Digital Signage Content Style Guide
One of the most important elements of any Concerto display is the use of eye-catching, vivid images. Graphics can take the form of event flyers, original artistic creations, or visual announcements. But if you are submitting content that is graphical in nature, you'll want to pay careful attention to the size, colors, fonts, and composition of your content.
Most graphical content on the average Concerto screen will cover the entire screen. This means that you content should be created in a 16:9 aspect ratio (16" wide and 9" tall, or some multiple of that ratio). We recommend that you create your graphical materials using the Powerpoint template provided on the Creating Content page. If you choose to use another program to create your content, then you should make sure that your image is sized to 1920x1080. Concerto supports JPEG, PNG and GIF images.
General Rules
- Use vivid, large images. Your content will be competing with all of the other stuff being shown on the screens of the Concerto network. You will want to incorporate visually pleasing graphics that catch people's eyes.
- Emphasize in a large, readable type face the most important content on the slide, such as the name of an event, club, or organization, or the time and place of an event.
- Use sans-serif fonts, such as Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana (as opposed to serif fonts such as Times New Roman or Garamond). Stick to size 20pt font or higher.
- Refrain from using super-bright colors such as pure white, bright yellow, and hot pink. If you must to use a bright color, use it very sparingly.
- Do not use copyrighted content unless you get consent from the copyright holder. Content posted to the Internet is considered copyrighted material (PDF) unless specifically stated otherwise. If you use fair-use materials, follow the terms of the copyright. If you can't tell if something is copyrighted or not, don't use it. One site that is great for royalty-free imagery is https://pixabay.com/ .
How Much Text is Too Much Text?
The average amount of time for which a single graphic is up on a Concerto display is 5 seconds. In studying the effectiveness of different visual compositions over a period of time, we found this to be the ideal duration for each piece of content in order to maintain a balance between the amount of content a person will see as they pass by a display and the amount of time given to each individual message. This means that you're going to have to design your flyers in order to send your message completely within a few short seconds.
Avoid lengthy blocks of text on all of your graphical flyers at all costs. Try to emphasize the most important information on every flyer. For instance, if you're advertising a mixer hosted by your honors society, people should be able to clearly distinguish the name, date, time, and location for the event. While you are free to add in other information and imagery to promote this event, no other text on the flyer should be emphasized over those basic details.