We offer some key sign design elements that we have learned over the past fifteen years in Sydney’s signage industry, these principles can be applied to any building sign, banner, or even a vehicle wrap.
1. Consider that potential customers many come from all walks of life, backgrounds and age. They maybe looking at your business from a distance, in a moving car, bus, train, or caught in traffic both day and night. Limit your text to suit your environment, otherwise it will be rendered noise. Don’t sell them on your sign, save that for when they enter your business.
2. Best to invest in quality and well thought out sign design, instead of sticking up your company name and logo and opening the doors. The purpose of sign design is to generate interest and increase the quality and quantity of your customers and therefore sales. When we say ‘invest’ please consider 52% of new retail sales are impulse purchases, if you have poor sign design, or inadequate or ineffective signage this will cost you more in the long run than purchasing a quality sign in the beginning.
3. So your sign design is effective, you need to ensure you have the correct format and layout. A busy sign design with too much text is nearly impossible to read from a car, bus, or at a distance. The fewer words to get the message across the better – Be simple and straight to the point.
4. The western world reads left to right, this is the concept of “First Read.” Therefore create a focal point, such as your logo to the left. This concept is commonly utilised with menu boards, rather than logos or text, in this case your higher margin products are best suited to the left.
5. Your signage is your first impression to your customers and community, first impressions are lasting impressions. It comes down to mostly the sign design, potential customers will gain an impression and judge the inside of your store by how it looks from the outside. This too can be adopted to cleaning and maintenance of signs, illumination faults, dirt and grime can be quite off-putting – especially if you are in the food service industry.
6. Your building signage must be vibrant and have visual impact. It must make your location, products or services easy to remember via effective sign design.
7. Be sure your colours are used in complementing and contrasting patterns. Green on blue should never be seen even on signs and is not very readable, black on white is extremely visible. Consider that your sign needs to create interest from a glance, and therefore needs to be legible.
8. If your design have numerous colours in a graphic, avoid using various colours with text lines. Use solid colours which stand out otherwise your text will get lost in your graphic.
9. Ideally, the form, layout and the colours of your sign design should complement and reinforce the architecture, surroundings and brand elements. Obviously you need your sign design to stand out for all the right reasons, rather than something which would be viewed as awkward, or a sign which clashes and sticks out like a sore thumb.
10. “White-space” – is the surface area of a sign’s face that is left without graphics or text. This area should range between 30-40% of the sign’s face. The correct ratio of white-space is as important as text, colours and graphics for the best readability.
P.S. Do you need permission to install your signs? Check with your local council, land lord or body corporate before planning your new sign design, check your lease as there is no guarantee you will have rights to install signs. You may need to obtain a DA from your local council, if you have any questions please feel free to give us a call to discuss the best approach.
