Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Tips For Creating Effective Retail Storefront Signage

By Kimberly Parker


If you own a retail business, you have to have customers. If that business includes a brick and mortar store, the customers have to be enticed inside. To get customers to the store a multiple pronged marketing approach is necessary. You will need promotional mailers, a great website, community outreach, and local media promotion. In addition, you must create compelling retail storefront signage. You can avoid the mistakes many make with their signs by following a few tested design tips.

Make sure the signs are clearly visible. Before putting signs in your windows or above your store, determine exactly how and where you will get maximum exposure. After you've decided that, you will know how big the sign has to be, how it should be designed, and the amount of copy to include. Legibility and visibility are critical.

Don't clutter the sign with copy and graphics. It's tempting for some inexperienced owners to try and fill all the available space on their sign with clever graphics and written information. When they do this, the reader's eye doesn't know where to go. The result for a potential customer, just glancing at the sign through a window, is confusion. It certainly won't stop them and convince them to enter the store.

White space is your friend. If your sign is cluttered with copy, it is hard to read. If it is hard to read, the buying public won't read it. White space helps the reader's eye move through the copy. About forty percent of your sign should be completely empty. That may seem like a lot, but the experts say it is the best way to ensure your message is clear, concise and easy to read.

Fonts, typefaces, have to be chosen with care. A common mistake people make is to capitalize too many words on a sign. Their theory is that capital letters look bigger, bolder, and get more attention. These people are not considering the reader's eye. If all the letters are the exact same height, the eye has trouble reading them as words. Copy printed in upper case and lower case is what the human brain is used to seeing and what is most discernible to it.

Borders can be very effective. This is especially true when you're trying to get the attention of street traffic. Borders tend to focus the reader's eye on the body of the sign. The careful use of graphics is a good way to make people notice a sign. Graphics printed in full color have more effect than those printed in black and white.

Color combinations are important. There should be lots of contrast between the foreground and background colors. If you have a black background, the copy needs to be printed in a much lighter color, like yellow or white. The reverse is true. Dark backgrounds aren't always the best choice. Light copy printed on a dark background is harder to read than dark copy on a light background.

It's expensive to advertise. You want the money you spend to be effective. Following these tips can make it happen.




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