Three Essentials For Designing Your Custom Small Business Signage

Posted on: 19 April 2017

When ordering custom signs for your small business, you'll need to consider your audience, your brand message, and your medium (for example, you'll need to design your in-store signs differently from your vehicle wraps). Here are some essential tips for designing an effective sign that reaches your audience with your brand message, in your chosen medium.

1. Stand out with bold contrast

Contrasting colors not only help your audience see the sign (and manage to read it easily from a distance or when the lighting is poor); they also play a critical role in helping your audience remember your message. Of course, they can't remember the message if they can't see the sign, but in addition to that, brighter, bolder colors that "pop" are more likely to sear your message onto a potential customer's visual cortex. And they're exciting, which is crucial when you're trying to reach an audience that's already bombarded by signs and nearly immune to their effect.

2. Use font to personify your brand

Your colors can be chosen to help identify your brand's style and embody its message, as long as they're brightly contrasting enough. Similarly, your fonts need to be extremely easy to read; but within that guideline, you have a ton of fonts to choose from, so this is an ideal place to showcase your brand's personality. Choosing an elegant script for a boutique, a sleek sans serif for a modern eatery, or a retro font for an antique store can help clue your audience in on what to expect from your brand. That's why it's important to keep the font consistent with your brand identity if you want to reach the right customers; if your signage implies one sort of business, attracting the sort of people who are looking for an urban chic style, and then they walk in and find something totally different, you'll not only sell less to them (and potentially end up with dissatisfied customers) but you'll also miss out on pulling in the people whose preferred style does match what you actually have on offer.

3. Large letters and large signs

In addition to remarkable contrast and a font that conveys what you want potential customers to know about your brand identity, you'll need visibility. In fact, this is probably the single-most important part. Signage, like all advertising, is in part a numbers game; the more people you reach, the more people will investigate your business. So make your signs as large as possible, and make sure the lettering takes up almost all of the space; you want to leave just enough empty background to contrast with the lettering and make it stand out, but you don't want to waste unnecessary space on empty background.

These three essentials will help you get started designing effective custom signs for your small business. For additional advice, contact a sign manufacturer like Cardinal Sign Corporation.

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