EPISODE 188 | Guest: Debbie DeWitt, marketing communications manager for Visix
Great digital signage doesn’t happen by accident – it happens when design keeps pace with what audiences actually notice. Falling behind on visual trends means your screens start blending into the background right when attention is hardest to earn. This episode is for anyone who wants their content to feel current, not dated.
AI content tools promise speed, but speed without direction just gets you generic results faster. Used well, though, AI can make you a more efficient, more creative communicator. Tune in to learn how to turn AI from a shortcut into a real design advantage.
- Discover the color, typography, and style trends defining digital signage in 2026
- Learn how to write an AI prompt that actually gets you the result you want
- Understand why your first AI result is rarely your best one
- Explore the AI tools built into AxisTV Signage Suite
- Get quick tips for keeping bold designs readable at a distance
Subscribe to this podcast:Podbean| Spotify |Apple Podcasts | YouTube | RSS
Get more tips in this article: Design Advice for Digital Content Creators: A Complete Guide
Transcript
Derek DeWitt: Today on Digital Signage Done Right, we’re digging into two things that are reshaping digital signage right now: visual design trends that are making the biggest impact in 2026, and how AI tools are being used to create better content faster, or at least content faster. To talk with me about that today is Debbie DeWitt, marketing communications manager for Visix. Hi, Debbie.
Debbie DeWitt: Hi, Derek.
Derek DeWitt: Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Debbie DeWitt: Thanks for having me.
Derek DeWitt: And thanks everybody out there for listening. Don’t forget, there is a transcript of the conversation we’re about to have on the Visix website
So Deb, it almost sounds like two separate topics, design trends and AI tools, but I think they’re a bit more connected than it might seem at first blush.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah, I mean, AI is a design tool, and we know it’s definitely dominating a lot of conversations right now.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. We really see some pretty active debates in both the design world and the copywriting world about the value of using AI and even the legitimacy of using AI. There’re kind of a, there are a lot of AI haters out there.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah, definitely. But I will say on this episode, I really don’t want to get into the pros and cons of using ai. We have several episodes you can go look at and certainly go out and do that on your own, but right now I’m just gonna assume that you’re using it.
Derek DeWitt: So obviously when we’re talking about design trends, colors. Every year there’s a color of the year from Pantone and different color palettes are being discussed by different design firms. And you see it happen out there in the world around us. Color is a design element that I think affects the whole mood of the screen, or the message or the designed piece of content. What’s going on with color in 2026?
Debbie DeWitt: Big, bold, saturated color is absolutely back. You know, for several years we’ve seen these muted palettes and like safe neutrals, dusty pastels, you know, very restrained colors, which look beautiful. But 2026, the pendulum has swung hard the other direction. Designers are going out for vibrant, high-energy color. I think it’s to cut through the noise.
Derek DeWitt: And I think, digital signs, also, bold seems to be better, certainly for grabbing attention at a distance.
Debbie DeWitt: Exactly. I mean, that’s why we’re seeing brighter blues and deep terracottas. You know, everybody’s getting more vivid with their colors, so it feels a little more alive. You know, we always talk about drawing attention.
I think crucially, these are being used in contrast forward pairings. So it’s how you’re blending those colors. Like a deep saturated background with a bright contrasting foreground does exactly what digital signage needs, you know, in that design, you want it to stop you in your tracks.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Now, it’s interesting, the backgrounds, however, I’ve been noticing so far this year, seem to be doing a lot of gradients. Is this like a way to contrast with those bold, bright colors or what’s going on with that?
Debbie DeWitt: I think it’s just another way to use them. It’s still a bright color, but you know, we’ve seen gradients really mature. They used to get kind of, kind of ugly. You’d get these lines in them. So we’re seeing what designers are calling soft glow gradients, you know. It’s more cinematic, it’s atmospheric, so the color fades feel, you know, more like ambient lighting. I think that they feel more premium, they feel more modern and a little more welcoming. So we’re seeing a lot of those paired with those colors.
Derek DeWitt: Okay. Okay. Anything else going on with color?
Debbie DeWitt: I’d say one more trend that I’ve been seeing out there, it’s kind of a weird word, but it’s called “glassmorphism”. It’s like this frosted glass aesthetic. So, you see this translucent panel looking almost layered over those gradients or those colors, or even an image.
Derek DeWitt: Like you’re like in looking at something that’s, you know, in the shower.
Debbie DeWitt: Right, yeah. It’s kind of a soft blur.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Okay.
Debbie DeWitt: You know, maybe a subtle border, but you know, it’s again, going for very sophisticated. It’s very techie. You know, it helps make any text or anything you put on top of it more readable. I think this comes from like Apple and Tesla. Those dashboards use this, and so it’s been driving that into mainstream design a lot. And, you know, again, anything in mainstream design, especially something in a UI or anything, digital design translates excellent to digital signs.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, yeah. And I think they all have readability implications, the things we’ve talked about: bold colors, glowing gradients, glassmorphism. Do you have like a rule of thumb for designers out there?
Debbie DeWitt: I mean, the rule of thumb that we harp on, let’s see, I don’t know, in what, every single episode, is that contrast is king. Always. You know, whatever trend you’re using, whatever design thing you’re doing, your headline text has to be legible. If you’ve got a QR code, you know, don’t make it 13 colors. Make sure it’s easy to scan. You know, a beautiful gradient background doesn’t mean anything if you’ve got like white text over the glow area, so it disappears into it. You know, so I think, again, it’s always contrast is king, basic design techniques.
Derek DeWitt: Use your noodle basically. And, you know, there’s a ton of stuff on this podcast about design fundamentals. We’ve got tons of other episodes. We’ve got blog articles. We’ve even got a design guide that’ll tell you all about things like hierarchy, contrast, spacing, font choices. Yeah, no, it was written a couple of years ago, but it’s still valid stuff. The human eye hasn’t changed in the last few years. Though, design trends do.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. And I think that’s the thing. Take our tools that talk about basic design for digital signs and then go out there and do your own research.
Derek DeWitt: So, let’s talk about style, visual style. What are some of the big trends and movements this year?
Debbie DeWitt: I think the most interesting thing we’re seeing is, I’ll just call it like sort of human made pushback. You know, we’ve had all of these years of a lot of stock imagery. Now we’re seeing a lot of AI generated imagery flooding everything. And I think audiences are kind of craving something that’s a little more authentic, genuine, something made by a real person.
You know, we’re seeing a lot of handcrafted aesthetics, you know, organic textures. Take a picture of a texture and use that instead of going out and getting, you know, clip art. You know, you’re seeing imperfect shapes, doodle style illustrations, a lot of done-by-hand or done-on-the-computer illustrations. Deliberately rough typography. Not a font set, but actually like hand drawn typography.
Derek DeWitt: Right, right. Though, you know, , you can get AI to make those as well, to be honest. And I do think it’s funny, you know, that this, you know, high tech solution that everybody’s using these days, AI, out there to make design easier is pushing people towards styles that kind of make it look like it’s not made by AI. But, you know..
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. Humans are a paradox. You know, it’s, it’s a bit of a psychological thing as we talked about. There’s a lot of debate going on. So as AI becomes more prevalent, a lot of people wanna see more that little kind of human imperfection, that’s what they wanna see as a differentiator. But you know, like you said, you can use AI to actually do that, as well. But it’s about the visual style you’re serving them. It doesn’t, no one’s gonna ask you, how did you make that?
Derek DeWitt: Oh, they might, but yeah.
Debbie DeWitt: They might, but you know, hey, yay. That means they’re looking at your signs.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, that’s true. So, you mentioned typography, and I think that’s a very important one. And digital signage. I think the general rule is less text is better, and so, what kind of font you choose is very important sometimes. What typography trends are we seeing in 2026?
Debbie DeWitt: Well, other than those sort of handcrafted looking, I think we’re seeing a lot of oversized, expressive typefaces are everywhere. So, fonts that take up space, like a lot more space than you normally would. It’s no longer just use aerial for headline and three bullets. You know, they convey the mood.
Sometimes things are pure typography, no imagery at all. You know, I always, I hate to sound so old, but like, Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk, those posters. Someone go look it up. It’s that kind of using typography to tell the whole story, set the mood.
As we always say, the most effective approach – keep your headline bold. The most important information has to stand out. You know, you wanna keep it, I’d say like five words or fewer, certainly for that headline.
I’d say the other thing that’s really important in typography right now is we always talk about call to action. If you’re using like a URL, shorten that thing. Make it bold, make it stand out. Or better yet, you know, I say use a QR code, but when we’re talking about text, just make it bold.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. I mean, QR codes are great. They’re, they don’t get in the way ’cause it’s a, it’s a, a kind of an unusual, unique visual element. So like, this is a QR code, so it’s not really getting in the way of your words and letters and things like this. And the QR code is a call to action if people take it and it gives you something that’s easy to measure. And, some people are starting to be quite clever, even with the way that they incorporate QR codes into their designs, which is, which is very nice, I think.
Debbie DeWitt: You know, you can incorporate imagery in different colors, don’t do too much. And the biggest thing is that size, the size depends on where this display is compared to the audience. You know, that phone that’s gonna pop up to scan that QR, if your display is, you know, 20 feet in the air, you need to make it a big QR code, you know. If you’ve got an interactive kiosk or something that’s right there, you can make it quite small ’cause they can zoom in. But yeah, just size is really important.
Derek DeWitt: Okay. So that’s design trends for the year so far. Back to AI. I think a lot of people think that AI is this kind magic shortcut. You’d be foolish at this stage in the AI progression game to just spit out what AI comes up with without doing any thinking about it. I think that’s just a mistake.
Debbie DeWitt: If you walked in to a graphic designer in your company and said, hey, make me a message.
Derek DeWitt: Right.
Debbie DeWitt: That, that would be it. You know, this is the most important thing I can tell anyone starting out with AI content tools: the AI doesn’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, you do. So before you type a single prompt, you need to be clear on three things – we always talk about this – what do you wanna say? Who’s your audience? And what do you want them to do?
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. That’s true for any good content message – audience, call to action.
Debbie DeWitt: Exactly. It’s not any different because it’s AI. It’s all the same good communications and good design discipline. If you can’t answer those three questions before you open up whatever AI tool, it’s not gonna be very useful. It’s no different because it’s AI. Everybody, like you said, it’s not a wizard, it’s not a magic wand. It’s all good communications and design discipline. You know, you gotta answer those questions clearly before you even open the tool.
Derek DeWitt: Alright. So, give us an example. Walk us through what it looks like in practice.
Debbie DeWitt: Okay. On the spot. Okay. So…
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, on the spot.
So, say you manage displays for a university campus and you need a message about, you know, extended library hours during finals week. What do you wanna say? You wanna say that the library’s open till midnight during finals. Who’s your audience? Students who are, and this is important, not just students, but students who are stressed and need to know this. What do you want them to do? Well come study and maybe scan a QR code for the full library hours schedule. So that’s your brief. It’s pretty simple, but that brief can help inform the prompt.
Derek DeWitt: Oh, okay. And then that prompt gives you dramatically better results than just typing into the AI thing, make a message about library hours.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. Night and day. I think specificity is everything. In addition to all of that, you want to include the mood, the audience, the visual style, and that clear call to action. In terms of the visual, you know, you can give it as much info as you can. Styles and mood, images, colors, fonts. You can get really specific. You know, you can say use warm colors. You can say, even better, use a photo of a building on University of Dayton campus. Obviously if this is for University of Dayton. It can actually pull from the web.
Derek DeWitt: Can you imagine? University of Florida’s like, eh, we don’t know, we just stuck University of Dayton up there. Why not? It’s a nice building.
Debbie DeWitt: Right.
Derek DeWitt: And also make sure it’s not pulling from iStock or some other paid service, ’cause you might end up with a watermark on your image as well. And, and now you’ve just, you’ve just added clutter at best to your message.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. I mean, it’s pulling from the same, like when you Google it, Google Images and you get those, you know, previews with the watermark. It’s gonna give you that one. It’s not going out to the iStock site buying the photo for you.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Not yet.
Debbie DeWitt: No, not yet. I’m sure you could one day when you have an account. I’d say or skip the photo and say something like, use retro-future style or nouveaux or deco or Bauhaus, or whatever you’re using. Just give it a starting point because if you don’t say anything, you’re gonna get something really plain. Like really plain. I mean, if you think about PowerPoint, you know, if you use a blank template instead of choosing a theme and assigning your own colors, fonts, it’s the same thing. You’re gonna get some like blue square with a gold outline.
Derek DeWitt: And I think something that a lot of people don’t quite realize is that you don’t really talk to or communicate with AI systems the way that you do Google search. You don’t just put in phrases. Like talk to it. A lot of people are now using their microphones ’cause it actually comes out more natural and more nuanced in order to, to talk to the thing. Like, have a back and forth with the AI system before it generates anything.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s more of a conversation. Again, thinking about walking into that office of your graphic designer. That’s what you’re doing.
Derek DeWitt: Okay, so I go through this and then it generates something and I don’t like it.
Debbie DeWitt: Do it again. This is the number one mistake I think people make. They try out ChatGPT or Gemini or one of these, and they get the result and they go, it’s not perfect or it’s ugly, and they just go, this tool isn’t good. And they give up.
AI is built for a bunch of iterations, right? You need to alter your prompt, you know, try a different tone descriptor. Flip some detail in there. If it came back too busy, ask it to be more minimal. If it’s too cold, ask it to warm it up. You know, you’re in a creative conversation, like we said, you’re not just placing an order you know of do this. It’s not gonna, it doesn’t know anything you don’t tell it.
Derek DeWitt: In fact, I would argue that it doesn’t know anything at all because LLMs are literally just prediction machines. That’s all they do. They’re just predicting the next word. They’re just really, really, really good at it. The other thing to keep in mind is no one is saying that you’re stuck using an entire result.
So let’s say you did it, I don’t know, four times and you liked, eh, you liked the call to action from this one, but you didn’t like the rest of it. You liked the image that it came up with for, from this iteration. You liked the opening section from this other one. Use each of the good sections and combine them together. No one is forcing you to just, you know, click copy to clipboard and, and that’s it. You can and should do some moving around. You should do some editing for sure. at least.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. Unless it gives you like the perfect one, which that would be awesome. But keep in mind, we’re not saying like, you take those designs and combine them. Again, that’s that conversation. You literally tell it, I loved the call to action from this one. I like the headline here. I like the background here, but I like the font you used here. It’ll do it for you and it does it for you in seconds. You know, it gives you the raw material, keep working with it. Your job is to edit into something that’s true to your brand, true to the message, true to the audience.
Derek DeWitt: Now, like you said, there’s Gemini and ChatGPT and Claude and a whole bunch of them out there. Personally, I have to say, I think I prefer Claude for a number of reasons.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah, I love Claude for copywriting. I haven’t used it a lot for image generation. I’ve used Gemini for that, which uses Nano Banana and it’s getting really, really good. I think you have to play with different platforms to find out which one you like best. They all look similar, but they behave differently even in the way they, they go back and forth, what results they give you.
I would try the same prompt across several AI tools and see what you get, but I would also maybe try different examples. So, you might find one that’s best for images, another for videos, another for text. I think you have to, you know, like anything else, you have to go out there and play with it and find out which one’s best for you.
Derek DeWitt: Okay, so now in AxisTV Signage Suite, two AI tools have now been incorporated into the software. The first one is the AI text assistant, which is right there inside the Quick Start message workflow. So you get your template open, you’ve done your thinking, you know what your message is, your audience, your CTA and so on, and now you’re ready to use the tool. What do we do?
Debbie DeWitt: So, this is easy. You’re in a template and in that template, there are these little fill-in boxes that you put in of text. So, you put in your text, even a rough draft or a few key points. It doesn’t have to be polished. And then you click a little AI button, little icon, and it rewrites it for you. And you get to choose a tone for that. They’ve got professional, friendly but professional, funny, casual, and my favorite, short as possible.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. Especially for digital signage, right? But those, those different tones produce meaningfully different outputs, right?
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. It’s not just little tweaks like one word here or there. It rewrites it. So, professional’s very, what it sounds like, it’s very authoritative, you know, clean. Friendly but professional warms things up. It’s more conversational, but still appropriate. You know, funny, I have to say, it’s got a good sense of humor. It goes for levity. It’s great for like event invites, internal culture messaging. You know, we say all the time, lighten things up once in a while. Casual’s just that, it’s like talking to a friend. And as we said, short as possible is great, especially when you’re working within sort of tight screen real estate because it just trims that message down to its core.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Fewer words, more impact. We only say something along those lines.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah, exactly. And the nice thing is you don’t have to commit. Like, you don’t have to just choose one of those and go, okay, that’s what I got. You can keep generating and each time you generate, you can choose one of those tones, a different tone. And then at the end you can just choose the one that you like the best and then just schedule it like normal. So, it’s really nice, especially if you don’t wanna have to write out the whole thing. You just give it a few words and it’ll do it for you.
Derek DeWitt: And the second one is the AI Message Designer, which comes out on July 14th, Bastille Day for those that know or care, in version 1.112 in that update. And that generates the full visual imagery, typography, everything from scratch. So it’s a very different tool than the first one. Much more.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. Yeah. This is creating your whole message. So, it’s in the Add Content workflow, which if you’re not using, please get the update. It’s so fast, right on the overview screen, you just hit Add Content, AI Message. And then all you have to put in it is a name. You choose your aspect ratio and then you write the prompt. And we’ve already given you some advice on that.
So put in your prompt and then it generates the full message with the visual and everything. And the more visual information you can give it, the better. And if you don’t love the result the first time, you can hit generate again and it’ll do another one. And you can do, you know, I’d recommend probably do it three times and see which one you like the best.
After that, basically it’s got the same options as any other message. You just, do your transition, time on screen, whether you wanna track playback analytics, and you, then you schedule it. It’s all right on one screen, too. That’s the beauty of that Add Content workflow, everything’s on one screen. But yeah, you don’t design anything, you just tell it to design it.
Derek DeWitt: Right. You’re, you’re really designing your prompt, in many ways, which is, which are the instructions to the AI – here’s what I want. And the more detail you give it, the better the result, right?
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. I mean, we, we had that example before. So, a strong prompt for our campus example might be something like, message for university library during finals week, bold headline, open late this week, text is library.com/hours, warm, earthy tones, friendly, calm mood. You know, that’s a complete brief. There you go, you’re done.
Derek DeWitt: And then see what it comes up with and tweak it as need be.
Debbie DeWitt: Exactly.
Derek DeWitt: So, then it just builds you the whole message, one that you can preview. So, you can regenerate again and even a third time if absolutely necessary.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah, just like with the text, AI text assistant, they all stay on screen. So it’s not like each time you generate what you had gets wiped out.
Derek DeWitt: Right. I forgot!
Debbie DeWitt: So you just pick your favorite. And then again, like I said, you just schedule it right there.
Derek DeWitt: And as always, you gotta keep in your mind through this entire process, what’s your message? Who’s your audience, and what do you want that audience to do? That stuff has to somehow be in the prompt along with visual preferences like color, mood, style, specific imagery, layout, fonts, et cetera.
Debbie DeWitt: Yeah. And I’d say, you know, we talked about regenerating. If the result is close, but not right. You know, you need to, as we said, know what you liked and carry that forward in your next prompt. You don’t have to just keep hitting generate but leave your prompt the same. Change it. You know, say like, leave out the blue. Like, you can literally be like, it’s a campus. We’re maroon and gold and I didn’t tell you that the first time. Go back, add it in and hit generate again.
Derek DeWitt: So, let’s talk key takeaways here. What should people remember when it comes to design trends 2026?
Debbie DeWitt: I’d say embrace bold color and strong contrast. You know, your displays are capable of spectacular visuals, so don’t play it safe. You know, use those big fonts, use those bold colors, and maybe pick one of these trends we’ve talked about or one that you’ve researched and try it on your next message. Do it right now.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, there you go. Okay. And what’s one key takeaway about AI content creation tools?
Debbie DeWitt: Do the thinking first. I know we sound preachy and repetitive, but you gotta know your message. You gotta know your audience. Gotta know what you want them to do. The AI can’t do that for you. So think about it. And honestly, I would get out there and maybe take a prompt writing course or read a couple articles. There are, there’s a lot of information online to help you with this.
Derek DeWitt: To our listeners out there, get the AxisTV Signage Suite software update next week and try out both AI tools for yourself. The text assistant and the AI message creator are both right there in the Add Content workflow. As for deeper dives on design fundamentals, check out our blog, our design guide, which I already mentioned, and other podcast episodes. All this stuff is on the website under resources.
Debbie DeWitt: Yes, please do. These tools are there to make you faster and more creative, but your understanding of your audience is still what makes the content work. That part’s all you.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, that’s right. All right, there you have it. Thanks for listening. I’d like to thank my guest today, Debbie DeWitt, communications manager for Visix, for chatting with me today. Thanks, Debbie.
Debbie DeWitt: Thanks Derek.
Derek DeWitt: And thank you everybody out there for listening.