Are you following the basics of digital signage content creation?

Developing a platform to publish digital signage content has taught us that no matter how intuitive the software is, it only solves half of the problem. Content creation is often the other half, sometimes even more than that. Many publishers believe that once they have purchased & installed a digital signage solution the job is done. A copy / paste of their existing content from marketing and… profit!

However, much like purchasing a CMS solution for a blog, the initial offering is a set of tools to create new content. It’s not a bridge between the current content and a screen, but a new medium where the marketing and design team can express their creativity. We should look at it as an opportunity for them to present a product or brand from a new angle. Wouldn’t it be a shame to waste this opportunity?

Before we dive deeper, it’s worth mentioning that this article won’t tackle issues related to target audience, content frequency, relevancy or freshness. Obviously, it is important to discuss these before creating content. In fact, it’s a good idea to have the points above sorted out even before you choose a digital signage solution, otherwise you’ll be searching in the dark.

Content first

This is the motto on the web today, preached by industry-leading organizations, such as A list apart. It is surely true for digital signage, but should the content really be created from scratch, or can existing content be reused? The answer: it depends.

In many cases, reusing content could be wasting an opportunity. The main reason for that is context: publishers need to understand that the context of your couch, browsing a website on an iPad is vastly different from the context of a busy street, while hurrying to make the next appointment. The average viewer won’t have the same time or patience, but she might be interested in content that is relevant to her next destination. Again, this depends from a digital signage setup to another, but it will be true in most cases: existing content just won’t cut it.

Start writing content prototypes, think of the viewer’s context. If you find some of the existing content relevant, use it. If not, you’re in luck — digital signage has presented you with a new opportunity.

Create for the context, but be consistent

Consistency in Apple’s Maps iOS application

One of the main “pain points” while designing for digital signage is being consistent with the rest of the brand. That is partly because of the software. More often than not it doesn’t allow creation of content according to brand guidelines (not the case with Play. digital signage). Sure, consistency sometimes takes away some of the clarity or usability, therefore brand guidelines should be adapted to digital signage rather than enforced.

Here are some of the basic steps digital signage content creators should follow:

• use existing brand colors, harmonies and where applicable, backgrounds
• use existing logo guidelines, increasing the logo size where needed
• follow existing font guidelines, adapt sizes to ensure legibility from the distance
• use higher resolution assets — images or videos should stay crisp from up close (quality digital signage solutions will offer proper caching, like Play. digital signage does = no need to focus on performance as you do on the web)
• use transitions / animations from your brand guidelines. Don’t have them? It’s a good time to make them part of your style guide.

Iterate, test, iterate

When creating content for the web, publishers need to test on a plethora of devices to ensure the content is displayed well (possibly different). The story is similar with digital signage, just at a much, much more smaller scale. There aren’t as many form factors in digital signage (well, not for a given publisher anyway), however many content creators choose to skip the testing part, at least for some of theirs displays. This is a problem that we identified especially with digital signage software that allows previewing content.

To avoid surprises, test early and iterate until images are easy to understand & text is readable from the distance. Create prototypes using print and measure legibility from a range of distances before publishing.

Keep an eye on the kerning and make sure colors are reproduced accurately. Adjust accordingly, the content you publish on digital signage is as much part of your brand as any other content you create.