Good commercial wayfinding signage is all about putting your customer at ease in an unfamiliar space. Wayfinding should be intuitive and consistent – there’s nothing worse than allowing your signs to develop into a mash-up of styles, fonts and colours. If you’re renovating or remodelling, then now is the ideal time to reconsider your wayfinding strategy using these 5 top tips to success.
Keep it simple
You don’t have to spend a fortune to create a suite of informative and user friendly wayfinding signs. In fact, this is one area where digital isn’t better. It’s virtually impossible to set digital signage to please all customers – some will be frustrated if information scrolls too quickly, others if it’s too slow.
Make it easy for your customers to process information and get to where they’re going. Put yourself in their shoes and walk the building – how many times would you have to ask for information because a sign is unclear? Are signs displayed at the right height? And are they accessible for all your customers? By keeping your signs as simple as possible, you’ll satisfy more of your customers.
Pictures not words
It’s still true that a picture get the message across much more quickly and easily than words, and we retain that information for far longer. Pictograms are also the smart choice if you have a multilingual customer base, which is why they’re in common use for toilets, waste bins, cafes and restricted behaviour – why bother writing ‘No Smoking’ when the pictogram does the job?
The customer experience
In commercial spaces, things are often in flux and that can negatively impact on the customer experience. Designing for interchangeability is a smart way to save time and money and ease customer frustrations. Creating clear and concise signs is an easy way to enhance the customer experience and drive repeat business, while giving your customers the information they need.
Tried and tested commercial wayfinding
It’s tempting when revising your wayfinding sign strategy to go digital or try and get overly creative. Don’t – save the creativity for shop floor displays and stick with tried and tested sign solutions like colour coding. However old school it might seem, it works in a way that digital can’t match – there is a pre-established visual vocabulary that lets the customer see at a glance what the sign is for.
Don’t forget branding
Although commercial wayfinding signs are always designed with a purpose, that doesn’t mean you have to neglect your branding. Keeping consistency throughout your entire suite of signs from shop front to toilets helps to establish a pleasing aesthetic based on your brand colours, fonts, logos and other key design elements.
Commercial premises often overlook it, but this is an opportunity for branding that you shouldn’t miss. Reinforcing your brand package looks smart and attractive and gives your long term customers added confidence.
Ask the experts
At The Sussex Sign Company, we have plenty of expertise is creating suites of signs that deliver the kind of customer experience that will keep them coming back for more.
We can advise your West Sussex business on every aspect of signage, helping you to create a memorable visual aesthetic and maximise the return on your investment. Contact us today to talk about your project.