- Why stand a TV on its end for a coffee counter?
- Because the wall usually decides. A coffee counter tends to sit against a pillar, a narrow strip beside a doorway or a window that is taller than it is wide, and a landscape panel there either overhangs or shrinks to fit. A portrait board reads as one column top to bottom, which suits a list. What it is not is a rotated landscape design: turning a wide layout on its side re-wraps every line, so the board is authored in the shape the screen is mounted in.
- How do I mount a screen in portrait safely?
- Three checks before drilling. The bracket has to allow rotation, which most VESA plates do but some fixed ones do not. The panel itself has to be rated for portrait: many consumer TVs are not, because heat rises differently through a rotated panel and the warranty often says so in a line people skip. And the cables have to leave the set without a tight bend at the new bottom edge. A commercial signage panel is usually rated for both orientations, which is one of the real things the premium buys.
- What should go on a cafe menu board?
- Put the drinks people order without looking first: flat white, cortado, latte, filter. Four to six lines is the whole board, because a queue reads one screen in about four seconds and a list of twenty is read as none. Give the filter of the day its own line with the origin under it, since that is the line that changes daily and is the reason a regular looks up at all. Keep food to a separate slide rather than crowding the drinks. Prices belong on the right, aligned, so the eye runs down one column instead of hunting.
- How big should the text be on a coffee shop board?
- Use the sign trade rule: 25mm of capital letter height for every 3 metres of viewing distance. Measure from the screen to the back of the queue, not to the till. A counter read from 4 metres needs capitals about 33mm tall, which on a 43 inch panel is roughly 6 percent of the screen height. Set the drink names at that size and let the origin notes and milk options sit smaller. Then stand at the door and read it. If you lean in, cut words rather than shrinking type.
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