Community gardens provide numerous opportunities and benefits to volunteers, visitors, and communities. While there are many benefits to community gardens, there are also many obstacles, including volunteer struggles. Recruiting, organizing, training, and educating volunteers are among the biggest issues with volunteerism. Signage has the potential to alleviate some of these struggles. Signs can advertise the garden’s presence to attract volunteers, promote events and opportunities to keep volunteers engaged, and provide education through interpretive signage. However, many design elements and content choices for signage in community gardens have not been studied. A survey was sent out to a national sample that reflects the USA’s census data (N= 345) for gender, age, region, and household income with a screening question inquiring if participants had an interest with gardening. Photos and questions were prepared to reflect various aesthetic and functional attributes of signage. Questions asked participants their opinion on which design elements were most likely to gain attention, what information is needed to complete a task, and important information to have on a community garden sign. Results showed clear winners for design choices for attention gathering, those being primary colors, wood material, graphically designed, with a non-serif font, and pictures. Educational signage preferences showed that infographics with text and pictures were preferred overall. Signage element survey questions showed that participants preferred pictures over written text. Interactions between findings with demographics and gardening familiarity were also analyzed. Overall, people who had more experience gardening had more positive outlooks on signage compared to those who do not. These findings will allow community gardens to design more purposeful and engaging signage.
