4 Essential Tips to Create Effective Signage Designs

digital signage designs _ digital menu board designs
digital signage designs _ digital menu board designs

What makes a good signage? It involves more than just having creative logos and slogans. There are many factors to consider, such as placement, lighting, signage design, and market aspects. One fundamental to remember: a business with no sign is a sign of no business.

In this blog, we will guide you through what you should consider when creating your signage design.

What Makes More Sense to the Brain?

Before we discuss what makes good signage, let’s take some time to understand our brains. Visual data is processed and received by our brains faster than any other form of data. As a matter of fact, visuals make up 90% of the information transmitted to our brains.

Moreover, our brain views words as independent images we must recognize first, making reading ineffective. Therefore, our brain processes images better and more effectively than text. In fact, our brain can process images 60,000 times quicker than text

Visuals Matter. What’s Next?

You can now understand why visuals have become increasingly essential in marketing as technology advances. People are more likely to remember and recall information via visual presentation. Moreover, research proves visuals are a powerful tool to raise customer engagement and conversions. Hence, adding visual elements is essential to create an effective signage design.

Before Creating Your Signage Design

There are a few elements that may affect your signage designs. Before you jump into creating your signage designs, consider the following:

  • Placement of the signage: The locations where you place your signage will affect your signage designs significantly. Are you installing the signage at the store entrance, behind the service counter, or across the entire store?
  • Viewing distance: The viewing distance is closely associated with your final signage placement. As the viewing distance extends farther, your screen and font must be larger to accommodate.
  • Lighting: Are you placing the signage outside or inside the store? If it’s inside the store, are you installing the signage near the windows with lots of sunlight or behind the service counter with minimal light exposure?
  • Sign Angle: People can view your signage’ content without effort when standing directly in front and facing the display. Every shift of the angel will compromise the visibility. If you cannot change the sign angle, you should adjust the signage designs to compensate for the visual concern.

What Makes A Good Signage Design?

Once we work out the prerequisites, we can continue to create an effective signage design. We know that visuals are important, but the question is: how do we incorporate visuals properly to amplify their effect to attract customers and drive sales?

Here are four main elements you need to consider:

1. Images & Videos

A picture is worth a thousand words. Whether creating menus for your digital menu boards or promotion campaigns for your store, you should always include vivid images to capture customers’ attention. If budget allows, professionally taken/ high-resolution photos will be more effective in attracting and delivering your content to the targeted audience.

Let’s not forget videos. As technology evolves, customers are used to obtaining information fast. Hence, they usually do not have the time or patience to spare. Videos offer customers a way to learn about your offerings efficiently. As a matter of fact, 72% of customers reported that compared to reading text, they prefer to watch a video about a product. Consider adding videos to your signage design to build branding, capture customers’ attention, and share information quickly.

2. Typography & Font Size

Many people thought using flashy or swirly fonts made the design look good, overlooking the readability. It is better to use simple fonts, such as sans serif, in your signage design as they are easier for customers to read without effort. In addition, avoid using more than two different fonts to ensure good readability.

You also want to keep visibility in mind. The number one rule is always to avoid overcrowding your signage. If space permits, you want to use larger font sizes and bold text to help your customers read through your signage easily.

digital signage for manufacturing

3. Layout

There are a vast number of layouts available for you to use for your digital signage. Depending on your objectives, templates might not be the best choice. You can also create your own to achieve your goals or seek professional design services to create custom designs that fit your business.

Here are a few elements to consider:

  • Follow the right display ratio (16:9)
  • Keep things within the “Safe Area”: Leave enough safe space to prevent your content from getting cut off
  • Place your content from left to right to follow the natural eye-line
  • Arrange content by hierarchy: Include headlines, sub-headings, body copy, and call-to-action

4. Colors

Colors have more meanings than you think. Colors can impact people’s moods, feelings, and behaviors. For example, warm colors (including red, orange, and yellow) trigger emotions ranging from heart warmth to anger to hostility. Each color on the spectrum has its symbolic meaning.

Here is an example: The famous McDonald’s chose red and yellow for a reason. The color red is associated with energy and increased heart rate, which helps to stimulate appetite. Yellow is associated with happiness, but most importantly, it is the most visible color in daylight.

Having that said, McDonad’s did not only use red and yellow in their digital menu board designs. Even though they kept the red and yellow elements, they also used a white background with black text to ensure their menus were easy to read.

When choosing your colors for signage designs, consider what you want to achieve through your signage while keeping readability in mind. You also want to avoid using highly contrasting colors as they may be hard for people to read.

Final Words

You always preview your designs before launching them to the public. Make sure the content is legible and that the text flows for readability. To ensure your digital signage design achieves your goals, you can always speak to a total solution provider with a professional design team. They will be able to assist you and provide you with designs that fit your business.

You can learn more about NexSigns’ Digital Signage solution and connect with us on FacebookLinkedInTwitter, and YouTube to get the latest info on digital signage!

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