Will your signs need a refresh to keep up with the times?
A great sign can often transcend its original purpose and become a renowned emblem of a time, place, or ethos.
For example, the “Mind the Gap” London Underground roundel has long been an internationally famous icon associated with the city as a whole – and the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign in Nevada is an extremely well-known and often-parodied landmark that is instantly recognisable to anybody.
So what is it about a signage design that can become ‘timeless’? Does your business’ signage seem as though it will age like a fine wine, or is it going out of fashion as we speak?
In this post, we’re going to look at some ways that a sign can begin to seem dated – and some top tips that help you to find an evergreen design with great longevity.
Use “classic” design elements
One way to ensure your design doesn’t go out of style is to make use of visual elements that have been around for decades, or even centuries.
For example, using iconography of laurel wreaths has long been a great way to add an air of prestige and luxury to a design. As far back as the Roman Empire, designers have been depicting wreaths to add gravitas to their work – and it has simply never gone out of fashion.
Along the same lines, movie poster designers have been using a typeface called Trajan for decades. It’s based on the inscribed text found on Trajan’s Column in Rome, and has been used as the title font for everything from Titanic to Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and more. Why? It always looks good, and never goes out of style!
And in the world of sans serif fonts, Futura has been around since before World War II but is still used very frequently today to give a clean, modern, and stylish look.
If you want your signage to continue to look fresh into the far future, it simply makes sense to incorporate typefaces and imagery that never seem to get stale.
Otherwise, if you use a lot of elements that are just “in right now”, you run the risk of looking severely dated in just a few short years – and having the public look at your signage and think, “nobody uses that font any more”.
Consider a monochrome aesthetic for your signs
Colour can create a powerful branding effect – there’s no doubt about it. However, colour usage is definitely something that sees clear fads and fashions over a long period of time.
Remember how the 90s was all about eyeball-zonking greens, purples, and mismatched colours that didn’t harmonise? Remember how a lot of 70s designs were picked out with browns, oranges and other autumnal colours?
Like it or not, overuse of certain colours can seem to firmly plant a design in a particular time period. We’ve all heard somebody say, “that looks like something out of the 80s”.
It won’t work for every brand, but one clever way around this potential signage pitfall is to simply omit colour entirely. After all, it’s hard to immediately tell from a black-and-white photograph whether it was taken last week, or twenty years ago.
And in terms of signage design, this might be a matter of coming up with an iconic graphic concept – perhaps a white logo on a black background.
After all, the famous WWF panda logo has remained essentially unchanged since the 1980s because the simple black and white design never goes out of style.
Keep it simple
It’s a simple fact that the more complicated your signage design is, the more likely it is that some aspect of it will come to seem dated in time.
If you think about it, many of the world’s most iconic signs and graphics – such as the London tube logo we mentioned earlier – are composed of very few, very simple elements (eg., just a couple of geometric shapes and some text).
And it should be immediately apparent that the world’s most famous brand icons are often very, very simple. Just look at the Nike swoosh, the Spotify icon, or the Netflix branding.
These simplistic examples all have one thing in common – they are so basic that there is practically nothing about them that can become outdated. How could the Mastercard logo ever go out of style? It’s just two overlapping circles!
Be prepared to tweak
Even the best signs and logos in the world haven’t remained completely unchanged throughout their long history.
For example, McDonalds used their famous red-and-yellow ‘M’ sign for decades before switching to a more muted green palette in the 2000s. And remember how the Apple icon used to have rainbow colours?
You might have come up with a brilliantly timeless look for your business signage, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things you could change every so often to freshen things up and slightly update the concept – all while staying true to the original essence of the first design.
This might entail keeping the iconography the same, but slightly modifying the font of your lettering to give a fresh twist on the familiar logo.
That way, customers can recognise and become familiar with a consistent brand ‘look’ that nevertheless undergoes subtle updates from time to time to reflect modern sensibilities or changes in the business ethos.
However, it’s important to remember not to overdo the tweaks. You’ll likely need to get your signs refreshed and remade from time to time just as a matter of maintenance, and it’s tempting to want to do a complete facelift – but just remember that preserving strong continuity with your established branding is often a powerful move that can set up your signage aesthetic for long-term recognition.
If you’re not sure about the best way to create a timeless and iconic signage design for your business, that’s where we come in.
Our design experts can work with you to really get to know your business and come up with the perfect look – making your company immediately recognisable in your local area and niche.
Contact us today on 01233 625383 or via the website to find out how we can help with your signage project.