09 Feb How Stylish Sign Design Showcases Your Shop
Whether you’re situated in a busy, crowded retail environment, or you’re in a more out of the way location, shop signs play a crucial role in promoting your business, attracting customers and consolidating your place in the community.
However, how you do this will depend on a variety of factors, and while there are no hard and fast rules, there are some guiding principles behind designing shop signs. As specialist sign designers and installers, PB Visual Communications can advise you on every aspect of creating effective signage for any sort of retail space.
What is the role of shop signs?
The impression that passers-by and others receive from the exterior of your shop can have a significant influence on how they think about what’s inside. Signage is often your first point of interaction with customers, and therefore is a valuable means of communicating your brand and values.
In addition, although advertising will be a primary aim, it is not the only one, and so shop signage should also aim to be informative and inviting, and convey something of the character and personality of the people behind the business.
It’s also important to remember that your signage is visible 24/7, even when your shop is closed, and so your sign designs need to account for this as well.
Shop signs with a purpose
There are essentially two key elements to shop sign design — the practical and the aesthetic — and both have their part to play.
Practical considerations when designing shop signs
There are a number of practical considerations when creating signs for shops. For instance, are you hoping to attract the attention of drivers in vehicle traffic? If so, the design needs to account for this, and so any text has to be able to be read quickly and from a distance. Detailed messages in this context will be wasted.
Colour needs to be carefully considered as well. If your shop is located on a busy shopping street or mall, for instance, there is likely to be considerable competition around you. Therefore choosing and using colour is important, as you need to incorporate a colour scheme that enables your signage to be seen and taken in.
In addition, where your signage is physically displayed will impact on the design. Window signs, for instance, will have different design requirements to temporary banner signs, permanent under awning signs, or portable A frame signs, and so these practicalities will influence how your signage is designed and made
What is the purpose of your shop signs?
In order to creating aesthetically appealing signage, you need to ensure you have a clearly defined purpose for your signs.
Are you using you signage to establish your identity in a new location, for instance, or as part of a brand makeover and redesign? Are you advertising a sale, or promoting a new product line? The nature of your sign design will be influenced by these and other similar considerations.
Creating character for your shop signage
Anyone who runs a business knows how important branding and image can be, and this is unquestionably the case for shops as well. Ideally, you want you want your signage to have character, to convey the personality and values of your brand, and make your retail space a place that people want to visit.
Using images in your shops signs design
The images that you use in your signage can go a long way to creating a character in the minds of consumers for your shop, restaurant or café.
A good example of this is the way many smaller or family run businesses feature themselves in their signage and promotional material, as a means of personalising the customer experience, and making a virtue of the business owner’s unique character and personality.
Another approach can be to focus more on images of your products, in the way a restaurant or café showcases its dishes, or when a furniture store’s signs highlight a range of sofas and appliances.
Alternatively, you might want to use other sorts of images that are not product-focused but are rather illustrative of the overall customer experience, e.g., happy and smiling customers, aspirational lifestyle images, etc.
If you need some help in this area, our designers are specialists in creating eye-catching imagery that meets your business’ needs, and can work with you to create a unique visual character for your signage, regardless of the sort of shop or store you run.
Copywriting for shop signage is crucial
Copywriting for signage is a specialised field and is a crucial element of creating effective shop signs, and conveying the messages you want to communicate in a tone and style that suits your brand and image. Your aim should be for your copywriting to reflect the character of your business, and so the phrasing and language of even the simplest sign can be important.
For instance, you often need to get across a lot of information in a limited space and number of words, and so finding the right text can be challenging. At the same time, however, you don’t want to confuse brevity with coldness, and so even if you only have a few words at your disposal you want them to be enticing and friendly.
Shop signs should ideally include a call to action as well, and so combining all of these elements together when space is at a premium can make creating effective copy for shop signage a real challenge.
Contact PB Visual Communications for creative shop sign design
With more than twenty-five years’ experience of signage design and installation in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, we are specialists in creating signage for all types of shops, retail spaces, restaurants and cafés.
We provide a comprehensive range of services, from copywriting, to sign design, to onsite installation, all carried out by our highly experienced in-house team of signage designers and sign makers.
Contact PB Visual Communications on 1300 441 571, email us on enquiries@pbvisual.com.au, or complete the online enquiry form to find out more about our full range of shop sign solutions.