For exntrepreneurs, opening your first office is an exciting time. You have all of your overhead taken care of. You’re fully stocked on supplies. You’ve got a great team of professionals taking care of your website. You have an awesome location. The ink in your printer is fresh and eager to drip onto the first invoice. There’s just one thing missing: a sign.
Signs aren’t just for the outside of your business. They go on the inside too, especially if you have a lobby area. Think about the last time you walked into a financial services company office. What did you see? Usually, you see a plaque or some time of sophisticated-looking sign hanging on the wall in the background.
Usually, the sign is a reflection of the type of company you’re doing business with. In the case of financial services, it’s sleek, sophisticated, with clean lines, and it looks expensive. It might even have mood lighting surrounding the lettering. Before you rush out to buy something for your lobby (or to refresh your old sign hanging out front), make sure you pay attention to these three design tips:
Use Color
Your business’s color should be showcased throughout your signage. Think about what you want to convey to potential customers. Are you a financial company? Green and blue might work best for you because these colors are associated with feelings of stability, money, honesty, and trust. Are you a restaurant? You might want to incorporate yellow – this color is associated with a feeling of warmth, freshness, and light.
Are you a jewelry store? Use black, dark blue, gray, or even red. Black denotes sophistication, while red invokes excitement. A black and red sign can convey feelings of a forbidden luxury – something that’s very hard for most people to resist.
Go For Quality
Regardless of what kind of business you run, go for quality. Buy the most expensive sign you can afford. This is not an area you want to cheap out on. A lot of businesses do – thinking that signage isn’t all that important. They’re wrong. It is important, and it’s something you can’t ignore if you want to stay in business.
A cheap sign is a reflection of what you think about your company. If you throw up a cheap banner, for example, it screams “amateur.” It’s almost like you don’t want to be in business. You have no sense of permanency.
If you hang and expensive glass-etched sign in your lobby, and bring in mood lighting to light it up from behind, it shows that you’re serious about your company. You pay attention to every detail. It also says to your customers that you spare no expense – when you do something, you go “all out.” That’s the kind of message you want to send to potential customers.
Be Bold
Some of the best signs out there are bold – audacious even. Think about the types of signs that famous brands use. Google incorporates wild colors into its sign. Burger King’s sign is unmistakable – using blue, yellow, and red to practically hit you in the face with their logo. If you want to grab people’s attention, your design has to be bold. Don’t try to blend in. Stick out like a sore thumb. That’s what will earn you the business you deserve.
Bill Nixon is a serial entrepreneur. He loves giving his tips and lessons learned on entrepreneur websites. To learn more, click to visit the website.
