Tag: Commercial Signs

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How to Maintain Brand Consistency?

Your marketing efforts could include multiple and diverse initiatives that usually help expand your reach and stay top of mind. In order to ensure consistency, you should consider creating a set of guidelines that connect together the look and feel of all of your marketing materials. Also known as your brand standards, such guidelines will help you expand by creating awareness while developing the key differentiators your company has when compared to the competition.

Consider focusing your efforts on the following:

  • Your Colors – considering that you integrate colors in everything you do when it comes to marketing, advertising, communication and more, it is crucial to remember that this specific element plays a major role in leaving a lasting impression on your target marketing. As you commit to a palette, remember that every color has a different meaning and level of influence.
  • Your Logo – the design of your logo should be consistent but also is the case with its placement and sizing. Every communication is an opportunity to leave an impression on the recipient; from letterheads to postcards, from emails to brochures…
  • Your Graphics – The symbols and shapes you use for branding purposes should be consistent as well in order to help your audience to remember you as you work your way to stay top of mind.

Always remember that your brand is your promise to your customers and prospects about what they can expect, how you deliver and what makes you different in the marketplace.  Consistency should lead to strong equity increasing your customers’ levels of loyalty and commitment. Are you being consistent with your branding efforts?

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Trade Show Booth Design – The Lighting Effect

Tradeshow_3The setting, design and effect of your booth constitute the first impression that you will leave on the attendees of a trade show.  All of these elements can be turned into more effective resources if your lighting in your booth is set in a way to catch attention and entice people to learn more about what you do.

–          Dim lights are mainly useful in settings with a tone of romance such as a bar or restaurant.

–          Bright lights work best in a retail environment in order to keep shoppers alert and engage them in a fun experience.

The lighting of your booth creates the experience for your audience and adds a factor of engagement. As you design your booth and trade show setting, keep in mind the role of light so that you tailor a satisfying and appealing experience for your visitors as you introduce your company and services. With the right choice of light, you can bring focus to specific products/services or simply highlight your booth details.

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Effective Design for Trade Show Booth

Tradeshow_2Getting ready for a trade show could be an exhausting task that requires a lot of planning in addition to the actual set up of your space or display booth. Here are a few tips to help make your job easier:

–          Reach out to the management of the event and learn all the details including size, wall space availability, access to electrical outlets, and more.

Your products/services need to be the center of attention. As you plan your display, make sure that you do not overdo and clutter your space.

Keep your message simple and to the point. Stay focused on your core message that will leave a lasting impression and try to avoid bombarding the attendees with tons of messages that will go unnoticed.

Consider including a video on a widescreen projection/TV screen that can capture people’s attention.

Think about the reasons of why the attendees will stop at your booth – is it the product/service? Is it the design? Is it your welcoming message and nice attitude?

Keep it simple but be creative – Focus on building your brand and creating awareness for your product/service.

Consider opening up your booth by eliminating the table across the front and eliminating any barriers that will prevent the attendees from “walking in”.

You may want to implement the use of large, clean and attractive images. Keep it simple but consider bold for lasting impressions.

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The Right Font for Your Business Signs

SignMaking the wrong choice might simply hinder such a process.

Keep your audience in mind and think carefully about them when you start your design process.  Can you get their attention to read a lot of text?  Where will your sign be located? Is it going to be at a busy street where drivers are rushing to get to work or next to a cash register where your clients will have time to read it?

With the thousands of available fonts, try to keep the following in mind as you are making decisions:

  • Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, are usually perfect for brochures, newsletters and business plans.
  • Sans Serif fonts are easy to read with large size text.
  • Script and Cursive fonts are perceived to be stylish and used for invitations and place cards.
  • Text fonts are the most difficult to read.
  • Novelty fonts can work either way depending on how you use them.

Another element to think about is the use of capital or lowercase letters. The use of all capitals might project yelling. A combination of capital and lowercase letters should be the easiest to read.

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Colors and Purchase Decisions

interior_design4Regardless of whether you are a business owner, property manager or an office manager, you probably take a lot of pride in the environment you create with the help of architects and interior designers.

As you work towards building a more prominent presence in the marketplace, your branding strategy should help support your efforts. From customer lobby signs to car wraps and window decals, the use of colors say a lot about your brand. Even designs through custom wall papers and murals décor tell something about you and your business. The colors you use have a great influence on your visitors and customers. Decision making is affected a great deal by visual cues that depend mainly on colors.

While smell and texture play a role in buying decisions, visual appearance and colors have proved to have a bigger influence:

–          Multiple studies have proved that customers have named color as a primary reason for why they decided to purchase a specific item.

–          Consistency in color helps business develop brand recognition while increasing the levels of positioning with consumers.

–          Different colors have different effects and influences on different cultures:

  • Yellow projects optimism.
  • Red provides energy.
  • Blue reflects trust and security.
  • Green perpetuates wealth.
  • Black creates a sensation of luxury.

–          Different colors have different effects on specific customers.

While color has a major influence on decision making, keep in mind that it is not the only factor to be taken into consideration. Reputation, design and customer service are only a few elements to not ignore.

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11 Eco-friendly Solutions to Consider

If you are a green company and deeply committed to more environmentally friendly printing and signage solutions, you may want to consider the following tips for eco-friendly printing:

  • E-Communication – replace paper communication with emails.
  • Double-sided – if for some reason you need to print handouts, and cannot use an electronic file, consider printing/photocopying double-sided documents which will save, not only the trees, but also money, space, and cost.
  • Overprint – sometimes it is best if you take time to know more about how many copies you need, instead of overprinting and causing waste.
  • Proofing – make sure the content and graphics of your to-be-print piece is proofed for any possible errors to ensure correct information before printing pages and pages of non-useful output.
  • Energy Star – do you use Energy Star equipment? If not, this is where you want to start.
  • Switch off – it might take some getting used to, but something as simple as switching off your equipment can bring you closer to running an eco-friendly operation.
  • Sleep mode – almost every technology has some kind of a sleep mode which will allow you to set your equipment to the lowest available setting that matches your needs.
  • Maintenance – proper equipment maintenance keeps your machines at a high performance level with efficient delivery.
  • Recycling – do you recycle internally? If not, you may want to consider doing so by placing recycling bins around your office to dispose of paper and recyclable products.
  • Electronic waste – make sure you have a process to get rid of your electronic waste.  It might take years and years for such equipment to break down in landfill. Reach out to your local waste management company and talk about options.
  • TakeBack Programs – ask your suppliers if they offer a takeback program that will allow you to keep upgrading on your equipment on an as needed basis without the requirement to fill the landfills with unnecessary waste.
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Many Reasons to Use Business Signage

Asset Protection: Acrylic Backing W/ Dimensional Acrylic Lettering & Vinyl by Focal Point Costa Mesa

Signage constitutes an important part of leaving a first impression. It attracts your customers’ eye while offering the opportunity to grow business. Companies see and understand the importance of branding as a venue to stay top of mind with your current customer base while building exposure within new markets.

Here are some of the top reasons why signage is important for your business:

  • Being one of the least expensive forms of advertising, signs have proven to be the most effective.
  • The financial commitment to creating new signage is limited to only one time. No recurring fees are needed or required.
  • Signs offer you a continuous advertising opportunity, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
  • Signs build exposure by introducing your business to potential customers, while creating a consistent presence for your existing clients.

lobbysign

Signage offers you the opportunity to be identified well so you don’t miss out on new and repeat business, while reminding consumers of your existence.

Your sign offers a space for you to share the most important information you would like to communicate with your target market while allowing you to grow your brand’s exposure. Having clear and simple design makes your sign easier to remember. In addition to your message and content, your color combinations play a major role in its effectiveness. Stay true to your brand!

Think of your signage as a mix of elements that include:

  • Marketing message
  • Audience reach
  • Visual acuity

Your sign’s job is to get the reader’s attention in an instant. Your reader is usually moving and your sign has only a few seconds to be seen, read and understood. Your sign has to make people stop and take action by calling, ordering, or even entering your location. The goal is to have a call to action and to get your customers to respond.

The following are other factors that have an influence on the effectiveness of your signage:

  • Placement
  • Size
  • Illumination
  • Height