If you have ever walked into a building in an attempt to find an office, a store, or anything else and ended up lost and confused, then you know the importance of having effective signage in buildings. Arguably, what is equally important as than just have effective signage, is having it somewhere that everyone who walks in will be able to instantly see it, access the information on it, understand the information, and get through the process in a streamlined fashion.
Lobby signage has a few extremely practical functions in keeping the day to day cogs of our society turning smoothly. Like a high-quality oil, here are the things that lobby signage does for all of us.
Keep traffic moving
Standing next to a sign for a few minutes trying to figure out where to go can be both embarrassing and a hassle. If a lobby sign is not clear in its directions, it can take much longer than necessary for it to help patrons figure out where they are going and how to get there.
For example, if you walk into a mall you’ve never been to before, and you are looking for your favorite jean store, you might walk stop first at one of the mall maps in the entryway that has all the stores listed. If that lobby sign is missing the “you are here” marker, or has an unorganized list, it might take you ages to figure out where your destination is, and how you might get there.
This means that there will be at any one time, countless people crowding the sign trying to find their way and growing increasingly frustrated by the second. If you are one of these people, one of the businesses in the mall, or the owner of the mall itself, this is an undesirable outcome.
Effective lobby signage keeps people moving on with their days (in the right direction) and keeps visitors to buildings happy.
Direct people to your business
Say for example, that you own a coffee shop in a large mix use building, but, unfortunately, you were not able to snag the ideal, visible spot near the entryway of the building. Visitors to the building who might otherwise head right up to the twentieth floor office space for their meeting or interview to sit awkwardly and wait fifteen minutes, that early bird meeting-goer might see your lobby signage, and instead stop by for one of your famous lattes and a croissant.
Often, without lobby signage, patrons have no way of knowing that you or your business exist. Without a well-designed, eye-catching lobby sign, it will be difficult for people to know that you own, for instance, a dry cleaning service in the same building that countless business people go to every day for their morning coffee. Make people aware that you’re there with helpful lobby signage!
Professionalism
Walking into a large building and seeing either no signage at all to direct patrons, or a poorly designed, unclear sign screams that that building is not somewhere that professionals carry out their business. Working in a building that has easy to use, aesthetically pleasing signage will give the first impression of your business as professional, and you as a business owner, as someone who cares about the details.
This is exactly the impression that you want potential customers to have of you before they even walk in the door of your business.
So who does not benefit from clear, beautiful lobby signage? No one. Literally everyone stands to gain from every building being easy to navigate with the help of lobby signage. Not just customers who save themselves from having a bad start to a day by getting lost, but you as business owners who do not have to deal with clients coming in late, after being lost and frustrated.