Guide to selecting house number and letter width

Selecting the correct height and width for your custom house number is essential in ensuring it fits well within your desired space. Too small, and the numbers/letters can look out of place (and apologetic!) too large and they may be too tight for the space or even not able to be fixed.

When selecting from our custom numbers and letters a key variable that you can adjust is the height. The width however, varies depending on the specific letter / number chosen and also on your choice of font. The other variable to consider is the ‘kerning’ - the spacing between letters.

With a number of variables at play, determining the width can be a bit of a challenge, so we’ve put together a Google Sheet to quickly and easily make this calculation.

You can access the Google Sheet here.  

To use the sheet you’ll need to select:

1. Your desired height 
2. Your text [numbers or letters]
3. Select your font from our 7 available options. You can view the range of fonts avaliable here.

Once you’ve entered the above details, you’ll see the total estimated width. You can then adjust the variables to make sure the total estimated width works best for your space.

An example

Input:

Height: 200mm

Your text: 87 Ocean St

Font: Balmain

Output:

'87 Ocean St' in Balmain font, 200mm height, has a total estimated width of 1341.5mm. This is an estimate only, the actual width may vary based on desired kerning [space between letters] and manual adjustment based on the combination of different letters.

Recommended kerning [mm space between each letter] 20

Number of characters 11

Total kerning mm 200

Words 3

Recommended spacing between words [mm only relevant if multiple words or numbers and words] 100

The reason why we list this as an estimate rather than the actual relates to the kerning. When we put together the custom installation template for your house numbers we start with an even kerning between letters/numbers, and then make manual adjustments based on the specific combination of letters. The total actual width through the calculator should be close to what is presented in your custom template.

If you have any specific requirements or questions regarding your house number width, feel free to contact us.