Business signage plays a crucial role in enhancing brand visibility, fostering recognition, and driving sales.

Signage helps your brand stand out from competitors by showcasing your unique identity and offerings to potential customers. Well-designed signs make your business more noticeable and memorable. They serve as a constant form of advertising and marketing.

Signage boosts visibility by catching the eye of passersby. Strategically placed signs, especially on busy roads, expose your brand to more impressions. Signage also reinforces branding and recognition every time customers see your signs. The consistent presentation of your logo, fonts, colors and messaging helps cement your brand identity.

In this article, we will provide an overview of various signage options for Kansas City businesses. We’ll explore building and wall signs, monument signs, window displays, sidewalk signs, digital signage, and more. For each sign type, we’ll share best practices and sign examples tailored specifically for the Kansas City market.

Building and Wall Signs

Building and wall signs are mounted directly onto the exterior of a building. This is one of the most common and effective sign types for visibility. Popular options for building signs include:

• Channel Letters – Individually illuminated letters and graphics mounted directly to the building. Channel letters can utilize various lighting methods like neon, LED, or halo lighting.
• Painted Wall Signs – Artistically painted murals or graphics directly on the exterior wall. These can be very visually striking.
• Wall Murals – Large format artwork or photographic imagery covering a sizable portion of the wall. An impressive way to decorate blank walls.
• Marquee Signs – Longer horizontal signs with changeable lettering. Often used for theaters.
• Projecting Signs – Perpendicular signs mounted on poles, rods or brackets projecting from the building facade.

Building signs are highly visible and let you prominently display your brand. They also allow for creative flexibility with different shapes, lighting, and graphic styles. Just be sure to get proper permitting and follow local regulations for size and placement.

Monument and Pole Signs

Monument and pole signs are freestanding signs that are mounted on the ground or on a pole. They are highly visible to passing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Key benefits of monument and pole signs include:

Visibility – They stand out from a distance compared to flat wall signs. This gives businesses great exposure to passing traffic.¹

Versatile shapes – You can get creative with the shape of monument signs from rectangles, circles, ovals, or fully customized shapes.²

Durable materials – These signs are structurally supported and made of durable materials like metal, stone, or brick to withstand outdoor elements.

Branding – Large scale monument signs allow for business logos, typography, and colors that identify brands from afar.

Types of monument signs include pylons, obelisks, cubes, and pedestals. Pole signs are supported by one or two poles with the sign suspended in between. The height of monument and pole signs makes them highly visible above cars, buildings, and obstructions.

Window Signs

Window signs are a great way to attract attention and advertise your business. Placing graphics, text, or images on your storefront windows allows you to creatively display special offers, sales, business hours, and other promotional messages right at eye level with pedestrians. Window signs also provide the opportunity to reinforce your branding by using your logo, colors and fonts.

Some popular options for window signage include:

• Vinyl graphics – These opaque vinyl decals can display any image or text, while also blocking visibility into the store if desired. Vinyl is durable and easy to install and remove. [1]
• Neon signs – Neon tubing behind store windows creates an eye-catching glow that looks great at night. Neon can be bent into any shape including logos, letters or decorative elements.
• Window clings – These static cling vinyl graphics easily stick to windows without adhesives or mounting. They are removable and reusable.
• Etched/frosted vinyl – Provides a frosted glass look that obscures interior views while allowing light in. Can include cut-out text or designs.

Strategically placed window signs can entice passersby into your business. Opt for high-visibility locations in entryways, display windows or other natural focal points. Keep messaging brief and impactful. Consider complementing window signs with decals on glass doors for added exposure. With endless possibilities for creativity, window signs let you transform storefronts into vibrant promotional displays.

Sidewalk Signs

Sidewalk signs, also known as A-frame or sandwich board signs, are a popular choice for small businesses to attract foot traffic. These portable signs have two faces that allow you to display your messaging to pedestrians from both directions. Sidewalk signs are extremely versatile and can be used for promotions, daily specials, sales, new products, and more.

Chalkboard sidewalk signs are a creative way to frequently update your messaging. Chalkboards make it easy to write new daily specials or promotions to entice walk-ins. The chalkboard surface also stands out for its vintage appeal. Consider pairing chalkboard signs with vibrant chalk colors to catch the eye of passersby.

The most important thing is giving people a compelling reason to come inside your business. Sidewalk signs are most effective when they include limited-time offers, discounts, sales, or other promotional messaging. Give people an incentive to stop.

Research shows sidewalk signs are highly effective at driving walk-in traffic when used strategically. Sidewalk signs work because they target nearby pedestrians right outside your location. The signs meet customers where they already are. Plus, the signs are adaptable, allowing you to update messaging for different purposes.

Digital Signs

Digital signage provides business owners with dynamic and customizable displays using LCD, LED boards, and electronic paper. These high-tech signs allow for communicating targeted messages, promotions, and imagery that can be changed in real-time. According to research, most retailers are able to measure the sales impact of their digital signage for promotions.

LCD (liquid crystal display) screens are commonly used for digital signage. They provide crisp, high resolution images and video. LED boards utilize LEDs as pixels to create vibrant visuals. They are extremely bright to capture attention. Electronic paper displays, like e-ink, offer ultra-low power consumption while still providing sharp text and graphics.

The benefits of digital signs include the ability to showcase different messages based on the time of day, respond quickly to events or inventory changes, integrate with social media feeds, and analyze the impact through built-in analytics. Studies reveal digital signage delivers 4x the engagement of static signs. For retailers, digital signs also help combat showrooming by influencing purchasing decisions.

Directional & Wayfinding Signs

Wayfinding signs are important for helping customers navigate through a location and find what they need. These signs provide information to direct foot traffic in the right direction. Wayfinding signage can include directional signs, maps, directories, floor decals, and more.

Some best practices for effective wayfinding signage include:

• Using clear and concise language – Signs should communicate the destination or direction simply and clearly.
• Strategic placement – Position signs where key navigational decisions need to be made.
• Consistency – Use similar styles, shapes, colors, fonts, etc. across all signs for brand cohesion.
• Visibility – Place signs where customers can easily see them, like at entrances, intersections, escalators, and elevators.
• Use of icons and symbols – Recognizable icons help break language barriers and improve comprehension.
• Room for growth – Consider future growth when designing wayfinding signage.

Well-designed wayfinding signage helps customers feel oriented and confident navigating a location. This leads to improved customer experience and satisfaction. Implementing an effective wayfinding signage system is an important customer service practice for any retail store, office, hospital, university, or other public venue.

Informational & Safety Signs

Informational signs provide critical guidance for people in an unfamiliar environment to help them navigate safely and easily. These signs include hours of operation, parking instructions, facility or venue rules, and warning signs to prevent injuries or accidents.

Key informational sign examples include:

• Hours of business signs displaying opening and closing times.
• Parking restriction signs indicating time limits, permit requirements, or loading zones.
• Caution or warning signs alerting people of dangers like slippery floors or falling debris.
• “No smoking” and other rules that must be followed on the premises.

Informational signs need to be prominently displayed at entrances, exits, and other high-visibility locations. They should use clear and legible fonts that can be read from a reasonable distance. Consistent placement also helps people recognize and understand signs quickly.

Safety and warning signs in particular protect people’s wellbeing and prevent avoidable accidents. They also reduce liability for property owners. Effective safety signage uses symbols, colors, and graphics to convey hazards intuitively. Maintaining these signs ensures they remain conspicuous and intact.

Signage Design Best Practices

When designing your business signage, there are some key best practices to follow for maximum impact. Here are some tips for optimizing visibility, reflecting brand identity, smart placement and lighting choices.

Visibility and Readability

For your sign to effectively reach customers, it first and foremost needs to be visible and easy to read. Some recommendations for visibility include:

• Using large font sizes that can be read from a distance
• Incorporating contrast with the background through light or dark colors
• Limiting text to the most essential information
• Making sure signs are well-lit if operating at night

Reflecting Brand Identity

Your signage should align with your overall brand identity through elements like:

• Using branded colors, fonts, and logos
• Maintaining a consistent look across all signs
• Showcasing your unique personality and voice
• Considering material choices that reinforce branding, like neon for a retro diner

Placement and Positioning

Carefully consider where you place signage for maximum visibility at the right points in the customer journey:

• Ensure signs are at eye level
• Pick areas with high foot traffic
• Use directional signs to guide customers to your location

Lighting

Proper lighting can make or break your sign’s visibility and impact:

• Use lit signs or spotlights for nighttime visibility
• Backlight or halo light sign letters
• Choose energy efficient LED lighting

Conclusion

Business signage is an important investment that helps increase visibility, brand awareness, and sales. When designing your signage, focus on visibility, readability, reflecting your brand identity, and proper placement. Avoid common mistakes like cluttered designs, hard to read fonts, improper sizes and outdated styles.

To make your business stand out in the Kansas City area, incorporate lighting effects, vintage-inspired designs, interactive elements, local sports themes and Kansas City barbecue culture into your signage. Be sure to follow local regulations around permitting, size limits and placement.

The key tips to remember are: reflect your brand and style, ensure high visibility and readability, follow signage regulations, and leverage signage experts like Excel Lighting & Signs if you need assistance.

Excel Lighting can help with designing, manufacturing and installing effective custom signage tailored specifically for your Kansas City business.