for example, can look more like a mistake or a shoddy font than an intentional design feature.

Reverse text:

Here's an old vinyl signmaking trick where the letters are pulled out of a solid background of colour. Reversing text out of a vinyl shape can work well in many situations. If used for only part of a sign, it gives great emphasis to the phrase it encloses - great for warning signs and traffic signs with something really important like "DANGER". It can help make a name or title stand out in a crowded layout. Its also great for tiny text. I will sometimes reverse out an entire paragraph of half inch text inside a rectangle of coloured vinyl. When mounted to a piece of white sign plastic and trimmed to the edge, it makes a nice simulated "engraved" look.

Clipart:

Sometimes you can find a fun opportunity to replace a letter or letters in your design with a symbol or shape that helps reinforce the meaning of the sign. Keep the graphic simple and similar in shape to the letter you are replacing. O's and zeros work well, with many circular shapes and symbols available, but think creatively, replacing that "T" in tropical with a palm tree for instance. Be careful that the result reads clearly. If it is a name or unfamiliar word, can they really tell what letter is supposed to be?

Striped letters:

Here is a favourite in many automotive and racing designs, but it can be applied anywhere you are trying to accomplish a sense of speed, movement or flow. Simply cut a series of stripes spaced through the letters, and weed them out as above. Be sure the resulting pieces are not too small or thin to cut in vinyl however, and keep in mind that this trick can add a bit of time to the weeding process. Variations on this effect include using either consistent, equally spaced stripes, or stripes that become thicker/thinner or move farther/closer apart across the design. Also, if possible, use your software's weld and trim features to clean up the overlaps before cutting, so you wont have nearly as many separate little pieces of vinyl to remove.

Shadows:

I won't cover basic shadows and outlines here, as they are well implemented by signmaking software, and in their simplest form a bit overused, but here is an interesting variation on the drop shadow that will make for a unique and attractive design. If you look closely at the example above, you will see that we basically have a drop shadow that is separated from the main letter by whitespace. Also note that it is not a full drop shadow, but a bit more subtle. This is accomplished as follows: Starting with your basic lettering, add a single outline to it, then, select the outline in your software, and add a drop shadow to it. Now, when you cut this whole mess in vinyl, if you carefully weed out only the outline around each letter you will end up with the effect above.

Outlines and shadows:

You can make outlines, and you can create several types of shadows with your software, but how often do you combine them both? I for one rarely use the two separately, almost every shadow effect I use incorporates an outline as in the example above. This is accomplished very similarly to the highlighting effect: outline your letters, then add a shadow to the outline, but this time, you will need to weld the shadow to the outline, and weed out the original letters from the result. Hopefully your software has a welding feature, or you won't be able to try this one.

So, I hope your creative juices are flowing and you will try to incorporate some of these tricks into your next sign design. By experimenting, learning your software, and applying examples such as these anyone can be on their way to creating more professional and exciting designs.