Your website doesn’t use the same colors and graphics as everyone else. Neither does your newsletter. So why would you use stock backgrounds on your big screens? Whether you’re launching a new digital signage system, or looking to refresh your old one, a custom digital signage theme can help.
A digital signage theme is simply a coordinated set of layouts and message backgrounds for your displays. Most content management software comes with a library of stock themes you can choose from. However, if you truly want to engage your audience, you’ll forgo the stock stuff and get a custom theme.
A custom theme has a number of advantages over stock:
- It’s unique to your organization.
- It reflects your identity and brand standards.
- It ensures your messages and layouts always look good together.
- It builds recognition and community for viewers.
We recommend three or four custom digital signage layouts that you can change regularly throughout the day. This keeps your screens fresh and interesting to viewers. You can use a consistent background and change the position of content blocks, date and time, and weather to keep it dynamic.
Your theme’s message backgrounds should be designed to look good with whichever of your layouts is on screen, so you can use a single library and mix messages interchangeably.
How many times have you gotten that fabulous stock library, only to find that many of the graphics aren’t appropriate for your environment? Where are you going to use that picture of a cow in overalls? Why do you need a “Student Union” template when you work in a bank?
The biggest advantage of a custom digital signage theme is that you can choose the subjects for your message backgrounds. Specify designs for the most common messages you’ll be scheduling – welcomes, event schedules, weather – anything that will save your content creators time.
We suggest at least 20 custom message backgrounds to get you started. However, you’ll probably want to add more, at least quarterly. You’d be surprised how quickly you start repeating backgrounds when you’re creating multiple playlists.
It’s also a good idea to have at least 10 generic backgrounds that don’t have titles or specific imagery on them. (A nice logo watermark or faded photo of your facility works well in most situations.) This gives your contributors the option to tailor the messages to whatever subject they need.
No matter how many backgrounds or layouts you choose, having them customized will help you engage your audience and improve your signage strategy.
Want to get started with a custom theme from Visix? Contact us.