Why ‘Go Pro’ With Custom Sign Makers: Build Consumer Confidence In Southfield, MI

If you’re still using homemade COVID-19 signs, you may be hurting your brand image and unsettling potential customers. But our custom sign makers can help.

Today’s post explains how “going pro” with custom sign makers in Southfield, MI helps reverse the damage of homemade signs, build consumer confidence, and create favorable brand associations during COVID-19.

Read on or call 1-248-354-8346 to start a free consultation with custom sign makers in Southfield, MI.

COVID-19 Signs Remain Critical Part Of Southfield Reopening Plans

Until the pandemic threat period has passed, COVID-19 safety signs will continue to play a central role in facilitating safe continuity for Southfield businesses.

These are just a few of the CDC’s COVID-19 sign requirements listed on the City of Southfield website:

• “Use signs, tape marks, or other visual cues… to indicate where to stand when physical barriers are not possible”
• “Place posters that encourage hand hygiene to help stop the spread at the entrance of your workplace and in other workplace areas where they are likely to be seen”
• “Use verbal announcements, signage, and visual cues to promote social distancing”

And while informal, homemade signage can help you meet Southfield’s COVID-19 sign requirements, they might be doing more harm than good, according to new research by the Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding.

New Study Shows Potentially Harmful Impact Of Informal COVID-19 Signs

In the early days of the pandemic, when businesses were scrambling for signage solutions on short notice, informal signs like these abounded in Southfield, MI:

In light of the government’s abrupt call for pandemic signage, the temporary use of makeshift signs was understandable, but it wasn’t pretty! Most were either printed at home on 8 x 11” paper, or else hastily hand-written on whatever materials were available. Many featured glaring design errors, including:

• Small, illegible fonts that “Muted the message’s impact” (McNeish, 2020, p. 74)
• “Visually messy and unorganized presentation of information” (p. 74)
• Jarring discontinuity between “child-like,” “haphazard” appearance and official business messages

What’s more, most of these informal signs became “ripped and slightly crumpled” after only a few days of use (McNeish, 2020, p. 73).

As McNeish’s study showed, the impact of these makeshift signs went far beyond that of fleeting eyesores. Indeed, research showed that the negative effects of informal signs were twofold. First, homemade signs had the effect of “increasing the cognitive load on consumers,” likely due to their visually messy and unorganized presentation, which made others signs less effective. Second, they created a sense of “uncertainty and unknowing,” reinforcing feelings of panic, disorder, and compromise that surged during the early months (p. 80).

Create Consumer Confidence With Custom Sign Makers In Southfield, MI

In contrast to informal printed signage, which adds cognitive load and creates insidious feelings of “uncertainty and unknowing,” professional COVID-19 signs created by custom sign makers create peace of mind, which in turn promotes positive associations with your brand.

According to McNeish, “going pro” with custom sign makers helps brands signal a return to “business as usual,” replacing emotions of uncertainty and unknowing with those of certainty and knowing (p. 80). Put simply, customers have come to expect professional signage, especially during the “new normal,” and anything less comes off as frantic, unprofessional, and unsettling.

If you need professional COVID-19 signage to build consumer confidence, we can help! SignScapes is a top provider of affordable custom sign solutions for businesses of all sizes throughout Southfield and all the surrounding areas, including:

• Rochester
• Dearborn
• Novi
• Clawson
• Royal Oak
• Sterling Heights
• Auburn Hills, and beyond

Call 1-248-354-8346 or visit the SignScapes website to book a free consultation with our custom sign makers and get a same-day quote on any sign order.

References

McNeish, J. E. (2020). Retail Signage During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding, 4(2), 67-89.