The wrong one can leave you struggling in obscurity.

That was the message last week (Oct. 5 through Oct. 7) at the Signage and Identity Symposium at the Hyatt Regency at Lake Las Vegas. The three-day conference presented experts on everything about signs, from sign engineers addressing the best designs for different soil conditions to attorneys tackling First Amendment signage issues. It was sponsored by the International Signage Association and the Signage Foundation for Communication Excellence in conjunction with the Nevada Small Business Administration and the Nevada Small Business Development Center at UNLV.

While the last two days were devoted to Continuing Legal Education courses for lawyers, a major goal of the event was to take the mysteries of good signage out of the realm of experts and put it squarely in the hands of those who need it: businesspeople. Speakers offered practical and detailed advice on how the sign-buying process should work, what legal issues should be considered. They also demonstrated, with photos, the importance of signs as active marketing tools.

"These types of topics are so vital to any business that wants to build a brand and an image. It's more than just a pole with a name. It's an introduction," said Lori Anderson, president of the International Signage Association. "(The symposium) is an opportunity that doesn't ever occur for the sign users and the people who still need to understand how vital signage is for their business."

According to Robert James Claus, a prominent signage attorney and president of the Signage Foundation for Communication Excellence, a good sign can make all the difference in the world to a small business. He said that savvy small business owners incorporate strategies used by the big boys — like national food chains and other multinational corporations — to increase their visibility.

"The last few years there has been much research to develop cost effective studies on signage," Claus said. "It's phenomenal what we've learned about consumer behavior. About 50 percent of new customers — not repeat customers — come from signs. It's what attracts people to a business.

"It's about getting a sign that generates business," he said. "Even a small business can get incredible results."

He said one strategy that small business owners can easily utilize is considering their entire building as a sign, a beacon. This is regular practice for large franchises such as McDonald's and Krispy Kreme. But it can work for any storefront. It's just a matter of clarifying the look of the business's brand and then incorporating that into all aspects of the facade, from interior and exterior signs, to paint to employee uniforms.

"You can't be familiar to the working person unless you have a way to communicate with them. Signs are their critical way-finding system. It's something to extend their time and open the opportunity to small business community to compete with these multimillion dollar companies," Claus said. "And by and large this has been missed until the last five years or so when they started to say, 'let's look at signs as a communication piece rather than something that's simply functional and ugly.'"

The presenters at the symposium also stressed that visible signs don't have to be unsightly. They showed photos of different signs and how shape, color and lighting techniques could make them "pop" to day and night-time drivers without looking out of place in the surrounding areas.

"A good new sign doesn't have to mean gaudy. A good sign doesn't mean ugly," Anderson said. "A good sign equals improved business, equals more revenue into that business, equals more employees, more tax revenue. It means all of that. It's our job to communicate that to everyone, sign users and municipalities as well.

"Improving signage on my shabby, random street meant improvement of the whole community. A sign can have a snowball effect. It can spark the beatification of an area."

That's something the city of Las Vegas is hoping to achieve through a grant program it's currently running in the redevelopment area downtown. Las Vegas' Visual Improvement Program provides reimbursement for 50 percent of the cost (up to $50,000) of pre-approved façade upgrades in a specific downtown area. This can include everything from landscaping to parking lots to new signs, said city Senior Economic Development Officer Rich Atkins, who oversees the program.

"These are older buildings that haven't been up kept and the new business owners need financial assistance to complete their projects," he said. "Obviously it's in the redevelopment area and we have blighted properties out there and for property owners to get the right tenant into the building and to raise rent, they have to invest some of their money to give that building a better look. So this helps them with that."

So what is good for the business can also be good for the entire city. That is exactly what the backers of the signage symposium hope to get across to those outside the sign industry.