Whether it’s outdoor or indoor signage, there are plenty of ways signs can come in handy, especially when it comes to promoting your business. The best ones attract customers attention and get your logo in their heads – here are some top tips for how to achieve this effectively.
- Creating a strong brand
Crafting a strong brand identity is one of the most important first steps of starting a business. It begins with the creation of your logo, which will be the centre of your company as a whole. Whatever branding you choose to develop, this is the image that will represent you on the whole.
Be sure to choose colours, shapes and fonts that match what you want the general tone of your branding to be. For example, whilst business offering more serious services may go for darker tones and bolder font, a business selling cupcakes would be better off choosing a pastel colour scheme with a flowery font. It’s all about the colour and font connotations!
Once you’ve made your design choices, be sure to stick with them and use them is as much material as you can. For example, when designing a website, make sure you have the same colour scheme or at least one that matches. And it, of course, goes without saying that you should incorporate your logo wherever possible.
The point about consistency also applies to signage – when making various choices for your indoor and outdoor signage, look at the previous branding of your company and make sure it matches up. Once you have a distinct signature look sorted, your name will be far more likely to stick in peoples’ minds, especially if and/or when they see your colour scheme in other settings. Plus, it just looks more professional if you have a stronger, more consistent brand.
- How to attract attention through signs
There are many, many ways that you can specifically tool your signs to capture audience attention.
These include:
Lighting – This one works particularly well if you’re trying to get the attention of people walking past your shop/office space/wherever else you might do business. Backlighting signs makes them stand out and different coloured lights can even work well with various colour schemes. And if you’ve gone for darker colours overall in your logo, the right lighting can allow any signs to still stand out. Flashing lights can also work well to attract attention some of the time, but they can look cheap and tacky if used in the wrong context, so be careful!
Colours – There are of course some brighter designs that stand out more than others. Even if you’re trying to match your signage to your overall colour scheme, there are still ways to incorporate eye-catching colours. You could use the lighting tips mentioned above, or add shapes/undertones in brighter colours if you’ve gone for a darker tone. Something that must also be considered when choosing colours is your target demographic. For example, studies in colour psychology have proven that men tend to prefer the colours blue, green and black, whilst women generally choose the same line-up but with black substituted for purple. Like any other part of business, it’s a case of knowing your audience and catering everything you do to them.
Unique shapes – Unique shapes and backgrounds can also really help to attract attention. If you want to set your text within a shape, why not go for something different to the usual rectangle? For example, a triangular or circular sign could look particularly neat. Just be sure you don’t stray too far out of the convention and create a sign that attracts attention for the wrong reasons, simply from looking bizarre.
Contrast – Why not mix and match with your choices? Aspects like differing font sizes and multiple colours can really work in your favour, creating a unique design that will really grab the attention of its audience. When applying this to lettering, it can also be used to highlight important parts of the text.
For example, if you want to include both your company name and a tagline, why not put the name in bolder lettering and add the tagline below, smaller and in italics?
- Advertising special deals
Getting your name in the heads of passers-by and visitors to your office space may not be the only reason you want to attract attention. This especially applies to shop signs, but if you have any special deals or extra details as a part of your business branding, signs can also serve a second just as important purpose.
All of the previous advice for attracting attention also applies to these signs. And if we’re talking about exterior signs here, it may be a good idea to place any extras near the bigger sign with your business name if you have one, so potential customers will see both at the same time. On the other hand, if you’re advertising these deals on indoor signs, putting your name next to everything is a bit pointless and will, therefore, look silly.
And whilst we’re on the subject…
- Outdoor vs Indoor signage
It should also be noted that for the most part, indoor and outdoor signs can serve drastically different purposes. Whilst outdoor signs are mostly designed to attract the attention of anyone walking past and give a more general overview of your business, generally including your company name as well as basic information about what you do.
Indoor signs, on the other hand, will most likely focus on specific products or directions – your outdoor sign is the main event, but the indoor signs are the ones that will actually guide customers where you want them to be. Generally, there will be more of them but they’ll need to have a matching design to maintain consistency.
Overall, there are many things to consider when using various interior and exterior signs. These include the different purposes of outdoor and indoor signs, the difference that a change of design, text or colour scheme can make and the importance of maintaining a consistent look in all your branding.