4 Things to Consider When Designing Signage for Your Retail Business

Getting custom retail signs is essential when you open a new shop, whether you want to bring in new customers or help people navigate different parts of your store. However, as described below, you need to consider a few things when designing retail signage.

Choosing the right wording for your signage is vitally important—your exterior signage forms the first impression of your business, as confusing or inconsistent signs inside your shop can be really off-putting. With retail signage, keep the wording simple. For example, the main exterior sign will usually just be the name of the shop.

However, if you run a new company, have a window sign with a little tagline about your business, such as handcrafted wooden toys or organic vegan chocolates. This will often draw in the right customer base.

Your interior signage should guide customers around the shop, and they should easily be able to look up and see signs that explain what section they are in and where they need to pay. Making the experience easier for customers will make them more likely to come back.

Don't forget signs for fitting rooms, as well as signs to keep customers out of staff-only areas, and also don't be afraid to be funny or quirky with your signage if that's your brand.

You might want to use a fun, quirky font for your signage, but this isn't always the best idea. For your main sign, you have a little more scope for creativity, but passers-by should also be able to read the name of your shop from a distance.



For signs inside your shop, which are mainly for navigation, use a simpler font. For example, Helvetica, Garamond and Lucida are good fonts to use in print, as are Ariel and Comic Sans, as they don't have large serifs or flourishes, making them easy to read at a glance. Experiment with a few different fonts, with legibility in mind.

You should also spend some time designing a colour scheme for your signs if your business doesn't already have one. This will mostly depend on your business—for example, a high-end fashion boutique will use different colours to an art supply shop for children. Think about whether you want to use contrasting colours, such as red and blue, for a vibrant feel, or complementary colours, such as blue and green, for a calmer vibe.



Finally, think about contrast. You shouldn’t print signs if they're impossible to read, and this can also be an accessibility issue. Think about the contrast of any scheme you consider, and go for something simple like black on white for your signs if you aren't sure. Make sure you avoid low-contrast signage, such as green text on a blue background.

Signs come in many different sizes, and yours should be built on the correct scale. Your sign maker will be able to give you advice about how big each type of sign should be, but some of it does depend on your business premises.



A font size of about 32 can be read from five feet away, but of course, it would need to be bigger if you have a large shop. Try printing out text and pinning it up where your signs will go. Remember, you should be able to see your exterior signs from across the street and interior signs from just inside your door.

By thinking carefully about your wording, font choice, colour scheme and size, you can design signage that suits all your needs and helps you achieve your business goals. If you're interested in bringing your ideas to life, Infinity Signs offers a wide range of retail signage. Call us today.