"Make your demo speak: How to make effective signs" by TradYouth"The purpose of a demo is to communicate your message to members of the public who are not in attendance at the event. Every demonstration or rhetorical performance has an immediate and extended audience. The immediate audience is exactly what it sounds like: it’s the people who were there to see and hear your demonstration in person. The extended audience is a bit different. It is more than simply the people who were not there, it is the people who will learn about your demonstration through social media, email, news print, and television news media. The size of your extended audience will vary on the kinds of communications technology we have and how we use it, but you need to make sure that your demo looks and sounds good for the extended audience as well as the immediate audience."
"Selecting a message for the immediate audience is important and the kinds of communications platforms you are planning to reach the extended audience with will affect the ways you communicate to the former. Of course, it’s perfectly acceptable to tailor a message for only one audience and not the other, but you are selling yourself short by failing to account for both the immediate and extended audiences. When you’re at a demonstration you usually will not be given the chance to have two-way communication with people who are not counter-demonstrating you. This means that your message to “the public” must be short, concise, unambiguous, clear, and exciting for people who are neither demonstrators nor counter-demonstrators. Now we’re going to step off one inception level deeper into communications theory… YouTube and Twitter have significantly changed the way that we consume news media and also communicate with each other. The amount of time it takes before someone can “skip this ad” on YouTube is five seconds. You have approximately the same amount of time to catch somebody’s attention on Twitter (quite possible less considering how quickly some folks scroll through new posts)."
"Here are my rules for making demonstration signs:"
>Make the sign as large as you reasonably can.>Don’t make the signs any larger than one person can carry.>Make the message simple and intuitive. If you can’t intuit the message in less than five seconds start over.>Make the sign easily readable from at least 20ft away.>Use color when possible, unless it interferes with #3 or #4.>Pictures, or it didn’t happen."When you’re thinking of a message to put on your signs– just keep it simple and straight forward. The more text you have is the larger it must be if you intend for anybody to read it. Too much text works against you in the same way that too much color works against you: Nobody will “get” your message because it takes too long to read ( >5 seconds) or is simply illegible. This is also not the time to whip out esoteric and complex quips from your favorite Italian philosopher."
More at:
http://www.tradyouth.org/2015/03/make-your-demo-speak-how-to-make-effective-signs/