Coming up with the right design to suit the business is an art, and it affects how customers perceive the company and its brand.
Designing signage is a big responsibility. For many businesses, the visual quality of the signage over the front door (and elsewhere!) can have a major impact on local reputation, customer acquisition, and more.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply write the name of the business in a plain font and call it a day. Coming up with the right design to suit the business is an art, and it affects how customers perceive the company and its brand. And with our modern world so saturated with signage, billboards, posters and advertising, standing out and making a good impression are more crucial than ever.
In this post, we’re going to share some of our expertise and cover some key tips and tricks to make sure you’re getting the most out of your signage design choices.
1. Pick the right typeface
When it comes to fonts and typefaces, there’s no need to stick to the defaults. Designers have been creating interesting letterforms for literally hundreds of years throughout the history of print, and many classic typefaces are still in use as digital formats today.
With endless thousands of fonts to choose from, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. For signage, the two main considerations are:
• Character – does the style of the font match the professional image and tone of the business?
• Clarity – is it easy to read from a distance?
Before you start designing, it’s a good idea to thoroughly work out what sort of image you’re hoping to convey. Does the business embody modern, or old-fashioned values? Does it need to appeal to children? Is it luxurious, or budget-friendly? Is it more important to appear quirky, or trustworthy? And so on.
Once you know exactly the kind of impression you want customers to have of the business, you can confidently pick a great typeface for the signage.
For more information about choosing fonts for signage, please see some of our other blog posts on the subject where we go into more detail with examples:
• 7 Great Fonts For Commercial Signs
• 5 More Fantastic Fonts For Commercial Signage
2. Select good colours
As with typography, the colours you pick can also make a big difference for the company’s visual branding.
Companies like KFC and Subway like to use bright, simple colours in order to give an appealing, non-pretentious and friendly appearance. On the other hand, a high-end hotel would want its door numbers, hallway signs and general branding to have the same elegant vibe, and a jewellery store might prefer to use darker hues such as black, purple or navy to give a more refined and luxurious effect.
Colour association is a fascinating field, as the presence of different colours can subtly and subconsciously affect how people feel about your brand and its environment. For example, many healthcare-related organisations and businesses tend to make use of whites, greens, and blues for their branding – in other words, colours intended to put you in mind of health, cleanliness, science, nature, and purity.
For a full breakdown of different colours and their possible associations, check out our post on the subject:
• The Psychology Of Colour In Signage Design
3. Light it up
If you want to stand out from the crowd, illuminated signage is a great way to do it.
Especially for businesses that operate throughout nighttime hours, signage equipped with LED illumination can be a very sensible investment – helping customers to locate the premises at any hour of the day or night.
These days, illuminated signage is very cost-effective. Whereas neon signage used to be the standard technology, today’s LED lighting is a lot more energy efficient and easy to maintain. It’s also more versatile – there are all sorts of ways to make use of glowing LEDs in a modern sign project.
When creating your design, you may decide that it would be beneficial to include lighting either inside or around your letterforms and logo assets. One way to use LEDs is to build the sign in a lightbox fashion with translucent acrylic and mount the bulbs inside for an internally illuminated look – or you might decide to extrude the sign away from the backing wall and add LEDs to the reverse to create a backlit ‘halo’ type effect.
To find out more about illuminated signage, we have a more detailed breakdown of the pros and cons of LED and neon lighting systems here:
• Neon Sign vs. LED Sign – What’s The Difference?
4. Do something different
Unless you’re very lucky, chances are good the business in need of signage won’t be the only one in town serving a particular need or niche.
When designing signage and branding materials, it’s always a good idea to consider the competition and make a conscious effort to differentiate your offering from theirs. At best, having a similar aesthetic is going to look generic and uninspired; at worst, it might even make your design look like a copycat imitator.
It makes sense to keep an eye on the other businesses operating in the same space and take note of their design choices, especially the things they have in common. If all of the other florists in town have got a green sign with a cursive font, then you’re going to need to do something different if you want people to notice your brand.
It’s also smart to think about the company’s immediate neighbours – who’s next door? Even if the next business along is in a completely different industry, it’s probably best not to have signage that is too similar to theirs and to try to establish a more unique brand identity. This is especially important in shopping centres and malls.
You’ll find a lot more advice about branding elsewhere on our site:
• How To Show Brand Values In Your Signage
• Visual Branding: The Dos And Don’ts
Ultimately, there is no one right way to design a sign – but with careful thought and some smart typography and colour choices you can ensure your signage will complement the business and draw in customers.
Contact us today via the website or call us on 01233 625383 to find out how we can help you with your signage design project.