It’s the Holiday season, and people are rushing to get to places. As a brand owner, you have to be strategic when it comes to designing eye-catching holiday event signage. Why is this important? Signage is vital in driving in-store visits.
To help you conceptualize attention-grabbing designs, we’ve listed some helpful tips you can incorporate into your marketing materials this coming Holiday.
Follow Design Hierarchy
Design hierarchy is important in keeping the attention of your readers. This allows them to focus more on important things. According to the Baer Performance Marketing report, there are five elements involved in visual hierarchy that need to be considered. The components are as follows:
- Scale – This pertains to the size of the text or other visual elements. Which text would be bigger, and which part of the design should be smaller? Our brain tends to focus on the ones with a bigger font size.
- Color – Color is a visual element that will help guide our brain in navigating the overall design. The right color will help highlight the important ones. Colors that are more vibrant attract greater attention as compared to muted colors.
- Contrast – The contrast in text or color puts weight on which one is important over the other visual element.
- Alignment – The images or text that are out of alignment will stand out from the aligned ones.
- Proximity – This refers to the close space between elements. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, the more space between the elements the more it draws attention.
- Repetition – When the style is repeated, it could suggest that the contents are related to each other.
- Whitespace – If you want to draw attention to a particular text or image, provide more space around it.
- Texture and Style – Flat texture will not attract as much attention as compared to textured ones.
Incorporate Holiday Colors and Themes
What better way to make your audience feel the holiday spirit than to use holiday colors? By incorporating holiday colors and themes, you are able to touch people’s emotions. With the use of the appropriate colors, you are also able to get into people’s moods. Let’s say for Christmas, you are using the green and red colors which evoke a bright, happy, and festive mood. As for Thanksgiving, it’s more on earth-tone colors.
Communicate Your Purpose with Design
To capture people’s attention this coming Holidays, it’s not enough to use captivating images and text. You also need to effectively communicate with them the purpose of your signage. Do you want to inform your market of the upcoming sale? Do you want them to purchase your newest items? One way to make them interested is through discounts, promos, and giveaways. People love the idea of them having to have some savings. In addition, the majority of us want free stuff. So design your banner in a way that will make them stop from walking and head over to your shop. Highlight words such as ‘sale, discounts, freebies.’
You can also make use of your signage to advise your market about your holiday business hours. Things could get busy during these times, so it’s better to have them informed of your operation hours.
Leverage Negative Space
In an article published by Foundpop, by making use of the negative space properly, you can direct the attention of people to the important message. This message should be short, simple, and straight to the point. Remember that people have few seconds to spare while walking or driving. The first 3 seconds are crucial in capturing their interest. Within these few seconds, you should be able to effectively communicate with them your message. In the same article, it was also mentioned that proper lighting is important. It’s pointless to have your signage printed out but people won’t see it. It should be placed in a well-lit location with high foot traffic. Thus placement of these signages also holds importance. Eye-catching designs should be visible for people to look at from a distance. This signage should create a positive first impression about the brand and would encourage them to move. If you are using spotlights, warm-colored bulbs, string lights, and other lighting essentials, make sure that the glare is not annoying for people. This is crucial, especially during the night when people are driving and your choice of light causes distraction.
Make Use of Holiday Typography in Your Design
Using the right kind of typography communicates the spirit of the holiday better. Imagine using a Halloween-themed typography for the coming Thanksgiving or Christmas. This will surely result in disaster. Typography is an essential element in setting the mood and triggering the right emotions for your audience. When choosing the font make sure not to go overly aggressive. The readers won’t be able to read the message anymore because of too many decorative elements. Some of the Christmas-themed fonts that you can choose if you’re using Canva are.
- Citadel Script
- Edinburgh
- Pirata One
- Quilin
- Rundeck Texture
- Kompot
- Brice Bold Condensed
- Metro Retro NF
- Sentinel
- One Starry Night
If you are using other websites apart from Canva, you can check if the following fonts are available
- April
- Kage
- Berkshire Swash
- Sunday
- Lobster
- Grimpt Brush
- Camo Dirt
- Brixton
- Badhorse
Include a Holiday-themed call to action.
The overall design won’t be complete without having a holiday-themed call to action to enhance the overall design. Call to action is important as it encourages your customers to do something once they see your banner. Some of the calls to action that you can incorporate are the following.
- Exciting Holiday Deals! Shop Now!
- Join us for a Festive Celebrations!
- Limited Time Offer! Don’t Miss Out On These Holiday Bundles!
- Grab these Holiday Coupons Today!
Go for Simple, Clear Messages
It’s the Holidays and people are busier than ever. As a marketer, you can help them decide on their purchase through straightforward messaging. The simpler and clearer the message, the better. This means that people can easily make a decision right away. Some of the messages you can apply are:
- Shop Now, Get Bigger Discounts!
- Excellent Gift Ideas Inside!
- Big Savings, Ask Us!
- Holiday Sale, Grab ’em all!
Additional Tips:
- Make sure to plan early and execute early. The competition is tougher during the Holidays. It pays a lot to be early in the game. People will recognize and remember your brand better. In addition, by being early you can strategically choose your banner location.
- Entice people with exciting deals. Do not just throw in some discounted coupons or discounted rates. Make sure that your deals are interesting to capture people’s attention.
- Do not stick with just one platform. Try to reach out to people across different platforms if your budget permits.
- Incorporate Holiday Feels but stick with your branding for consistency. You can add the festive feel to your design but do not forgo your branding. Make sure that it stays consistent with the theme.
These are just a few tips that will help you stand out from the crowded space of Holiday marketing. It’s a lot more challenging as compared to normal days. But, if you manage to outshine the competition, the return on investment is worth all your efforts. Start planning early on and execute with confidence.
