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The best food. The finest service. The warmest atmosphere. None of it matters if people don’t know that you’re open for business. That’s why good signage matters to your restaurant. It sets the table for so much of your success.

You want your restaurant signage to be eye-catching , customized and compelling enough to set you apart from the  competition. The goal is to communicate your brand values and personality.  Here are a few tips to guide you along the development of your exterior and interior restaurant signage to  help you attract and build a crowd of loyal customers. 

1. Consider Your Sign Placement

Where you place your sign matters.   Ask yourself,  ‘How will my customer see my sign?’ Will they be looking at it through a car window from a distance or will they come upon it while walking on a busy sidewalk? Is there adequate natural or artificial lighting or will you need a power source to illuminate your sign?  . Are there architectural features that add uniqueness to the shape or colors of your sign to create  a memorable connection with your diners?’ Restaurant signage is a visual medium.  The most important consideration is making sure your sign is placed where it will be  seen.

2. Keep it Short and Sweet

The simpler and more concise you make the message on your sign the better. The goal is not only to grab their attention, but give your customer information to make a decision. Communicate in a short, clear and concise way, with easy to read fonts and typeface and eye-grabbing graphics or photos. Keep in mind that in most cases your audience is on the go and you only have seconds to get your sign noticed before they move along to the next visual attraction. Use three colors or less to avoid too much distracting busy-ness in your sign. Every word on your sign must count. Be direct and understood in the quickest way possible.  

3. Go Big and Bold

Your restaurant signage is no time to be shy. You want the world to know that you’re the best at what you do and that you serve the perfect food and drinks to satisfy any craving r.  Use bright color combinations to make your sign jump out and use adjectives that get noticed like ‘best’, ‘favorite’, ‘oldest’ and ‘finest’ to set yourself apart from the competition. Size does matter with signage  The bigger it is the easier it is to read and the greater impact you can make with appealing graphics. 

4. Test Your Color Choices

There’s a reason the color red is so prevalent in restaurant signage. There is a psychology of colors to explain it. Briefly, certain colors have been shown to elicit emotional responses that in turn can trigger a reaction from your customer. Red sparks a hunger impulse. That doesn’t mean that you must have red in your signage to attract customers. It does show how vital it is to realize how a color makes your customer feel. Before launching new signage, let others who you trust see your sign and get their reaction to the colors that you’ve chosen. 

5. Avoid Cluttering Up Your Sign

Trying to fit too much information into your messaging only serves to confuse and distract your customer. Make use of negative space to accentuate your design and allow space between text and graphics so each makes the impact you’re after. It’s important to seek that perfect balance of color, words and images so that your customer can easily grasp what makes your restaurant the one they should choose. . 

6. Use Contrast to Stand Out

Use color combinations that work in unison to improve the readability of your signs and increase memory recall, especially when seen from a distance. It’s best to select colors that bring out the best in each other.  The most popular approaches to give your sign a high-contrast appeal is either to use light-colored text on a dark background or dark-colored text on a light background. Many digital and LED signs offer ways to use animation and digital content to alternate between different fonts and backgrounds to keep contrasts fresh and engaging.

7. Quality Matters

Your customers make judgements about your restaurant based on the appearance of your signs., If they see illuminated signs with burnt out light fixtures or your indoor signs have faded colors or unrepaired damage, they associate the neglect with the quality of your meals and service. Your outdoor and indoor restaurant signage is one your most valuable marketing assets.  In many cases it will be the first impression they’ll have of your restaurant. Choose materials that are durable and continue to look vibrant and appealing for years and require only periodic maintenance. 

8. Stay on Brand

Your signage is a brand ambassador so it’s important to include all your branding elements like color and typography in your signage to build on established recognition, trust and loyalty. For outside signage use it to grab attention and draw your customer into your restaurant.  Interior signs can  create a familiar atmosphere employing brand images and colors for displays and wayfinding. 

9. Work With a Signage Specialist

If you have  your signage strategies in place from the beginning, you’ll save both time and money in the long run. There are a lot of considerations that go into getting your signage just right, including finding the most affordable and effective materials, understanding design and color elements, installation issues that address  local regulations and required permits.  Long-term maintenance  is also an essential element. . An experienced and reliable sign design company can identify potential challenges and eliminate unexpected costs or time delays.

YESCO restaurant sign specialists know how to create the ideal signage solutions to help you spread greater brand awareness and attract more customers. Contact us today.

Signs are everywhere! It  would be  difficult to navigate our way around the world without them. Signs  come in all shapes and sizes, can be made from practically any material and have unlimited uses. As a business owner, your commercial signage serves several functions which include spreading brand awareness, bringing customers through your doors or to your website, promoting products and services and helping your customers find their way around your property safely.

With so many options available and things to consider it can be challenging to find the right signs to use at every stage of your interactions with customers. In this guide, we’ll begin by explaining the three most common purposes for signs. That’s followed by a brief description of the two general types of signs, each of which should play a role in your sign strategy. This guide to signage concludes by narrowing down the many styles of signs available to help you determine which works best for your business. 

How Signs Are Used

Although there are a wide variety of signs, the tend to serve one of three purposes:

1. Informational Signage – This  type of sign provides  useful information that can help consumers  make  informed decisions,  navigate through unfamiliar surroundings and make decisions with more confidence.
2. Promotional Signage –  All signage is promotional when the branding and messaging is consistent.  This type of sign is designed to support advertising promotions using colors, placement and call-to-actions with the specific purpose of making sales and increasing revenue.
3. Wayfinding Signage –Wayfinding signage helps guests find hotel rooms and amenities easier and reduces stress for patients in unfamiliar healthcare facilities. They can increase student experiences on campus, improve employee productivity in the corporate workplace and guide shoppers so they can find products without difficulty.

Types of Signs

Signs fall into two categories: exterior and interior. Most enterprises require a combination of the two, and branding and design elements should remain consistent between your indoor and outdoor signs.

Exterior signage is used to attract notice and firmly implant the business’s brand and message into the consciousness of its audience. It engages viewers with vibrant and bold colors, eye-catching designs and succinct, easy-to-read text. Placement plays a vital role in the success of outdoor signage and is based on studies that show it takes repeated viewing of the sign before it becomes memorable and leads to conversions. Exterior signage can be especially effective when a business has a thorough understanding of their customers’ daily commute or the routes they travel in their community. Exterior signage is also important for wayfinding solutions that prevent frustration and confusion for guests and visitors on your property. The materials for these types of signage should be durable without sacrificing visual impact.

Interior signage creates a relationship with your audience once they’ve walked through your doors. They’re used to make the shopper, guest, or patient’s experience as enjoyable as possible, and establish a connection that can lead to greater customer satisfaction and increased revenues. Indoor signage should anticipate the needs of the customer and offer solutions that add value.. There are unlimited opportunities to engage audiences with appealing promotional displays, wayfinding solutions, dynamic visual images and fresh relevant content that matters.

Static or Digital

For years, most businesses and organizations could only afford and easily maintain traditional advertising that used printed signs and materials and lighting solutions that included front or reverse-lit channel lettering, light boxes, neon designs and directly lit signage.  As innovations in digital signage have brought costs down, the ability to coordinate digital content for added relevance and impact is providing creative opportunities for organizations of all sizes to reach audiences.

Static signage depends on brand consistency for relationship building across every audience touchpoint. In each case, the objective is to convey exactly the information your customers, workers, students, and patients find helpful and that solves their problem. Outdoor billboards and pylon signs draw attention from distances and indoor directional signage or point-of-purchase displays provide more intimate connections.

Digital signage lets organizations integrate digital marketing content like video and animation through marketing platforms with messaging that changes easily and stays relevant to the sign’s task at hand. It’s used to capture the attention of audiences on the go with digital billboards or larger than life architectural video walls. Electronic messaging boards and LED screens and free-standing digital signs provide great visibility and personalization in lobbies, waiting and conference rooms and hallways.

Sign Styles

What sign works best for your business? It depends on the personality you want to project, how and where you want to reach out to your audience, and what action you want them to take. Here are some of the most common styles of signage for you to consider and how they are put to use.

 Five Effective Outdoor Sign Styles

Billboards – These large signs, whether static or digital, attract the attention of drivers with short, concise call-to-actions. Billboards influence the decisions people make on where to eat, stop for the night, the real estate or insurance agent they can trust, or even which candidate to vote for.

Pylon signs – A familiar sign along freeway and well-traveled roadways that businesses in the hospitality industry use to grab attention. Whether mounted on one pylon or two, these signs prominently display logos and brands erected close to the roads  and can be one or two-sided to appeal to traffic traveling in all directions.

Monument signs – These free-standing signs are set up at roughly eye-level for drivers who pass them and are usually crafted from a combination of masonry and metal. They instantly create an impression of prestige, trust and professionalism and are usually placed away from a building to catch  attention.

Front and back-lit Channel Lettering – Mounted on the roofs or sides of structures, this style of signage is often common on businesses located in strip malls. They use appealing colors and illumination to stand out from the other stores and make places easy to find.

Digital LED signs – These common outdoor signs use brilliant illumination, animation and digital content with messages that can be administered and changed with easy-to-use management platforms. They increase visibility with displays that are difficult to ignore and that generate wide exposure in high traffic areas.

Five Effective Indoor Sign Styles

Free Standing Digital signs –  Popular in malls, convention centers and hotel and hospital lobbies these signs provide great visibility with eye-catching  images and are easily updated for relevancy. They can be stationed practically anywhere and may offer the added advantage of having two sides on which to promote products and engage audiences.

Menu Boards – These signs clearly present meal choices with appealing photos, graphics and colors, making the ordering process more efficient and customer focused. They help keep lines moving so that wait times are reduced and can increase order accuracy in order to eliminate customer frustration and waste.

Interactive Kiosks – Ideal for guiding and assisting guests and visitors, interactive kiosks serve as maps, handle customer service inquiries, and let people gather more detailed information about products and pricing. They can reduce stress in airports, hospitals, hotels and unfamiliar environments. Interactive kiosks also provide new revenue streams for businesses with self-checkout and contactless shopping kiosk solutions.

Video Walls – Entertaining and functional, video walls create fuller experiences for audiences with customized content and calls-to-action that drive them to new levels of engagement. LED technology provides valuable communication capabilities that make it easy for audiences to understand and remember what they see. Digital video walls are simple to manage, can be designed to conform to any space and give brands exciting ways to stay current and connected.

Directional and Emergency Signs – These signs are excellent ways to transcend language barriers and deploy instantly recognizable symbols and colors to guide, warn, mandate behavior and ensure compliance with laws and regulations. While these signs are important points of information, they can also offer fun and creative approaches to reinforce brand and make them appealing.

You need to get your signage strategy right. Your choices must make the life of your customers, patients, students and faculty, guests and visitors easier or they’ll go somewhere else. It can be accomplished through a unified approach that prioritizes consistent branding, perfect placement, and clear, concise messaging.

Keep your messaging relevant and your content fresh and unique with YESCO sign solutions. Contact YESCO today to find out how.