What Size LED Board Does Your Shop Need?
A simple method for sizing a shop frontage screen, and the two mistakes that make a board unreadable.
For most shop frontages the answer is 8 × 4 ft, mounted above the shutter. Bigger if the road is wide or the setback is deep; smaller only if the frontage genuinely cannot take it.
The method, in three steps
- Measure the distance from the screen position to where your customer actually stands or drives past. Call it D.
- Letter height should be roughly D ÷ 100. Someone reading from 20 m needs letters about 200 mm tall. That sets the minimum screen height, because a board carrying two lines of text needs roughly three times the letter height.
- Width follows from the shutter. A board that stops short of the shutter edges looks like an afterthought; match the shutter width or the structural bay, minus a small margin.
Worked examples
| Frontage | Read from | Sensible size | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small shop, narrow lane | 4 – 6 m | 4 × 2 ft | P4 – P6 |
| Standard shop, main road | 6 – 10 m | 8 × 4 ft | P6 |
| Showroom, deep setback | 12 – 20 m | 12 × 6 ft | P8 |
| Building facade, arterial road | 20 m + | 20 × 10 ft | P10 |
The two mistakes
First, a screen too small for its setback. A 4 × 2 ft board on a frontage read from fifteen metres is legible but has no presence — it reads as a notice rather than a sign.
Second, cramming too much onto it. A board carrying five lines of text at 8 × 4 ft is unreadable at any distance. Two lines and an image is roughly the practical limit for a shop frontage, and one line plus an image is better.