How to Make a Protest Sign: Linguistic Considerations

This is part of a series of articles designed to help you craft powerful and engaging protest signs.

Once you have nailed down your goals, target audience and message, you are ready to draft the text for your sign. Here are some linguistic considerations to keep in mind.

Use Concise Language

Try to distill your idea into the a short and concise slogan. The most powerful political slogans over the last 50 years have been 4 words or less:

"Silence = Death"
"Black Lives Matter"
"Love Trumps Hate"
"No Kings Since 1776"

Signs with too much text are hard to read and less impactful.

A photo of a middle-aged white woman with blond hair holding a sign that reads, "Stop Project 2025 Before It's Too Late. Do not become distracted!" Next to her is a middle-aged white man holding a sign that has a lot of text crammed onto it that is hard to read. — Which sign above do you find easier to read? Photo by Barbara Burgess on Unsplash

Other Linguistic Tools

Use action-verbs that convey urgency like "fight' or 'demand' or 'resist' or 'hands off'. Passive voice is not as compelling as active voice.
Witty wordplay can make your sign more noticeable and memorable. Some rhetorical devices to try:
- Mirroring involves taking a popular ad slogan and tweaking its wording slightly. Examples: "Fight Truth Decay" or "America Runs on Science".
- Parallelism involves juxtaposing two syntactically identical phrases in order to highlight the similarities or differences between two concepts. Example: "My Body, My Choice".
- Rhyming is another way to make your slogans memorable and catchy. Example: "People Died Because Kennedy Lied".

A photo of two white women. The one on the left is holding a sign that reads, "Hands Off Due Process". The other woman is sitting in a wheelchair and holding a sign that reads "Fight Truth Decay" — Protesters in downtown Beverly, MA in front of the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church on September 17, 2025. Photo by Marilyn Humphries.

Humor

Humor can be extremely effective at conveying a political idea quickly and memorably. Be careful not to sacrifice your core message in pursuit of a laugh, though. "It's So Bad Even the Introverts Are Here" is a funny sign often seen at protests. But it does little to focus attention on the issue driving the protest or rally.

A photo of a person standing in front of a tree holding a sign that reads, "So Bad Even the Introverts Are Here". The person's face is obscured by the sign. — Photo by: An Ectoplasmic Maenad on Bluesky

Remember also that humor, like art, is highly subjective and should be used strategically. Any jokes you incorporate into your signs should land well with the audience you are trying to reach with your sign. If you are trying to persuade people to join the resistance, avoid crass humor or jokes that only people who closely follow the news would appreciate. Even if a joke is hilarious to you and your friends, it might alienate your target audience.

On the other hand, if you are trying to make your fellow activists laugh to bolster morale, then by all means make jokes about Trump's latest gaffe (or tried and true ones like 'confefe'). Just keep in mind that these jokes might not make sense to people who don't follow the news closely.

It's also important that the tone of your sign reflect the type of protest you are attending. Humorous signs might be great for a No Kings protest, but not for a vigil outside of the Burlington ICE Field Office.

Next: Messaging Don'ts