Wayfinding Signage 101

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Well-placed and professionally designed wayfinding signage is an integral component to enhancing your customer’s experience in brick-and-mortar establishments. As a consumer, you’ve likely benefitted from exterior and interior wayfinding signage. Think about your last visit to a large, multistory medical complex. More than likely, you found your doctor’s or dentist’s office from a variety of signage such as elevator directories and exterior signs pointing you in the right direction. Using wayfinding signs is so important that the town of West Hartford, Connecticut is soliciting locals’ opinions in a large-scale survey to ensure that their latest signage project considers the community’s needs.

Businesses and organizations of all kinds can benefit from interior and exterior wayfinding signage including medical offices, legal practices, retail stores, and restaurants.

Exterior Wayfinding Signage

Strategically placing signage outside of your organization or business can make visits to your establishment much easier for the public. You can use exterior signs to designate specific parking areas and direct visitors to their appropriate destinations. If your business or organization utilizes multiple entrances and/or buildings, having appropriate signage is a necessity.

Bear in mind that exterior wayfinding signage should be made of materials that can withstand varying weather conditions including precipitation and wind. The signage pros at Pel Hughes can help you design your signs as well as select durable materials for long-term use.

Interior Wayfinding Signage

You might be surprised to learn how helpful interior wayfinding signs can be for your business. Interior signs can identify important areas like emergency exits, dressing rooms, and restrooms. If your visitors require an elevator or stairway to reach your business, signs placed at entrances to these areas can make a world of difference for your clients and customers. The core reason that wayfinding signs are needed is to make navigating your business as easy as possible.

Tips for Effective and Inclusive Wayfinding Signs

When designing your signage, it is important to keep inclusivity and accessibility in mind. You may have visitors who have visual impairments or speak another language. Inclusive and accessible wayfinding signs send a clear message: that your business seeks to accommodate all people. The following are some helpful tips for developing great wayfinding signs.

  • Use symbols. Utilizing symbols helps those who speak other languages as well as those who are vision impaired. Universal symbols are also beneficial to those driving through parking lots and entrances as symbols take less time to interpret than reading words.
  • Choose highly visible areas for signage. Your interior and exterior signs should be high enough off the ground so that most people can see them at or near eye level. The areas surrounding signs should be clutter-free—especially when outdoors. Overgrown trees and shrubs can quickly render your signage ineffective.
  • Include braille on interior signs—particularly for important areas like restrooms and emergency exits.
  • Whenever possible, keep your signage in line with your brand. Choose similar color schemes and font families to maintain cohesiveness.

How Pel Hughes Can Help

Pel Hughes is a one-stop shop for all your printing needs, including signage. We offer world class technology and personalized client service to help your business or organization thrive. Our experts can help you design signage that maintains a cohesive brand identity while providing valuable information to your clientele. If you have questions about our services or would like to request a quote, give our friendly experts a call at (504) 486-8646.

4 Reasons to Consider Promotional Apparel from Pel Hughes 

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Did you know that in addition to full-service printing, graphic design, and database services, Pel Hughes offers promotional apparel? Today’s business world is more competitive than ever. Getting a leg up on the competition can be a daunting task. One way to inch above the competition is to add promotional apparel to your branding efforts.  

Branded apparel can be beneficial to enterprises in a number of industries. From mom-and-pop bistros to dental practices, most business owners can benefit from making space in their marketing budgets for promotional apparel.

Below you’ll find four reasons to consider branded apparel for your business.

#1 Foster a Team-Like Atmosphere Among Employees

Providing employees with branded polos, t-shirts, and hats can go a long way with your staff. From providing branded shirts to new employees to gifting current employees with apparel for achieving milestones, promotional apparel helps create a sense of belonging amongst your employees. As an added benefit, your staff wearing these items in public can generate interest in your business.

#2 Develop Loyalty with Your Clientele

Promotional apparel can be used to develop relationships with your customers. Gifting branded merchandize as holiday gifts or tokens of appreciation for new customers can help foster positive associations with your business. Fostering loyalty with your clients/customers is always good for business.

#3 Cost-Effective Marketing

Compared to magazine advertisements and some digital marketing campaigns, implementing promotional apparel into your advertising strategy is cost-effective. A branded t-shirt worn by a customer or employee could easily be seen by hundreds of people in a few months. Each of these impressions with your brand is a frugal way to reach more people without breaking the bank.

#4 Boost Brand Recognition

Brand recognition is powerful. The more people see your unique logo, the more likely they are to do business with you. Exposure to your brand through promotional apparel adds legitimacy to your enterprise, too. The more impressions you can make in your community, the more likely you are to expand your customer base.

If adding promotional apparel to your marketing repertoire interests you, look no further than Pel Hughes. We offer an expansive assortment of common items like short and long sleeve t-shirts, polo shirts, hats, visors, jackets, hoodies, and more. These items are available in numerous colors, have fashion-forward style elements, and can be customized with your current logo. Our team of graphic designers is here to help you ensure that your promotional apparel is on-point with your brand’s unique image. Give us a call at (504) 486-8646 or visit our website www.pelpromo.com for more information.

When should a company logo be updated? 

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A company logo can be an iconic, recognizable image. Some logos have such a powerful effect on us that we can instantly recognize their elements, color, and font from afar.

Your company’s logo is important. It will be seen on your business cards, website, social media accounts, and even your packaging. It might seem like changing your logo is sacrosanct but that notion couldn’t be further from the truth. If you look at the history of some of the most popular logos of all time, you can see their evolution. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Ford, Disney, Google and Chevrolet have had numerous incarnations of logos to stay on target with the aesthetics and trends of their time. Updating your logo is a fine balance of paying homage to your past while maintaining a pleasing aesthetic for the consumers of today. 

If you’re wondering if it’s time to give your company logo a facelift, consider the following tips from the experts at Pel Hughes.

You’ve Had Your Current Company Logo for Years

Like fashion and home décor, logos will eventually look dated. For instance, your logo may have been developed ten or twenty years ago. If it contains italicized fonts, gradients, or once-popular fonts that have fallen out of favor, your logo could look antiquated to the general public. More than likely, your logo was inspired by the trends of the time and if it’s been quite a few years, your enterprise’s logo could benefit from a makeover. 

Your Logo Has Too Much Detail

If your logo has many elements, including graphics, gradients, shading, and busy fonts, there’s a good chance that your logo may not look the best in digital formats. Some complex and detailed logos can look appealing on paper but when they’re transferred to social media pages and websites, they are nearly indecipherable. Fortunately, adopting a more minimalist aesthetic can ensure that your company logo translates beautifully across all mediums. The fact that minimalism is very appealing to modern consumers makes stripping away complexity and intricate detail even more beneficial. 

Your Company Has Grown

When your company expands its markets or its offerings, it’s a good time to evaluate your brand’s image. Sometimes, a logo can limit the perception of your brand when a company scales up—especially if that brand is selling consumer goods or services. 

Let’s say you run a boutique. When your business first opened, you primarily sold shoes so your logo incorporated a silhouette of a high heel. As your customer base grew, you expanded your offerings to include coats, pants, shirts, and dresses. Your existing logo depicting a specific product will limit how customers perceive your brand. This example illustrates the need to reevaluate the usefulness of your logo and other brand imaging as your business evolves. 

If the aforementioned scenarios apply to your business, now is a great time to meet with a graphic designer and other marketing creatives. Enlisting the help of professionals can ensure a more productive transition in revitalizing your brand’s image. If you’ve never worked with a graphic designer, check out our blog post “How to Communicate with a Graphic Designer” to help get you started. 

Pel Hughes is a woman-owned enterprise that offers graphic design services, in-house printing and fulfillment, and impeccable client service. We help businesses throughout the United States take their cross-media marketing to the next level. Call our office at (504) 486-8646 to speak with one of our experts. 

5 Ways You Can Use Promotional Products 

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From branded pens and notepads to reusable water bottles, we have all been gifted promotional products at some point in our lives. When promotional products have a purpose—like a cloth grocery bag or an umbrella, your employees and customers/clients will likely use them frequently. This is why the country’s biggest employers and top retailers gift promotional materials when they onboard new employees or when a customer makes a substantial purchase.

Promotional materials aren’t just a helpful tool for the titans of industry. In fact, businesses of all sizes in an array of industries can benefit from them. The pros at Pel Hughes can help you develop promotional products consistent with your brand’s image. 

Following are five ways you can incorporate promotional products into your branding repertoire. 

#1 Welcome New Employees

Adding branded promotional materials to welcome packages for employees can make their onboarding process more pleasant. We recommend incorporating branded pens, notepads or spirals, and reusable water bottles to all your new employee packages. These materials can help integrate new staff members into your organization and make them feel valued. 

#2 Reward Big Purchases or New Customers

Promotional materials can go a long way with your customers—both new and existing ones. Consider gifting customers who make large purchases with simple branded materials like reusable totes. You can also provide small, affordable promotional products to customers when they make a first-time purchase from your website or for those who sign-up for an e-mailing list. 

#3 Pass Out at Trade Shows

For enterprises engaging in business-to-business commerce, trade shows are often an important component of making connections with potential clients. Every great trade show booth should be well-stocked with promotional materials for your visitors. Affordable items like mousepads, lanyards, and pens can go a long way with establishing positive associations with your brand. 

#4 Gift Baskets to Potential Clients

Gift baskets to potential clients in your area can make it easier to reach out to potential clients. For instance, let’s say you’re opening up a new dental practice. Sending out gift baskets with branded materials to local businesses can help bring in new patients. A winning combination is to have coupons for new patients along with a variety of promotional products for a business’ employees to choose from.

#5 Employee Retention Programs

Staff turnover can put a dent in your bottom line. This is why many businesses work with human resources to develop employee retention programs. Promotional products can help keep morale high by making your employees feel valued and appreciated. We recommend giving out useful promotional products like umbrellas, laptop cases, branded earbuds, and coffee mugs to celebrate employee promotions and anniversaries or as prizes for contests. 

Pel Hughes offers an array of promotional products that you can customize to align with your brand’s image. You can view a complete catalogue of our promotional materials by visiting www.pelpromo.com. If you have questions or would like to request a quote, give our office a call at (504) 486-8646 to speak with a helpful member of our team. 

Easy Tips for Developing Effective Custom Packaging 

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Packaging sets the tone for your brand. Advancements in printing technology have made developing unique and eye-catching custom packaging more cost-effective than ever before. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping has become a workhorse driving consumer activity. More people are turning to online shopping and delivery than in years past and this will likely continue to be a driving force behind sales. Brands contending with a post-pandemic world should tap into the power of effective packaging to create a memorable consumer experience beyond their brick-and-mortar operations.  

If you’re looking to establish or re-vamp your packaging game, look no further than the experts at Pel Hughes. We serve businesses in nearly every industry from coast to coast. Utilizing advanced technology and state-of-the-art printing techniques, we can help you deploy custom packaging that will make a lasting impression on your customers.  

Here’s four easy tips to consider in your packaging design. 

#1 Understand the Psychological Effects of Color 

Color has an effect on our mood and our behavior. When it comes to choosing color for your packaging, it’s important to stay on message with your brand’s aesthetic and the ambient effect you’re trying to create. For instance, let’s say you sell a luxury beauty product. You probably wouldn’t want to choose red as its typically paired with intense emotions like passion or hunger. Instead, you might want to choose something white with gold foil embellishments or perhaps blue since that color conveys tranquility and calm.  

Here’s a simple breakdown of emotions and themes associated with popular colors: 

  • Blue: peace, tranquility, and relaxation 
  • Green: nature, financial comfort, prosperity, and environmentally-conscious 
  • Red: courage, passion, hunger, and anger 
  • Yellow: joy, optimism, and youth 
  • Black: anti-authority, rebellious, and mysterious 
  • White: minimalism, purity, and cleanliness 
  • Purple: regal and prestigious 

Your color selection for your custom packaging should be carefully considered. When in doubt, consider consulting with one of Pel Hughes’ skilled graphic designers for their insight.  

#2 Know How Your Brand is Perceived 

Do you know how consumers perceive your brand? Are you seen as the most affordable? Perhaps you are seen as a socially-conscious alternative to a popular product. Understanding how your brand is received by the public can help you craft packaging that will speak to your consumer.  

If your product has a luxury price point, your packaging should reflect its cost. Flimsy, unoriginal, and unprofessional packaging could hurt your brand’s image. Similarly, if your product is marketed as eco-friendly, it’s important that your packaging is considered environmentally conscious.  

#3 Consider Functional Custom Packaging 

Sometimes, the best packaging is functional. Whether that’s housing artisan soaps in a water-repelling case to protect your product or storing your product in a reusable tote, functional packaging can help you establish positive associations with your brand and boost customer loyalty. If functionable packaging is used out in public, say, like a reusable grocery bag, you get the added bonus of free advertising.  

#4 Use Embellishments like Foil and Raised Varnishes Very Strategically 

Printing techniques like raised varnishes and foils can make your package stand out. These careful details can demonstrate that you care about your customers’ experiences. Going overboard, however, could have the opposite effect. When using embellishments like metallic foils and raised varnishes, be sure to place them strategically and sparingly for maximum effectiveness.  

Packaging is an important part of your customers’ experience. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, Pel Hughes can help. We offer state-of-the-art technology and a team of experts to help you make the most out of your print materials. Give us a call at (504) 486-8646 or fill out our contact form to request a quote.  

Pel Hughes’ Storefront: The Future of Brand Management is Here

Storefront from Pel Hughes offers unparalleled marketing execution and supply chain management for businesses in a number of industries. Especially beneficial for franchises and national companies, this user-friendly portal can help deliver consistent branding and marketing materials without blowing out your budget. Storefront also helps businesses manage their marketing costs and reduce waste.

Storefront houses a library with brand-approved content for efficient delivery of popular materials like hats, shirts, packaging, personalized direct mail, business cards, and more. The Storefront portal integrates with Adobe’s InDesign from—preview to composition—complete with a range of fonts and the pantone color library for sharp, professional marketing materials. It also supports third-party platforms for exchanging data and managing shipping through UPS, FedEx, and USPS.

Products Available 

Storefront can meet any business’ needs. It offers an on-demand supply of static documents and advanced personalization. For instance, franchisees can create business cards with brand-approved logos and customized entry fields for local stores. Users have instant access to bulk documents for direct mail campaigns and packing.  Storefront’s portal provides centralized control, too, which allows for seamless inventory tracking, cost management, and convenient reordering.

Brand Protection 

Franchised businesses or companies with branches in various locations can benefit from Storefront’s portal. Users can be assigned with different levels of permissions to ensure they generate content that stays on brand. This helps prevent local branches and managers from creating and disseminating materials that conflict with brands’ logos, color choices, and font. Approval processes can be added for groups and individual users, which can be accepted, rejected, or amended giving corporate total control over their brand.

Cost Reduction 

Storefront can help businesses reduce their marketing costs. The technology built into Storefront makes it possible to eliminate the need for graphic designers for small tasks like developing branded business cards and updates with new copy. Storefront saves time by automating tasks that used to require e-mails and phone calls to track. Executives and business owners can also assign budgets to groups within Storefront to prevent excessive spending by other departments or branches.

Convenient Features & Benefits 

The possibilities with Storefront are endless. Here are some of Storefront’s most well-liked features:

  • Responsive templates that allow for easy customization of design elements
  • Document management with repository integration
  • Data protection that is GDPR compliant
  • On-demand ordering for static and dynamic marketing materials
  • Interactive 3D previews for items like labels and packaging
  • Corporate-controlled content for easy brand compliance
  • Easy ordering for omnichannel campaigns that include e-mail retargeting, landing pages, and personalized e-mail marketing
  • User-friendly SSO log-ins
  • Create groups to manage user permissions with ease
  • Add approval processes for particular users or groups to manage budgets and brand compliance
  • Billing methods include purchase orders, invoices, PayPal, and credit/debit cards
  • Multilingual storefronts are available in German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch.

Storefront can help take your business’ branding and marketing campaigns to the next level. If your business needs dynamic, cross channel marketing that gives your company complete control of your budget and brand, connect with our team at Pel Hughes by filling out this contact form. Our team is here to help you bring the vision you have for your brand to fruition.

5 Essential Branding Tools for Growing Your Small Business

Small businesses usually do not have the massive budgets that large corporations have to advertise their business. Small businesses must ensure that every contact they have with customers represents their brand so that they can build brand awareness. Here are five essential tools to use to brand and help grow your small business.

Business Cards

Business cards are a very versatile branding tool that will allow you to communicate your brand without breaking the bank. In addition to displaying pertinent information about your business like your name, job title and website, your business card can also showcase your creativity or provide additional access to your business. For example, if you want to emphasize your many followers on social media, you can add your channel to the card, or you can use a QR code that takes customers to a portal to explain the history of your small business.

To keep customers intrigued, work on creating a unique design for your card that makes it stand apart and keep it out of the trash. Some options include using a special cut to make your card a different shape than the norm, using special techniques like letterpressing or unique, adding aesthetically pleasing graphics, or making it a magnet so people stick onto it.

Blog

Having a blog can set you apart as an authority in the industry if you do it right. To make this a powerful branding tool, focus on creating great content for your readers. Do some research to find out what questions your target audience has and work at answering them. Provide an in-depth analysis of these topics that is better than any other blog out there. Make your blog dynamic with custom images that break up the content. Use headers and bullet points to carefully organize the content. Eliminate jargon and be sure that you edit your post multiple times to ensure your credibility is intact. Promote your posts by adding links from your social media accounts and your Google My Business page.

Social Media

Most people use social media today, including young users to older generations. Many forms of social media are inexpensive and effective ways to share information about your business and drastically expand your reach. Choose the social media platforms that most resonate with your customer base. Thoroughly research your target audience and determine the social media channels they use the most and focus on these. It is better to have an active presence on just a few social media sites than to have accounts for most channels but not monitor them. The key to an effective social media campaign is to be engaged and accessible to your customers. Respond to comments, questions and reviews regularly.

Press Release

Write a press release about your business and distribute it to your local media. Report big changes, such as a new location, milestones, important job openings or raising awareness for a cause. You need to have something important to talk about for reporters to release the story, so make it worth their time.

Another press option that can help raise awareness about your brand is to act as a guest columnist for a local news station or publication.

Event

A big way to make a splash in your community is to host an event. If there is a charitable cause you support, you can be part of its mission by hosting your own gala or fundraiser. You can appeal to the community by offering free samples or taking part in a community barbeque. Make the most of your event by having participants snap photos and post them about your event with a unique hashtag.

These are just a few ways that you can grow your small business through effective branding. None of them will break the bank, but all of them have the potential to lead to significant growth in your business.