Digital Signage Design Tips

Content creation for digital signage is fun. From picking intricate colors and patterns to use, creating videos, to playing around with texture and format. The only thing to remember is to let it be brief and as informative as possible. You must be familiar with some basic rules that will make your content captivating and legible.

Contrast And Legibility

Competition is stiff and there is no reason to take needless risks. Let the message be straightforward and easy to read. Carefully adjust contrast so that the message is legible. Finally, create a balance between the contrast and all colors that are used in the background and foreground so that text messages stand out.
The 3 X 5 Rule

Sometimes less is more. Be brief and concise. Don’t fill the screen with meaningless content. Let the text be large enough and only contain the most valuable information. As rule of the thumb, have at most 3 lines each with 5 words, or 5 lines with 3 words each.

Text Styles

Be careful which fonts are used. Italic fonts should be sparingly used because they can be hard to decipher even in close-up view. You can improve your content legibility by using large text with bold lettering. Arial font is an easy to read font recommended for short texts.

Color And Perception

Color improves the contrast and creates intricate texture. The digital display has three basic colors – red, blue, and green (RGB). White is a combination of all three while black is the absence of color. To improve the range of color that can be picked by the human eye, try:
  1. Use complementing colors
  2. Know what can captivate your viewers
  3. Understand the information

Focus Techniques

Create anchor points in the display to guide people to important information. Headlines, bright colors, graphics, and high contrast items can draw attention. The size of different items, arrangement and angles will create a hierarchy of importance in the minds of the audience

Previewing

When previewing the design, consider what draws the most attention and emphasize it some more. Make all texts readable before rolling out. Do this readability test while standing at least five feet from your monitor to have a feel of what the audience will see.