The 2026 cycle is loud. Digital ads flash and vanish in a scroll, and feeds are saturated months out. Two physical tools keep cutting through anyway: yard signs and door hangers. This guide treats them as one coordinated ground game rather than two products in a cart, covering sizes, materials, design, distribution, and cost. It is written by Plavidian, a political print and mail shop in Vista, California and a member of the American Association of Political Consultants; the production specifics below are the ones we run every cycle.
Table of contents
- Why signs and hangers still win races
- Yard signs: sizes, materials, and design
- Door hangers: the last touch before the polls
- Distribution strategy
- What field materials cost
- Frequently asked questions
Why signs and hangers still win races
A yard sign on a supporter's lawn is a persistent, 24-hour endorsement. It needs no click and no algorithm, and it compounds: when a voter sees a name on lawns across the neighborhood, they read momentum, the bandwagon effect that sways undecideds in lower-information races where name recognition decides outcomes.
Door hangers do a different job. Unlike a flyer under a mat, a hanger attaches to the door and waits. When a canvasser finds nobody home, the hanger stays behind as a silent volunteer, delivering the message hours later. A team of five can cover several hundred doors in an afternoon and leave a tangible ask at every one.
The power is in the sequence: signs build top-of-mind awareness over weeks, then hangers arrive close to the election with the specific call to action, the polling place, the early voting dates, the ballot measure position. Add direct mail over the same universe and the voter meets the campaign in the yard, at the door, and in the mailbox.
Yard signs: sizes, materials, and design
Sizes. 18x24 inches is the workhorse: readable from the street, light enough for one volunteer to place with an H-stake. 24x36 earns intersections and commercial corridors. 4x8 foot formats serve highways and supporter fences. Plavidian prints 18x24, 24x36, 12x18, 6x24, 4x8 foot, and custom dimensions, with optional contour cutting when the design calls for a shape.
Materials. 4mm corrugated plastic (coroplast) is the standard: weather resistant, light, and inexpensive at volume. 10mm coroplast serves larger formats that need stiffness. Single-sided printing suits fence and wall placement; double-sided suits lawns where traffic passes both ways. H-stakes are ordered per sign, and grommets are available for zip-tie and fence mounting on banners.
Design rules. A sign is read at 30 miles per hour. Candidate name at maximum size, office sought, and nothing else that competes. Two high contrast colors beat four subtle ones. If a disclaimer is required for signage in your jurisdiction, size it to the rule, not to taste. Skip the website on an 18x24; nobody transcribes a URL from a moving car. Save the digital bridge for the door hanger, where the voter is standing still.
Door hangers: the last touch before the polls
Formats. The standard die-cut sizes are 4.25x11 and 3.5x8.5, with 4.25x14 for longer messages such as a full ballot guide. The die includes a hang hole sized for residential door hardware, with a slot so volunteers can hook the hanger in one motion. Plavidian prints hangers on 14pt cover or 100lb gloss cover, front-only or both sides, aqueous coated or uncoated, and can gang multi-language or multi-turf versions in one order sorted by version, boxed and ready the day the canvass launches.
Design rules. The front face carries one message and one ask: vote by a date, attend an event, support a measure. The back face earns the detail: the short case for the candidate, the QR code to a mobile landing page, the polling place lookup. Because a hanger is delivered by hand, it can be hyper-local in a way mail rarely is; a version per precinct with the correct polling location outperforms a generic piece.
One legal line that matters. Door hangers go on the door, never in or on the mailbox. Federal law reserves the mailbox for USPS-delivered mail, and a volunteer who stuffs mailboxes creates a legal problem and a postal complaint in one motion. When the universe is better reached through the mailbox, that is a mail program, and it can even reach every door on a route without a list through EDDM and saturation mail.
Distribution strategy
Map the sign program before ordering it: high-visibility intersections, supporter lawns from the volunteer and donor file, and commercial locations with owner permission. Track placements in a spreadsheet or the field app the campaign already uses, because signs disappear and the campaign that replaces them within a day looks organized to every passing voter. Order 10 to 15 percent above the placement plan for replacements.
Run door hangers on walk lists cut by turf. Hangers work as the leave-behind on a persuasion canvass and as the entire touch on a lit drop. Time the final drop to land inside the week before early voting opens, when the polling information on the piece is immediately actionable.
Both products are print-only field materials with free will-call pickup at Plavidian in Vista, using a barcode pickup workflow so any volunteer the campaign sends can collect boxed materials without a phone call.
What field materials cost
Field products price by size, material, sides, and quantity, and unit cost falls steeply with volume, so consolidating the order into one run almost always beats three small reorders. Yard signs at Plavidian are available from 25 pieces for pilot programs and price per square inch with quantity discounts; door hangers start at 100 pieces. Exact pricing for a configuration is visible without a phone call: pick the product and options in the Job Builder and the price appears as you configure, or send the whole field program through a quote request for a single consolidated number covering signs, hangers, stakes, and any mail over the same universe.
Frequently asked questions
What is the standard yard sign size? 18x24 inches on 4mm coroplast with an H-stake. 24x36 for intersections, 4x8 foot for highways.
How many signs does a local race need? Typically 100 to 500 for council and school board races, 500 to 2,000 for competitive municipal and county races, plus 10 to 15 percent for replacements.
What sizes are door hangers? 4.25x11 and 3.5x8.5 standard, 4.25x14 for longer messages, die-cut with a hang hole and slot.
Can hangers go in mailboxes? No. The mailbox is legally reserved for USPS-delivered mail. Hangers go on the door; the mailbox is reached with a mail program.
Do yard signs win votes? They build name recognition and perceived momentum, with the strongest effect in lower-information races, and they work best sequenced with door hangers and mail.
Put the ground game in production
A coordinated field program is signs early, hangers late, and mail throughout, all over the same voter universe. Plavidian produces all three in-house in Vista, California, from the campaign field products through camera-verified mail with piece-level delivery tracking. Configure and price the field materials in the Job Builder, or send the program through a quote request and get back one schedule and one number.