Author: Blu Hardy

Wayfinding Signage plays an essential part in helping your customers, visitors and contractors find where their way around a building, parking space and so on. Whether it’s to help direct traffic on a industrial site or guide the user to a specific landmark or area of interest, wayfinding is the perfect solution to help people navigate.SMART wayfinding solutions are crucial for helping people find their way around schools, hospitals, office blocks, or shopping centres. Commercial wayfinding signs must offer a visual communication aid to help eliminate on-site confusion, through graphics or symbols, text or digital signs. They need to be clear and concise to allow the user to feel comfortable in what can sometimes be high-stress environments.

Our specialised in-house team of award-winning designers and site surveyors will work with you to help design a blueprint of your space that not only embraces your corporate identity, but helps everyone feel engaged with their surrounding area.

See our Wayfinding Signage page:

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Here are five things that wayfinding signage should accomplish

>> Embrace your corporate identity

Connecting your brand to your wayfinding solutions can help to introduce a personality. After all, it’s your story, your people and your culture (your brand). Your visual identity is just as important and needs to be portrayed across your signage. Linking your brand to the internal and external environment will give the user a sense of familiarity and consistency (which we will discuss below). Nowadays, expectations of physical settings are heightened, leaving very little room for sub-par design and poor directional support.

>> Be simple & informative

Think of wayfinding signage as an invisible hand guiding the user from wherever they are to their desired destination. Areas without a clear traffic flow can sometimes feel chaotic and create feelings of stress and anxiety, meaning that your signage needs to feature crucial information that is universally understood. By simplifying your signage, you give the user the information they are looking for without creating confusion. Overcomplicated designs, busy graphics, and clashing colours can detract away from the overall message you are trying to give.

>> Location Matters

Having an effective wayfinding system means that location is an essential piece to your signage puzzle. Our in-house site surveyors will assess all entrances, exits, specific landmarks and points of interest to help highlight a route and key positions for signage along the way. Generally, we are good at finding our way, but on a complex site or large open spaces, having wayfinding signage located in areas people expect to see them, like junctions or where a straight line deviates, will help the user to the next part of their journey.

>> Be eye-catching

Offering the right mix of innovative sign, graphics, and material solutions gives you creativity and endless possibilities for design. Having visually appealing signage will help gain the user’s attention and guide them in the direction they need to be. There is a real art to picturing how your signs will benefit the location and the people using them, and our innovative in-house designers will work closely with you to develop new or existing ideas. By offering you fully interchangeable signage that can be located on the ground, on a wall or suspended from above gives you maximum flexibility to help create the most eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing solution.

>> Consistency is key

Having consistency within your signage is paramount. From fonts, text, shapes and colours, this allows for a more distinguishable, user-friendly and recognisable sign. People need to feel confident that they are heading in the correct direction and keeping your signage consistent from the beginning, middle, and end can help reassure a visitor when they most require it.Your wayfinding and directional signage won’t be limited to materials. With Hardy Signs, you can choose from a wide variety, such as acrylic, or vinyl, aluminium or Foamex. Depending on the location, we can advise which type would be the most suitable. Wherever feasible, we try to work with many different recycled and environmentally friendly materials and printers that are sustainably sourced. With low-cost options available, get in touch with Hardy Signs today for your wayfinding signage requirements.About the company: Hardy Signs is a professional and digital signage company that designs, manufactures and installs bespoke signage products to a wide range of business sectors in the United Kingdom. The company has been awarded the manufacturer of the year in 2019 and 2020.

Nothing is more valuable to a company’s advertising efforts than national branding. It establishes a unique appearance for every sign design produced for the company. That way, people across the country will see the signage and instantly think of the brand associated with it.

Businesses in the UK spend over £20 billion on marketing and promotions every year. Hardy Signs has received the honour of creating signage for several national brands. Some of which include:

• McDonald’s
• KIA
• B&Q
• Brett Martin
• General Electric
• Ford
• Adient
• Polymer Engineering
• Subway
• Aspire Housing
• And many others!

A professional signage manufacturer like Hardy Signs understands how to create signage that honours a brand’s identity. We will utilise a set of guidelines for your signage to help your brand gain national recognition. If you already have these guidelines available, we’ll be happy to implement them into the signs we create for you.

Here are some of the main guidelines we can use to create your brand’s signage:

1) Stay Consistent with the Signage Materials

A successful national brand doesn’t use any random materials for its signage. After all, have you ever seen McDonald’s use a wooden sign to display the golden arches? Of course, not.

National brands have to stay consistent with many aspects of their signs, such as the materials and finishes. For example, you cannot have bright neon signs in one location and carved wooden signs in another location. That wouldn’t make any sense, would it?

Your brand must stay consistent with the type of signage you use to display the logo and brand name. Otherwise, your customers could get confused and think about a different company if they see different types of signs used to display your brand messaging.

2) Stay Consistent with the Colours and Fonts

Another way to stay consistent is with the colours and fonts used on your signage. One of the worst things you can do is switch the colour schemes on your brand’s signs. Your customers need to visualize your brand in their minds whenever they think of your company. The best way they can do that is by remembering two or three specific colours that reflect your unique brand.

The font style of the text content should also remain consistent. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to write your brand name in Arial font on one sign and then Times New Roman font on another sign. If you want people to visualize your brand successfully, you need to be consistent with the font you choose for your signage text.

In fact, it would be even better if you could create an original font style for your brand name rather than using a standard font like Arial and Times New Roman. Hardy Signs can advise you on font creation if you have trouble coming up with an original font.

3) Always Display Your Brand’s Original Logo

Honouring a brand always falls back on its logo. Every successful brand has one powerful and original logo to display on all its signs. A good logo gives consumers an overall sense of the company and what it is trying to accomplish. In addition, an original logo can help consumers remember a brand and the products or services it sells.

Sometimes, it only takes a simple logo image to attract people to a business. For example, look at all the success that Nike had with their “swoosh” logo. Even though it is such a simple image, it is one of the most recognisable logo images in the world. People could see that logo anywhere and immediately think of shoes and sneakers.

4) Reflect the Personality of the Brand

Every brand has a unique personality. Brand signage can easily reflect that personality in its messaging and design. For instance, you could use humour in your company slogan or promotional ads to establish a funny personality for your brand. Perhaps you could use illustrated or painted images for your signage graphics to reflect a creative personality for your brand.

Contact a Signage Creation Professional Today

Do you need to create signage that honours your national brand? Do you need to create signage to establish your brand at a national level?

Contact Hardy Signs at +44 (0) 1283 569 102 to learn how our signage creation services can help you establish your brand and make it recognised across the country.About the company: Hardy Signs is a professional and digital signage company that designs, manufactures and installs bespoke signage products to a wide range of business sectors in the United Kingdom.

A retail shopfront relies heavily on signage to attract customers to come inside. So even if you spend thousands of pounds on newspaper and internet ads, none of that will matter if your retail signage looks unexceptional.

Retail signage indicates your shop’s level of professionalism and integrity. When people look at your signage, it should raise several emotions inside them. They should feel entertained, informed, curious, and maybe even happy. The only question you have to ask yourself is, “How do I accomplish this task?”

Below are the top 5 retail signage tips for driving attention and traffic to your shop.

1) Choose the Best Type of Signage for Each Location

Retail signage comes in many different forms. It isn’t just a banner over a door or a poster on a window. It could be illuminated signage, post & panel signage, floor signage, door signage, notice boards, point of sale, digital signage, etc.

Part of how you drive attention to your retail shop is by choosing the right signs for each location. Let’s look at some of the examples in more detail:

Wayfinding Signage

Wayfinding signage gives directions to customers unfamiliar with the layout of your retail shopfront. It is mainly used as indoor signage to help customers navigate throughout your shop and find the items, aisles, and rooms they want.

Floor graphics and suspended ceiling signs are two popular types of wayfinding signage. It can help you fulfil specific legal requirements about notifying visitors of fire exit locations and other emergency information.

Digital Signage

A growing number of retail shopfronts are starting to use digital signage. Standard digital signage includes internet advertisements, such as pay-per-click image ads and website banners. However, you could also combine physical and digital elements into signage found inside and outside the shop.

Here are some examples:

• Videowalls
• LCD Handsantiser Display
• Free Standing Digital Signage
• Wall-Mounted Digital Signage
• Touchscreen Digital Signage

Digital signage will make your shopfront look more like a modern shopfront than a traditional family-run shop.Enquire nowBrochure

2) Bigger and Brighter Signs are Better

What is your definition of effective retail signage? Well, it must stand out immediately if you want to get people’s attention and drive them to your shop. So what better way to make your signage stand out than by making it the biggest on the block?

A small colourful banner and window graphic may be nice, but will anyone see them as they pass by your shop? A beginner’s tip to driving attention fast is posting the biggest signs possible outside your shop.

Perhaps you could use some large illuminated 3D letters and logos or bright neon signs to drive traffic during the night. Don’t forget that many people do their shopping at night after getting off from work. So if you want them to find your shop in the dark, having large illuminated signs is the critical.

Another tip is to use bigger and bolder fonts for your text prints. This advice is suitable for all banners, flags, rigid signs, trade printing, wall graphics, and wallpaper graphics. In addition, big indoor signage will appeal to customers after entering the inside of your shop. It will guide them to the aisles and shelves holding the products which interest them the most.

3) Originality and Creativity Make Your Shop More Competitive

Many retail storefronts are positioned right next to each other in shopping centres and on the streets. It creates a highly competitive retail environment because you need to give customers a reason to walk into your shop instead of your competitors’ shops.

What is the most effective way to make your retail signage stand out from the competition? First, use an original colour scheme with no more than three colours that can identify your brand. These should be contrasting colours because opposite colour combinations are the most noticeable and vibrant.

Dark and light colours always offer the best contrast. Aside from black and white, you could use light blue and dark green or yellow and red. You could use almost any dark colour with white or any light colour with black.

Never use stock imagery or graphics in your retail signage designs. Every design must have 100% original imagery in it. Otherwise, your potential customers might notice that another shop uses the same signage graphics. It wouldn’t make your shop look too professional.

4) More Visuals and Simple Copy Content

Visual elements are the key to driving traffic with your retail signage. You can put copywritten content on your signage, but make sure it is simple and to the point. People don’t pay attention to signage with many words and few visuals. So instead, you should have more visuals and fewer words.

Construct your work usage carefully. You don’t want to clutter your signage with too many extra words and unneeded verbiage. The idea here is to be concise in your copywriting so that your main points and messages get delivered in the fewest words possible.

Please refrain from using all caps or exclamation points in your signage because it comes across as yelling or aggressive. Professional retail signage needs to speak out respectfully to its customers. So, use soft language and funny language while getting your message across.

5) Display Your Retail Signage Indoors and Outdoors

Don’t limit yourself to the number of locations where you place retail signage. If you have the budget and resources available, create retail signs for as many indoor and outdoor locations as possible. The more you get your promotional messaging out there, the more people will respond to it.

Your indoor and outdoor retail signage doesn’t have to be strictly for brand and product promotions. It could also provide directions, safety instructions, and educational information.

Here are some signs every retail business should use:

• Digital advertising
• Banners & flags
• Floor graphics
• Pavement signs
• Door signs
• Traffic signs
• Directional signs
• Post & panel signs
• Safety signs
• Point of sale signs
• Window graphics

As you can see, there are many different types of signs which can benefit your retail storefront. So why not use them all to promote your business? It can only help.

Learn More Information

Are you interested in getting some custom bespoke signs made for your retail business? Call the signage design team of Hardy Signs at +44 (0) 1283 569 102 for more information.About the company: Hardy Signs is a professional and digital signage company that designs, manufactures and installs bespoke signage products to a wide range of business sectors in the United Kingdom. The company has been awarded the manufacturer of the year in 2019, 2020 & 2023.

Storefronts and public facilities have a legal and ethical responsibility to post compliant wayfinding signs and graphics throughout their buildings. Wayfinding signage provides directional information to the guests, employees, disabled people, and anyone else who may not be familiar with your building or where essential rooms are located inside it.

Here are the top 5 things your wayfinding signs and graphics should accomplish to become fully compliant.

1) Clear and Understandable Signage

The Disability Discrimination Act wants wayfinding signage and graphics to be easy to read and understand, especially for disabled people. They recommend having contrasting colours in the signage design to make the signs easy to spot. The signage should also have braille and other tactile features to accommodate the blind.

Post the signage at a reasonable height for people to see and touch without any problems. A seeing person should look at your signage and immediately understand the wayfinding messaging conveyed. A blind person should be able to feel the braille elements and understand them as well.

In addition, try to stay consistent with the colours and fonts on the signage used throughout your facility. The design consistency indicates to people that they are within the same facility and not somewhere else unknown.

Check the DDA website to learn more about their requirements and recommendations regarding wayfinding signage in public facilities. Then you can make sure your facility’s signage is in complete compliance with DDA policies.

2) Give Directions to the Bathrooms

Public facilities must have bathrooms for men and women to use. Everyone experiences a call of nature at one time or another. They need to know a nearby bathroom is available to feel comfortable and unembarrassed in your facility. So make sure you have clear wayfinding signage to point people in the direction of the nearest public bathrooms available.

Bathroom signage is known for its blue background and white text font and designs. Since people immediately associate these colours with bathroom signage, it won’t take them long to recognise the messaging of this particular wayfinding signage. Therefore, we recommend you choose the same colours for your bathroom signage too.Email Us

3) Point Out Hazardous or Dangerous Areas

Public safety should be a key priority for any property owner or manager. You are responsible for ensuring the personal safety of everyone who lawfully steps foot onto your property, especially if it has hazardous areas. Failing to warn people of potential hazards could result in a lawsuit or worse if they get hurt on your property.

Hazard signs typically have a yellow background and black text font. Most people already associate these colours with warning signs, caution signs, and hazard signs because they are standard colours used for this type of signage. So it won’t take long for those colours to capture people’s attention.

Graphics are good to use because they can clearly illustrate the kind of danger involved in a particular area of your building. Some examples of hazardous areas include construction sites, wet flooring, laboratories, waste processing, industrial facilities, etc.

4) Highlight the Important Rooms and Areas

Every facility has rooms with different levels of importance. Your job is to show people where the essential rooms are located, such as the cafeteria, emergency storage rooms, kitchens, classrooms, medical rooms, etc.

Imagine a visitor coming to your facility for the first time and not knowing where anything is located. You’ll want to have all the necessary wayfinding signage posted to ensure that your visitors can find their way to any room or area of your facility without asking for directions.

5) Mark the Path to the Exits Clearly

Every public facility must have emergency exits in case of a fire, water leak, or some other emergency on the property. Furthermore, you must have exit signage posted throughout the facility, so people can quickly figure out the direction of the nearest exit. That way, you can have a safe and orderly evacuation without people tumbling or stampeding over each other.

Emergency exit signage doesn’t necessarily need specific colours, but we recommend a red background and white text font. Red is a popular colour used on most emergency exit signage, so people may recognise it in your facility faster if an emergency evacuation occurs.

Contact Us

Do you need high-quality wayfinding signs and graphics custom-designed for your facility? Hardy Signs can offer you high-quality custom wayfinding signs and graphics which are fully compliant with UK laws and regulations.

Contact us at +44 (0) 1283 569 102 to learn more about our affordable and professional wayfinding signage design services.

About the company: Hardy Signs is a professional and digital signage company that designs, manufactures and installs bespoke signage products to a wide range of business sectors in the United Kingdom. The company has been awarded the manufacturer of the year in 2019 and 2020. and recognised in 2021 and 2022 as one of the top 5 manufacturers in Greater Birmingham Area.