Good Signage Design: The Art of Attracting Customers

In a competitive marketplace, a memorable and engaging visual presence gives your business an edge. Good signage is a key part of this presence, helping to attract potential customers and position your business as the obvious choice.

We take a look at some of the general guidelines to follow for signage design, and why it all starts with creating a strong brand.

Why your branding matters

Your brand forms your business identity in the minds of the general public. Think about some well-known brands. The 2018 Forbes list of most valuable brands puts Apple at number one, followed by Google and Microsoft. Each corporation has an instantly recognisable brand, and that brand features on everything pertaining to the company.

When you are considering how to create your own brand, there are a few critical things to think about. Your branding should be easily transferrable across multiple formats – it needs to work on everything from your stationery to your website, marketing communications and signage. To be most effective, it also needs to be simple, visually engaging and communicate what your business is about.

Creating business signage design

When rolling out your branding to your business signage, there are a few general principals to follow.

• Text - Stick to a simple font that can be used large or small, and that – when blown up – is clearly readable from a distance. Use a single font – bearing in mind that within one font, you have four variations – the original, bold, italic and bold italic, as well as lower and upper case. That’s all the variation you need. Using multiple fonts becomes too busy and that distracts from the message.
• Contrasts - Think about how the text sits on background colours. To be easily readable, you need good contrast – light on dark or vice versa. White on yellow, for instance, is difficult to read. Black on a yellow background stands out clearly.
• Colour - Keep it simple. Use the main colour from your branding, and choose perhaps one, maybe two contrasting or complementary tones.
• Imagery - If you want to include an image, it needs to be simplified so that it’s clearly and quickly recognisable. Too much detail can be confusing at a glance. That’s why so many images and logos on company signage are highly stylised.

These are the basic guidelines of solid signage design. If you’d like help with your branding and business signage, talk to us to discuss your options. We offer turnkey signage solutions from design to installation.