When your customer passes by your store, your signage creates the awareness the customer perceives. Creating the right customer awareness is critical for business. Your signage creates the invitation for your customer to interact with you. How do you create signage that creates a desire for customer interaction? Color, messaging, size, and mediums all impact customer perception.
Your Signage is Your Visible Customer Invitation
Color evokes emotions. It is important that your sign color selection matches your messaging intentions. Here are how some common colors are perceived:
- Red evokes passion, aggression, and importance
- Orange is playful, energetic, but cheap
- Yellow is happy and friendly, yet also conveys warning
- Green is natural, stable, prosperous and has evolved into eco-friendly
- Blue is serene, trustworthy, and inviting
- Purple conveys luxury, mystery, and romance
- Pink is feminine, young, and innocent
- Brown is earthy, sturdy, and rustic
- Black is edgy, sophisticated, and powerful
- White is clean, virtuous, and healthy
- Grey conveys gloom, formality, and is neutral
- Beige accentuates surrounding colors
Interestingly, current color research indicates that colors are generally gender-neutral. However, shades of color resonant based on gender. Bolder, stronger shades are masculine in nature and resonance. Softer shades resonant stronger with females. Proper selection of color should invoke the emotion desired, while the shading should reflect your target gender audience.
The available size for your signage will dictate what can be successfully used and be impactful. Many jurisdictions have sign size restrictions, minimizing your choices. The letter size needs to be readable by your intended audience. If the letters are too small, then the passerby will not be able to read them. Likewise, if the sign is too cluttered, the customer will be confused and may not read your sign. The sign should convey the desired customer message without becoming busy or distracting.
Signage has evolved to more than channel letters on a building. Channel letters can be custom cut to match any font or graphic and painted in a variety of colors. Lighted signs with vinyl graphics can showcase graphics in addition to letters. Vinyl graphics can be installed on glass, doors, wall, ceilings, and even flooring.
The Rack Room Shoes store front signage is a great example of using color, clean design, and wall graphics to showcase their brand and message. Their color choice of orange conveys the low cost of their offerings. This is reinforced with the use of window graphics. The window graphics are orange and the big text of 50% off emp reinforcing their low-cost messaging.
The Pet Smart sign incorporates red and blue as their primary colors. The red is to evoke passion and importance while the blue invokes serene and trust. These are important emotions in having a pet. PetSmart reinforces their pet messaging with the glass graphics of a happy cat and dog. Customers passing by will easily understand that PetSmart is all about animals and the happiness they bring to people.
Careful design of business signage is critical to convey the company’s brand and message to nearby customers. The variety of sign opportunities expands a business’ branding opportunities. Custom sign makers provide their customers with the knowledge of best practices to maximize a company’s branding opportunities.
