Along with your logo, your company signage will be one of the biggest things that define you as a business. Here, we have 4 must-know tricks for improving your company signage.
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1. Be consistent across all your branding
Remember what we said about your logo and your signage being of near-equal importance? For this reason and to keep up consistent branding, it’s very important that they both match design-wise. They don’t have to be completely identical of course, but you can make sure they follow along with the same general theme. This also applies to websites too. Look at all of it, with the lettering, colouring and placement and make sure it at least vaguely matches across all these platforms. And on a similar note…
2. Think about design and colour connotations
The design choices you make will define how people see your business. The first and most important thing is your colour scheme. Different colour choices can communicate very different things – some of the most significant colour connotations are:
- Light blue, which looks light-hearted and peaceful
- Orange and yellow, bright colours that indicate fun, fire and passion
- Brown, one of the least popular colours but can indicate dependability and sustainability
- Black, which ultimately says “serious business”. But be careful with this one – it’s great for something like an insurance company, but wouldn’t be so good for, for example, a childcare business.
- Green, which is generally seen to symbolise new beginnings and can also symbolise innovation, making this a great colour for start-ups! This could also work really well for school signage or logos!
Whatever colour you choose, you also shouldn’t go too vibrant with it, as neon shades tend to be off-putting when used in signage. Another very important aspect of the design is lettering. The first choice you’ll be faced with is whether you should use Serif or Sans Serif font, also known as fonts “with flicky bits” and “without flicky bits”. Serif fonts tend to look old fashioned and can therefore imply tradition and stability, but they can also look fun depending on the lettering they’re used with.
Sans serif fonts on the other hand, can look more modern but can also be considered more serious – again, it all changes based on the lettering they’re used with.
3. Be careful with placement too
On the subject of lettering and design choices in general, you should also be careful with where you place everything in your sign. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t have all of your symbols and writing and everything else overlapping in a big confusing mess. You should also make sure that your company name is at least somewhat centred, as it should be the main focus of your sign. Any taglines you have (which is a point we’ll get to later), should be either directly below your company name or below it and off to the side at least. And this also applies to any symbols used – you should generally place them just below or just above your main text, usually in a corner. Following these conventions will really help to make your sign look more professional, so make sure you use them consistently.
4. Make them clear and easy to access
At the end of the day, the essential function of a sign is to either let potential customers know who you are and what you’re all about, or to point people in the right direction whilst they’re on your premises. It’s therefore very important that the message you’re trying to communicate with your sign is clear – if this is something you need to look into, maybe some kind of focus group could be a good way to see if your message is getting across?
And when we say it needs to be easy to access, we aren’t just talking about it being easy to read and to navigate from a visual perspective. Where are you placing your sign? Will it be easy for everyone to read? If it’s an indoor sign, especially one designed for directions, does the placement help with that task? These are all questions you need to ask whilst creating and placing your company signage.
And if you’re still looking for some guidance, here are two bonus tips:
5. Taglines and focus groups
A tagline is a fantastic way to retain the attention of passers-by and show them who you are in greater detail, all in a short, catchy slogan. Your business may already have a tagline and as
If you don’t already have a tagline, it may be a good idea to work on it for a little while, maybe even with some kind of brainstorming session to bounce ideas around. Even if you’re not interested in creating signage for your company (if you aren’t I’d question why you’ve read so far into this article, but that’s by the by), having a slogan could be very useful for your marketing as a whole.
And speaking of brainstorming sessions to bounce ideas around, the aforementioned focus groups could be a great way to either research before you start working on the design and creation of your sign, or to ask for feedback during the process (or both). At the end of the day, public opinion will decide the success of any marketing campaign you undertake, so it’s a really good idea to get an idea of potential public reception at some point during the process.
Look over and really think about what you need to get out of these sessions – are you asking the right questions? Take notes during the discussion and record and transcribe it too.
So in conclusion, there are loads of tricks you can try to improve your company signage, including being consistent across all of your branding, giving some thought to design, particularly colour connotations and lettering, being careful with placement of text and symbols when designing your sign, making your indoor and outdoor signs clear and easy to access, using taglines (and making sure they’re well placed too), and making good use of focus groups.
