Table of Contents
10+ Digital Signage Templates
New York City—just as the world has always connected Fifth Avenue with the fashion industry and knows Broadway as the birthplace of show business and entertainment, Madison Avenue is considered as the cornerstone of American advertising. Located near the Grand Central Station and drawing an elite crowd from the Upper East side, Mad Av was also less crowded than the downtown district, making it a convenient place for multiple ad agencies, banking on the postwar consumerism of the 1950s.
Beyond pop culture’s not-so-subtle and brilliant depiction of its advertising heyday, you’ll probably think of more than a hundred or so colorful digital ads and signs of the biggest, most popular brands, littering the streets, and visible at almost every turn and corner, when you hear or read about Madison Avenue today. Do all of them get noticed?
Elements of A Digital Signage
People in the city that never sleeps are obviously busy, are always in a hurry and probably have a shorter attention span than your average person, so if you’re planning to have a digital signage put up, well worthy of Mad Av, you’ll have to start with these elements:
1. Hardware: This involves all the required computer parts and equipment, sign players, including your mounting systems, display panels and peripherals making up the core of what would count as a digital signage network.
2. Software: Digital sign software gives managers and business owners, digital designers, content creators and tech professionals the power to remotely take care of an unlimited number of display screens from one network. It’s also the software that’s responsible for creating content, timing, feeds, and placement of the elements in a digital sign.
3. Connectivity: This is your mode of communication for addressing a particular digital network or display which you can go through a regular Ethernet cable, an access to the world wide web, a working wireless network or through a mobile phone provider.
4. Content: The substance of any sign is the message that is being relayed to an intended audience. In the case of digital display signage, it’s all about what is showing on the screen.
5. Operations: You need to be ready for installation and manage and maintain your business’ digital signage network or unit. The question is, who is going to take care of the system installation? Are you paying a provider, or can it be done by a tech expert who is part of your staff? How do you plan on covering maintenance if network or outages occur? You also need to assign people who will control screens and a control room while you’re at it.
6. Design: This area of the signage network is all about the sign’s purpose. What will the signage’s environment be like? If it’s for your own business, what size do you plan in putting it up? Are you going to have it mounted or will it work by kiosk? How many do you need for it to serve its purpose? These are the questions you need to address when you finalize your design.
10+ Digital Signage Templates
Free After Work Parties Digital Signage
Christmas Digital Signage Template
Free Food Advertising Digital Signage
Free Happy Hour Digital Signage
Price List Digital Signage
Free Real Estate Digital Signage Template
Soccer Digital Signage Template
Free Travel Deals Digital Signage
Free Company Digital Signage Template
Recipe Digital Signage Template
Free Welcome Sign Digital Signage Template
Steps to Design a Digital Signage
Designing a digital signage and creating its content is a fun, creative process that lets you play around with different design elements such as color, contrast, text and visual hierarchy. However, you must not forget that the end goal is to send a message and share an information. Follow these steps in designing an effective signage:
1. Take advantage of user-friendly tools: We’re lucky to have been born and get to live in a time where easy and great tools for design are accessible, giving chance to even the most novice of content designers and creators to give a graphic design a fair shot. Many of these tools are now cloud-based and available to access anywhere, giving you a chance to share your designs with local collaborators.
2. Incorporate branding anywhere: When people who pass by see the digital signage of your business, they immediately notice the content so you would naturally want them to know who is behind its creation. If your content is well-designed enough to get attention in a matter of seconds, why not use it as a marketing tool as much as you can? You’ll be able to incorporate branding when you include the business logo, brand’s colors and any other elements that serve as your part of your brand identity.
3. Think of your audience: The content of a digital signage is generally easy to edit and customize as needed or wanted. You can do this by developing content that recognizes your audience. If your digital signage is primarily for internal communications, design the content that acknowledges everybody’s contribution to the success of the business, and goes beyond the call of service, or create it in a way that allows you to celebrate milestones.
Tips in Designing A Digital Signage
The basic principle in design is after all function before form, which means it’s equally important to have a good understanding of the rules in making sure your signage is as readable as it is visually appealing. Here are some tips to help you create a digital signage that both informs and attracts an audience:
- Choose colors wisely: A loud color palette or the wrong colors combined together will also look wrong. Teenagers flocking retail stores and the malls may want to see wild colors in one signage but putting the same thing could seem garish to tourists at the airport looking for basic but important information such as flight schedules.
- Consider balance and contrast: One of the most important parts for easy reading at a given distance is the contrast between the background and foreground of your sign and the overall balance of the design. For starters, white text on a darker background creates a great result and using colored text against a bright background would be a bad choice.
Types of Digital Signages
Digital signs normally make use of technologies such as, LED, LCD, projected images and plasma displays and are usually controlled by servers or personal computers which could be designed as any of the following:
- Indoor Digital Signage: Businesses that require providing a list of messages, services, and notices to their clients can use these displays. With the help of indoor digital signage, owners can update their ads instantly in a way that is appealing to the audiences.
- Digital Posters: These are probably the most practical signage a business can use for marketing since digital posters take advantage of high definition (HD) technology and a built-in media player. One disadvantage of using digital posters is that they need to be manually updated when you need to make some changes to the information of the design.
- Outdoor Digital Signage: Obviously, these signs are meant to be placed outside or outdoors to be more specific while being connected to a network for it to work. They make use of LCD enclosure which serves as protection from theft and vandalism. They are absolutely perfect for a business that is trying to promote its brand name to people who have no exposure to its services and products.
Digital Signage Sizes
A digital signage can be designed and put up or installed according to the size and type of screens or technology it uses:
- Video Walls: 2560 px x 1300 px
- Standard HD Landscape (ILS screens): 2880 px x 1410 px
- Standard HD Landscape (SU Screens): 2880 px x 1620 px
- Portrait: 1080 px x 1755 px
Digital Signage FAQs
How many words do I include in my digital signage screen?
If you’re not sure as to how much text to use on your screen, apply the 3 x 5 rule. As the name suggests, you have to keep it at three lines of text with five words maximum each line or vice versa. This way, your message would be sufficient, clear and easy to read by an audience within a short span of time.
What’s the best screen resolution for my digital signage?
Standard TV screens usually work at an HD full resolution (1920 x 1080) which makes it easier to design content since you can set the content to the same number of pixels so you’ll end up with a full screen. If the screen you’re using has a different resolution, you’ll have to think of how you can adjust your content to fit it. Screen types such as LED, or content that spans across multiple screens in a design such as a video wall, will all need content that is created to fit.
Since 1920s, Madison Avenue gave rise to America’s larger-than-life advertising industry with equally larger-than-life businessmen and later on women, behind its success. However, the notoriety of print ad campaigns of past decades moved on from the tolerated no-holds-barred gender-biased imagery to being more emotionally-driven, with a message-oriented culture for content and design in the digital signs we see today.