A display or marketing sign can speak for your brand so that you don’t have to.
Unlike social media posts or your website design, these are tangible, physical objects that
signify your brand message. That makes it even more critical for your company to
develop a clean-cut strategy and design for your signage. Once you have built your
branding design, it’s time to create your signage.
Signage is foundational to your business’s success and awareness because they capture
your audience’s attention. You could say that they’re even somewhat of a billboard. There
are different types of signage, each addressing a different need. With each project you
develop, ensure that your goals are well organized and communicated to your graphic
imaging company.
It’s vital that the signs you produce and showcase check off the following criteria:
● Actively engage the audience
● Effectively communicate purpose
● Seamlessly signify brand messaging
A display or marketing sign can speak for your brand so that you don’t have to.
What may seem like a matter of colour choice and wording is far much more based on
science. It’s psychology and human decision-making at the end of the day. We as humans
build relationships with the colours and graphics we see in our day-to-day lives. “That
looks like the McDonalds logo,” or “I wonder why that store reminds me of a beach
house.” Our minds build opinions and assumptions of brands based on what our
impressions are of their messaging. We as humans have experienced life. Because of
such, we’ve built relationships to colours in ways where seeing them in certain combinations and designs in our daily lives can influence our mood, thoughts, and
feelings.
Colours are vital to creating an emotional response within customers. Red can trigger
anger, green can emote success, and blue can emote serenity. There’s an entire science
around colour theory; it’s worth the read..
In addition to highlighting the importance of signage or the emotional reactions to
colours, Uno Digital has crafted five tips that can help your business enhance its signage
and branding.
Tip 1: Visibility is the Goal: Make Signage Easy to Understand
Make your signage pop! It needs to be not only visible but also legible. This may seem like
an easy thing to implement, but it’s really not. Take the distance of your audience from the
signage into consideration.
Is the copy large enough for them to read? Is it visible within a more extensive, packed
environment? These are the questions you have to ask yourself when developing signage
that speaks effectively.
Keep the message short, don’t overdo it with too much copy. You’re going to tire the
readers. KISS — Keep It Short and Simple. Be very careful with the typefaces you’re choosing, don’t go crazy and choose some party fonts because you want to be “edgy.” The graphics are what give you the edge; the typeface is meant to supplement them.
Changing up the weight of the fonts will push the perspective and bolden the message.
Play around with different styles.
Remove the obstacles that stand in the way of your signage. If you find that it is common
for the space to be packed, that is reason to elevate the sign to a higher level so that
people are not unknowingly neglecting it.
Tip 2: Be Attentive to the Visual Layout
Keep in mind that you’re pushing out a visual message. Therefore, you have one chance
to capture the attention of your audience. If people see your signs once and look away, it’s
likely that your sign did not speak to them.
To shape your message into a palpable story, you have to lay out the design effectively.
Adding a border to your sign can boost readability by up to 25 percent. This is because
that border closes the visual story inwards and pushes the viewer’s focus towards the
copy.
Refrain from going too out-of-the-box; you don’t want to make your sign too complicated
or overwhelming to view. Be careful with how many graphic elements you include on your
sign.
Tip 3: Colour Choice is Critical
Picking colours is no simple task, especially when striving to showcase a relationship to
the brand. Memorability is essential to colour choice; you want to be unique but not at the
expense of the messaging.
The necessity of colour is dependent on a range of factors like sizing, environment, and
audience. For smaller sizes, using more noticeable, bold colours is the way to go because
people can quickly snap their focus to the sign when they’re in its vicinity.
The colours in the background need to contrast nicely with the colours in the foreground.
Contrast is your gateway to visible reading. Your foreground and background elements
need to be opposite colours to create an effortless viewing experience. Having them
oppose one another will dictate what parts people are looking at first.
Keeping up with the latest trends is not a bad idea; just be wary of how much importance
you place on the trendier colours because there’s always a chance that a trend can soon
become a fad. You must keep in mind the longevity of your signage. How long is the sign
going to be up? A few months? A year? Timing should definitely be considered when
deciding colours because the colours that your signage reflects can become redundant
or mundane to the eye after a while. Having a bold, memorable sign that lives for over a
year is top-quality work.
Tip 4: Placement is Key
Indoor or Outdoor?
First, you have to decide where this signage will sit: indoors or outdoors? There are pros
and cons to either. With an indoor sign, you can direct your customer throughout the retail
display or office space. A simple arrow with text will suffice, but Uno can elevate this with
specialized graphics and printing.
Indoor signs are also beneficial in promoting sales and discounts. They attract your
customers to a particular part of the store and stimulate a sense of impulsivity and
instantaneous shopping. No one wants to miss a sale!
Outdoor signs make all the difference when telling people outside to come inside. You
have your store banner, which says your business name, but that isn’t enough to capture
the eyes of the passerby.
Grounded or Above-Ground?
Where do you want your sign to sit? There’s a great benefit to having the sign sit above
ground because it will meet each customer’s eye level. Having it at such a height will
boost viewership. If you want adults to read about a sale of your finest wine, eye level. But
if you are selling children’s toys, you want that sign to sit lower because it will meet the
eye level of a child. That child will then beg their parent or guardian to explore!
In short, consider your audience. What is it that they want? Who are they? There are so
many questions to ask and even more to answer. But there’s a great benefit to doing so
because you can improve your marketing efforts as a result.
Tip 5: Size Matters
The final consideration to make when choosing to amp up your signage and branding is
size. The dimensions of your signage are vital to the design and implementation of your
sign. With more prominent signs, you have more space to fit graphic elements and copy,
but with smaller-sized signs, you can save on costs and choose from a variety of different
places you can place them. It’s all about picking what fits the creative brief and ensuring
that sizing is considered throughout the design process.
Graphic imaging is incredibly reliant on sizing; we cannot print a big image on a
small-sized sign and vice versa. Of course, in theory, we can, but what you’ll get is a
strange-looking sign, one that is either super distorted or incredibly stretched.
How Do You Get Your Business Started With Signage and Branding Success Today?
We’ve provided you with the top tips for designing signage that checks off all the boxes
for brand awareness and audience engagement. Now’s the time for you to use your
digital assets and develop signage that supplements your business strategy.
