What Makes The Best Business Signage?
In an ideal world, your products or services would speak for themselves without you having to do any type of promotions at all. Of course, as anyone who owns or runs a business knows, it’s not that easy to attract customers. Creating solid business signage has always been a necessity. Archaeologists have even found evidence of market stall advertising on papyrus from digs in Egypt, so you can trust that advertising one’s wares have been a human practice for millennia.
Today, however, advertising a business has taken on new levels of complexity. Not only do you have to compete with other local signage, print ads, and billboards, but you also have to worry about marketing in the digital realm. So, with so much competition out there, what’s a business to do? The quick and easy answer is to make sure you have the best signage. But what, exactly, does that mean?
Making Better Signage
The long and short of it is that the best signage will stand out, catch a potential customer’s attention, and incite them to visit your shop. Beyond the simple answer, there are a multitude of layers to consider when creating signage for your business. Flashy colors and fun designs are a good start, but great deals and incentives are also a major draw. Then, of course, you’ll want your shop’s information to be quickly and easily legible for people driving by who don’t have time to stop and read the sign. This means creating signage that is large enough to view from a distance and choosing your ad copy carefully to reach the widest audience. Let’s take the components of business signage and break it all down.
When making your business signage, you’ll want to consider:
- Color — The colors you use will need to be eye-catching, and help build your brand.
- Legibility — Your signage should be easy to read at a distance, so color contrast will be key.
- Text Size and Quantity — Keep it simple and make text larger than you think it should be.
- Signage Materials — Look for durability, weather-resistance, and ease of customization.
When it comes to the best business signage, TerraSlate waterproof paper, posters, and other materials provide great value and longevity without breaking the budget. Here’s what to consider when creating business signage, and why TerraSlate waterproof paper products are such a great option:
Eye-Catching Visuals
Point one is that any solid business signage is going to need to catch a customer’s eye. This generally means using bold, contrasting colors, fun designs, and a minimalist approach to text. When you think about major companies’ branding and advertising, often the standout element isn’t even a specific design, it’s a specific color. Brands like McDonalds and Coca Cola have built an advertising empire on the basis of a single color — so much so that many people can see a swatch of that color without any other details and that company still comes to mind.
Now, reaching that level of notoriety takes a lot of money and years of advertising. Unless you operate a major corporation, odds are good you don’t have that level of capital to put toward your advertising. Start by choosing a color or a set of colors to use across all of your branding. If you choose multiple colors, try to keep it to a small handful. Too many colors can muddy the visual message and make it hard for your materials to stand out.
The other element to consider is longevity. Choosing trendy colors can be a great way to catch a shopper’s eye, but will those colors still work as well a few years down the road? The idea is to build a brand, so be sure to think about how well or poorly your chosen colors will age.
Easy-To-Read Information
As mentioned above, you want your business signage to be clearly legible at a distance. If a potential customer has to get within a foot to figure out what a sign says, that can greatly reduce the odds most people will actually take the time to read it. To make your signage easy to read and eye catching, think “simplify.” Keep text minimal, succinct, and to the point. Convey the basic details that a customer is looking for, and stop there. If more details are required, those can be given online, via email campaign, or in store — after your signage has done its job and brought customers in.
Embrace contrast. A bold, rich color should, typically, be balanced out by a lighter counterpoint. Black on a white background is an obvious example, but the principle applies across the color spectrum. Using two shades of the same color can even work well, assuming you choose options with enough contrast between them. Don’t feel like you need to limit yourself to a “one dark, one light” palette, however. You can still choose multiple bright or rich hues as long as there is good contrast between them. Generally, this means choosing colors opposite one another on the color wheel. For example, a bright red and a cobalt blue will have some contrast, but they’re close enough on the color wheel that they may need the additional boost of a text border to really differentiate them from a distance. Bright red and emerald green, on the other hand, have a much more distinct contrast.
No matter which colors you choose, adding a border or shading around the text can also help give contrast. Ultimately, the goal is to increase how quickly a passerby can read your signage, so mock up a design then step back from your computer screen to see what happens at a distance.
Go Bold — From Graphics To Text Size
The quantity and size of your text should depend primarily on how much distance will be between your sign and the average viewer. The greater the distance, the larger your text should be, and the fewer words you should include on the sign. As you have likely experienced before, the further you get from any sign, the more difficult it is to read — much like trying to read the letters on the chart during an eye exam. If you want your signs to be easy to read from a distance, make the text large. No, larger than that. It might feel awkward when designing your signage, but anticipate making the font size larger than you think it should be.
The size of the font is likely going to limit how much you can say on your signage. In addition, however, keep in mind that most people are going to do a quick scan first, and then a more careful read-through if they are interested. There is a direct relationship between the size of your sign, the distance at which it will be read, and the quantity of text you should have. The further away passerby are, the less text you should have, if only to avoid muddling your message.
Choose The Right Materials
The other key element of good business signage is the materials on which you make your signs. After spending so much time creating eye-catching, bold, easy-to-read designs, it would absolutely be a waste if you printed them on something that caused your creations to blur! If your signs will be hung in windows or outdoors, you’ll also need to choose sign materials that will withstand the weather. Yes, that means signs and posters that will survive rain and snow, but it also means giving consideration toward materials that will hold up to day after day of sunlight beating down. After all, what good are those bright colors and bold fonts if they’ll fade to obscurity within weeks?
TerraSlate Waterproof Paper Products
When it’s time to make signs that will pop, choose TerraSlate waterproof paper products. Our waterproof printer paper, posters, flyers, and other materials provide the selection you need to create amazing signage. As the name implies, our printable materials are totally waterproof — no post-print finishing processes needed, either. We help our customers save money over the costs of lamination or custom signage because our waterproof paper products work like regular paper. No custom printing fees, no buying stack after stack of lamination pouches, just easy printing with an at-home laser printer or copy machine.
Better still, our waterproof paper products are designed to stand up to the ravages of the elements. Our waterproof paper is rip-proof, colorfast, and heat-resistant up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes it the perfect combination to sit outside and advertise your business through rain, snow, and sun alike! TerraSlate waterproof paper products are designed for outdoor use as well as indoor, so you can print those bright, bold designs and trust that they will last! The only limitations to creating business signage with our waterproof paper products are your design prowess and your printer — and we offer design services and printing services if you need help with either!
Experience the benefits TerraSlate waterproof paper products will bring to your business signage. Shop online today to choose the right products and the right paper weight to get started!