When you contact your local signage company about a new sign, after the customary greetings and “Certainly mate… ” the inevitable next words are “… what do you have in mind?” There are a few basic principles in designing signage that depend on the needs of the business and the location and who knows those needs better than you?

If you have an idea of what the principles are:

· You are more likely to be sure that the brief you give your signage company will ensure that they come up with a design that does suit your needs perfectly.

· You will be more able to identify suggestions relevant to you from the ones the designer offers

· You will feel more qualified to judge whether his/her designs match the job.

Points to consider include; colours, visibility, layout, target audience, size, contrast, where you want it to be seen from, and viewing time i.e. if will it be seen by people who are seated, walking, or in a fast-moving vehicle. All these points are important and it is worth a little research to see just what exactly may help your particular situation.

Top consideration is colour. Not only is it the single most important of this list because of colour psychology and image, but almost all the others are very much influenced by the colour(s) used as well.

There is a lot of research published online in the area of colour psychology and image also quite a lot that covers pretty much all the other points as well so it is well worth a little look-up to see if you have been using the most suitable for your type of business or your desired image. A good tip to remember is that the world’s huge companies spend scary amounts of money on research of this kind with their own psychologists, etc and have left few avenues unexplored.

Whatever business you are in, have a look at the national and global giants of that business and see what they are doing with their signage and other promotional strategies. No aspect is accidental and it is probably worth digging into why they use those colours, those shapes, those layouts, those sizes, or those fonts, or whatever. Rest assured it is all very, very carefully calculated, researched and re-researched purely to maximise business so any business in the same industry can benefit from all that research with a little thought.

Signs are probably one of the most important ways that a company can show who they are and what they do. There are many types of signage from shop signs to window signs to banners at shows and events.

A good signage firm is one which is aware of all these factors but only you know where they need to start i.e. your particular needs.