The art of saying almost nothing: What it really takes to make a great billboard

People assume billboard ads are easy.

Just toss up a bold headline, maybe a date or URL, and you're good to go—right?

Not quite.

Real-world context is everything. You only get one glance. Make it count.

We recently wrapped a digital-out-of-home (DOOH) campaign for the Moto Craft Festival, a new motorcycle and culture event taking place this August at Base31 in Prince Edward County. It’s a bold, art-meets-speed-meets-subculture type of event. Naturally, the billboard had to reflect that.

But more than that, it had to work. And working in the world of highway DOOH means getting very real about constraints.

You get 4–6 seconds. Max.

That’s how long a driver has to see your ad, register what it’s saying, and hopefully remember enough to act on it later.

So every decision, every word, every shape, every colour has to fight for clarity and recall. You’re not just designing something bold, you’re designing something that can be absorbed in a glance at 100 km/h.

That’s where the real work begins.

The headline: The whole message in one line

For Moto Craft, we didn’t have the luxury of brand familiarity. It’s a new festival that speaks to a niche audience, so we couldn’t lean on logo recognition or shorthand.

The headline had to:

• Be benefit-led (why should anyone care?)

• Be clear (no cleverness for its own sake)

• Include a curiosity or prestige hook (something to make people want to know more)

• Stand alone (even if the subline gets missed)

We tested different structures, from lifestyle framing (“Where Bikes, Music, Art & Speed Collide”) to more utility-driven messaging (“All in One Motorcycle Festival”).

Eventually, we landed here:

BIKES. MUSIC. ART. SPEED.

AUG 1–3 · PEC

SEARCH MOTO CRAFT

It reads like a list. That’s intentional. Each word is a visual anchor. Each concept speaks to a core audience desire; then stops. The hook is bookended by BIKES and SPEED, words that cary weight for the target audience. No verbs, no clutter, no modifiers. Just fast comprehension.

Typeface & size: Designed for distance

This is where a lot of campaigns fall short.

We treated type like it would be on a highway sign: clean, bold, sans-serif, and large enough to read from 300–500 ft away. That meant avoiding anything condensed, stylized, or quirky. Helvetica Bold or DIN-style fonts work great, but we leaned toward Interstate, a reinterpretation of Highway Gothic, which has been the official typeface for American highway signage for decades.

Rule of thumb:

• 1 inch of letter height = 10 feet of readability

• For most highway boards, your headline needs to be 3–4 feet tall

Designing for beauty is one thing. Designing for velocity is something else entirely.

Colour & contrast: Legibility over style

We went with high contrast: black and white text on red background. It’s not just striking, it’s practical and provides some message hierarchy. No gradients, no outlines, no dropshadows. Just clean visibility, even in bright sun or overcast skies.

We also resisted the urge to get “creative” with colour schemes and intricate shapes. This wasn’t a moment for brand nuance. It was a moment to be seen.

The image: Instant signal, not decoration

Most DOOH creatives over-rely on imagery. But unless your visual communicates something immediate (emotion, tone, or category), it’s just decoration—and it’s probably slowing down your message.

For this one, we paired the text with a simple, high-contrast image of a vintage bike silhouette. Something that would register as “motorcycle” in a literal split second and support the rest of the headline. Anything more and it would have started to compete for attention.

The URL question: To include or not?

We gave this some serious thought. On one hand, including motocraftshow.com gives people a direct route to learn more. On the other, it’s long, easy to misread, and hard to retain at speed.

So we made a strategic choice: drop the URL and go brand-forward. The call-to-action “SEARCH MOTO CRAFT” is suggestive and unique enough that a quick Google search will land people in the right place.

If your brand name isn’t that distinct, that strategy might not work; but for us, it made the billboard faster and easier to absorb.

❌ Yellow Pages: Where do we even start here? Poor colour contrast, hard to read, too much info, small type. Who approved this anyway?

✅ McDonalds: Just enough to get the message across. No more, no less. Relying on a well developed brand, the colours say everything.

The takeaway?

When it comes to DOOH, don’t mistake minimal for easy.

It’s not just about making something short, it’s about making it sharp. Every word, every font, every inch of space has to earn its keep. Because the edit is the message.

If you're considering a billboard for your brand, whether it's static, digital, or part of a broader campaign, the real craft comes down to this:

How do you say everything you need in just enough space to be remembered?

That’s the work. And honestly? That’s the fun.

Want help crafting a billboard (or any brand message) that cuts through? Let’s talk. We love a good constraint.