Create Photo and Logo Paper Signs

Designing paper signs for your office or campus sign frames is fast, fun, economical and can even boost morale. We’ve done a series of instructional posts on paper insert signs with textured backgrounds, specialty paper along with simple text and spot color backgrounds. This one is primarily focused on adding photos and logos to your paper frame inserts.

If you’ve read the other posts in our how to section, you’ll notice the process of creating paper signs is basically the same until you get to the point of detailing the frame inserts to complement your interior design. The fact is you can add textured backgrounds, colors, gradients, photos and logos to your paper insert signs in total or just add some simple text and perhaps a color background should that best fit your specifications. That said, we’ve consciously broken them out at the risk of being redundant to illustrate the various options available in creating paper insert signs. The process holds true for office signs, office directory signs, flag signs, table signs and more. Whether it’s a WFP1U office sign or a D5U office directory sign, any sign system that accepts frame inserts can embrace the following process.

Since Microsoft Word is common to most businesses we will provide the step-by-step process, complete with illustrations, as to how you can make signs yourself without leaving the office. We’ll also show you a few options you can use in creating your paper signs understanding that there are numerous variations in addition to what is shown here. Please not that the instructions listed below may vary depending on the version of MS-Word you have installed.

Step 1: To make signs, open MS-Word and create a new document by clicking New (Ctrl + N), select the “Office” button in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and click the “New” icon or click the “New” shortcut icon to create a new document. Any of these three options will work.

Step 2: Click the Insert Tab. Then click the Text Box icon in the Toolbar. At the bottom of the window click Draw Text Box.

Move your cursor to the document (you will see a “+” sign appear) and drag it diagonally across the drawing surface while holding down the left-click button on the mouse.

Release the left-click button and your text box will appear.

Step 3: To size the text box enter the height and width of the insert you wish to create. Our sample sign happens to be a 3 x 4 5/8 office sign so we entered a 3 inch height and 4.625 inch width.

Step 4: To make the sign a bit more interesting we’re going to select a background texture. Click “Shape Fill” in the toolbar and then “Texture” to select a background texture for your frame inserts. Rolling your cursor over the texture palette will change the texture color on your sign insert until you find the one that best fits your needs. I happened to select the “white marble” background texture for this example.

Step 5: Now you can add your text and logo. To add your text, add one or more text boxes to your paper insert signs by clicking the Insert tab and selecting “Draw Text Box” like you did in Step 2. Position the text boxes on the background and choose the font, font color and font size that you desire. In order to eliminate the text box outline click the Format tab -> Shape Outline -> No Outline and now you have just the text. To blend in your text box with the background you’ve chosen, highlight the text box -> right click the text box -> select Format Text Box from the drop down menu -> under Colors and Lines set Transparency to 100%. You can also use the Color dropdown and select the color, texture or pattern to match the background you’ve already selected.

To add your logo, Click Insert -> Picture -> and go to the folder where your logo image is stored. Double-click the image and it will be added to your insert. You can adjust the placement of your logo on your frame inserts by clicking on the Line Spacing icon under the Paragraph dialog box. Here’s the final result.

And here’s the finished product complete with a Braille/tactile ADA lens cover.

As mentioned in Step 4, you can add pictures, gradients and photos to your paper signs. I took a previously created template (Template A) and modified the design by going from color to black and white, adding the employee’s picture and using a photo for the background image (Template B). Again, the purpose it to illustrate the numerous options you have in creating exceptional looking paper insert signs.

Template A

Template B

Here’s the final product, both old and new, in their respective sign frames. Template A has a Braille/tactile 217 cover while Template B has a simple, clear lens cover.

So get busy and start the process of designing your own inserts. Send along your designs to [email protected]. We’ll periodically post blog updates so others can benefit from your creativity.