The purpose of digital screens is to attract the attention of people or potential customers towards your business. The content must be designed in such a way so that it is immersive, engaging and can look appealing enough to attract more number of customers. Creating or designing content for the digital signage displays can be fun and artistic at the same time. Designing and display of the digital signage content over the screen allows you to experiment with the colors, texts, animations, graphics designs, arrangement etc. The most important part of any digital signage is digital display content that imparts information along with designs and layout. A content on digital signage can only look appealing and attractive to the eyes only if the best layouts, dimensions and font sizes are chosen for your digital signage content display.
In the following blog, we shall focus and discuss digital signage, digital signage content design and tips or rules for designing digital signage content.
What is Digital Signage?
Digital signage is also known as electronic signage that uses the display technologies such as LED walls, LCD monitors or projection to display the websites, apps, videos, directions, restaurant menus, directions, webpages, digital images or marketing messages etc. The digital signage system works by delivering and displaying content such as the digital images, video streaming media and information is edited and scheduled in the content management system (CMS). Digital signage is the mostly used for advertising and marketing purposes where the businesses can advertise their brands that helps in increasing the business revenue and profits.
The digital signage functions in the different settings public spaces, sporting arenas, churches, retail store, corporate spaces, restaurants, academic buildings. Digital signage can be used for providing any public information and for conveying internal communication or sharing product information. It is used for enhancing customer service, promotions and brand recognition. It is a very powerful way to influence the customer decision making and customer behavior. This shall enhance the customer experience through interactive digital display screens.
What is Digital Signage Content Design?
Digital signage is a type of an electronic signage that displays messages, information or any other content on a digital screen. The digital signage is a centrally controlled system which has a content distribution platform where the digital content is distributed to one or more screens or displays. The digital signage in itself is nothing without content and success of any digital project depends upon the content. While ensuring the brand consistency, the designs and animations can keep the digital screens engaging and informative.
Rules or Tips For Designing Digital Signage Content
Digital signage have ultimate power to enhance the business communication with your customers and employees. While the digital signage software and digital signage hardware are two important things that are used for successfully delivering with engaging content. The digital signage content must be designed in such a way so that it is attention grabbing, appealing, legible and impactful.
These are the following rules or tips that should be taken into consideration while designing a digital signage content:-
- Digital Signage Ratios
The digital screens or digital signage are designed in such a way so that it is always created in same ratio. For any horizontal screen this is a 16:9 ratio and for a portrait screen it’s 9:16 ratio. When you design for a particular screen type you need to first check the size of the device and if it is already outside of a regular TV screen. The screen size depends upon the purpose it is going to serve in the long run and the type of needs of the clients it is going to cater. You need to first find the purpose behind designing the digital screens and then the screen dimensions are to be decided. The screen should be designed specifically in such a way so that the quality of the content displayed on screen does not get affected. - Digital Signage Display Resolution
“Display resolution” is considered to be very important that must be taken into account when trying to show content on the screens. This is referred to as how many pixels are shown on a screen and the more number of pixels depicts a better picture quality. The content should be fit for all three screens must be a 16:9 ratio. The number of pixels that are present in the picture determines that if screen resolution can be considered as “high definition.” It is never a good idea to display low resolution images on your digital signage or digital screens and for other obvious reasons.
Here are the standard pixel dimensions for different types of screens:
1) 960 x 540 pixels – quarter HD
2) 1280 x 720 pixels – standard HD or “HD ready”
3) 1920 x 1080 pixels – full HD
4) 3840 x 2160 pixels – ultra HD - Use Clear Fonts And Text Size
Many digital signage displays texts which are far too small to read and comprehend. Most of the digital signage should display texts that can be easily visible from a distance of 7-10 feet away. A 20-30 point font must be used for the texts that is easily visible from 7 feet away and a 100 point font can be seen away from 26 feet away. - Image File Size For Digital Signage
Apart from ratios and pixels the actual size of the file needs to be taken into consideration. We tend to find that 2-3 MB is perfect for digital signage. The picture should be of high quality to be able to look great. Only the Wi-Fi connection must be secured enough to support the file image and digital signage solutions requires to show digital content. - Use Image Overlays
The digital signage must use dark texts or overlay over any background images if you’re planning on using texts over it that helps to contrast. White texts can be written on the dark colored images or dark background overlay that makes texts stand out and can be noticed easily even from distance. - Choose Contrasting Colors
Using color palette or contrasting colors is very useful when trying to design digital signage content. The light colored texts are written on dark background and dark text is written on light background and such texts can be seen even from a distance. Digital signage must be shown using contrasting and attractive colors and texts must stand out against the background that makes it much easier. - Create Zones
The digital signage display can be a great way to maximize the space on-screen and display multiple pieces of content at the same time. In our zoning library, the series of zoning templates can help you to determine that how to split your screens into sections. The zoning rule states that one zone shall not play two videos at one time.
The zoning rules helps to ensure that your zoned display is clear, transparent and engaging at same time. A particular layout or format can be chosen after testing hundreds of different formats and layouts. - Check Sound
Digital signage are not just screens that displays texts but also plays sound. The sound that is played on the TV screen can be used for live videos, news feed, social media, YouTube and video streaming. If you play the content that requires sound and that sound must be audible and secondly it must be suitable for the environment. The app can be customized in such a way so that your own playlist can be played and to an extent where the sound does not cause any risk. - Dwell Time Design Rules
The design of digital signage content must depend upon the viewing time of the videos or duration of the content that you want to display. You can use the guidelines to show that how your content will be shown for :
-Short-term viewing (30 seconds)
-Mid-term viewing (30 seconds-2 minutes)
-Long-term viewing (2 minutes – 30 minutes)
The content design and timing depends upon that how long your visitor will be in view. In the offices where the view time is longer, you may want two 30-minute playlists on rotation, whereas in a shop window, you may just need a minute or two for the content to play in loop.
Conclusion
When we look at things from the perspective of a customer about the implementation of the digital signage then the business can come up with a specific design of digital signage that can cater to the needs of all clients. Highly engaging content can be updated on the screens that engages customers in the most effective possible way. Your digital screen is yet another medium to market the business advertisements and thus, it should be treated with extra care. Advertisements or marketing messages are updated on the basis of type of media, play duration, messaging, branding. You can choose to add, edit or delete the content as it is highly flexible and scalable and that highly depends upon the digital signage content design.
