The 1-2-3 approach to successful truck door lettering

On many (maybe most) trucks, the lettering is confined to the doors. This is especially true of tractor trailer cabs. The most common approach is to put the primary information and identification on the door and use the lower door or rear cab for DOT numbers and other legal requirements.

The copy, or messages, on almost every truck door lettering project can be ranked in order of importance from one to three. Line Number 1 is the most important line of copy, Line Number 2 is second in importance, and Line Number 3 is third in importance.

That seems simple enough—it should go without saying. Yet we only need to look at the vehicles on the road to see that on most, the priority of these three messages is often not clear to the viewer. We can’t say “reader” because if the truck door isn’t interesting to someone, they won’t bother reading it.