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The Chinese say a picture is worth a thousand words. The same could probably be said for good signage in the store, pictures or not. The business of disseminating information to your customers is a never-ending one, and one that is not always easy. In a perfect world, everything would be carefully and cheerfully explained by an attentive, knowledgeable, well-spoken salesperson. In reality, however, one has to take into account employee turnover, occasional employee disinterest, or staff that is simply too young, too new, or too inexperienced to know yet where the Meat Department is, let alone the qualitative differences in your pasta selection. Also, it doesn’t account for the day Mary from the Deli Department is sent over to cover the produce section and poor Mary doesn’t know the difference between a kiwi and a kumquat. Signage is perhaps the single most important merchandising tool at your disposal. You can build masterful displays but if consumers don’t know what it is or how to use it, you may as well install art exhibits. Whether the signage in question is intended to mark the Bakery Department’s location, give directions to the restrooms, or share the nuances of your balsamic vinegar selection, creating effective signage is an art, but fortunately, it is an art that can be learned. With good information, a little imagination, and a good deal of practice, your store can become a veritable font of information that can spur sales and keep your customers coming back for more.

The Big Picture
An effective signage program means more than simply writing informative signs for products on your shelves or in your cases. Good signage has to start before the customer is in the door, or in some instances, before they have entered the parking lot. Whatever one can say about MacDonald’s, you can see their signage a mile away and those golden arches speak volumes to Big Mac aficionados. Of course, your store is likely a destination or on an urban street, and luring shoppers in off the highway is probably not your chief objective. Nevertheless, your store signage should reflect what is to be found inside, and it should relate to the store’s overall signage program and aesthetics. Once inside the store, the real challenge and fun begin.
Gary Lind, president of Lind Design International, shared some thoughts on how they proceed when designing their clients’ signage programs. Lind divides the interior signage into four distinct areas. The first is permanent signage. This is to mark store departments or sections that must remain in their locations due to refrigeration, plumbing, or venting installations. These include the Cheese, Fresh Meats, or Prepared Foods Departments, broader areas that are shopper destinations. They can also be for sections that remain fixed due to the store’s physical layout, such as the Receiving Department or restrooms. These types of signs are architectural — they are hung on the walls or suspended from the ceiling. These signs should do more than simply delineate the various areas. They should help create a nice traffic flow that allows customers to see one department from another.
Next is secondary signage. These signs are for areas that may change or move about, such as demo locations or specific sections within bigger departments. The rotisserie, a chocolate shop, or a self-serve grating cheese section are examples. These signs are lower as they are hung near eye level, and are noticed more once you are inside a certain department or area. These signs can also change, depending upon the area’s usage. Today’s crepe pan demo is tomorrow’s book signing.
The third type of signage Lind focuses on is the kind of signs that seem to be most common in food stores or other specialty shops — informational signage. This can range from menu boards and sandwich signs to small signs for individual products, such as cheeses or grocery items. This type of signage fosters the most creativity and sharing of knowledge about the products. They can serve as a palette on which you can impart information about a product’s origin, how it is harvested or made, how to use it, how it pairs with other products in the store, and so on. We’ll return to informational signage later.
Finally, there is what Lind calls equity signage.
“This is where you can tell your store’s story and why it is of value to shop there,” says Lind. “For example, the food is fresh, from local farms, organic, natural, and so forth. You talk about all the effort that goes into the store that makes shopping there special. It’s theatre. It’s drama. By telling a story about the product, the services, etc., it makes the shopping experience more enjoyable.”
“Our philosophy about signage,” said Patrick Benasilla, vice president of Visual Graphic Systems, Inc., “is to think about the system as a whole. Signage should help navigate customers in the store and help them in their decision-making process. Too often, signage in stores is designed ala carte and ends up being a mishmash, a very disjointed signage program that ultimately is ineffective.”
“An example,” shared Benasilla, “is looking for the floral area of a grocery store. There are four dozen mylar balloons, and somewhere under it all is a small sign that reads ‘Flower Shop.’ I think the instinct for retailers is to have their store chock full of merchandise, but signage becomes an afterthought.”
Benasilla shared some of the other pitfalls for store signage.
“Too often, it’s quantity over quality. A glut of signs in general can be confusing and can actually distract rather than help. Another problem is assuming everyone is a sign designer — you end up with badly written signs and more confusion. Signage shouldn’t be a distraction, but it’s hard. In big grocery stores today, even the floor is prime real estate for signage. It can be information overload.”
“You want the signs in your store to all speak the same language,” advises Lind, “from the roadside sign to the shopping bags. Your store graphics should even tie in with advertising.”
“One of the most common pitfalls,” mused Lind, “is with stores that have been in business a long time with long, established customers. Either they don’t want to do anything about signage or they just don’t think about it — that is until the giant chain store opens down the street, or they decide to open a second location and they won’t have that guaranteed customer base. For those existing stores that need to make a change, we’re like the plastic surgeons of the grocery biz!”
“A food store is the most difficult to design,” insists Lind. In a clothing store like the Gap, all the product hangs on racks. But food is perishable, always changing, and there’s garbage involved. It’s a much bigger challenge.”

The Signs They are a Changin’
When permanent and secondary signage is done well by a skilled designer, they effectively disappear. They do the job of directing traffic, identifying departments, and generally facilitating the flow of the customers around your store. Equity signage can be read or not read, and although it can be very interesting or whimsical, it serves its purpose without taking the focus away from the merchandise and the store. Informational signage, however, can directly impact sales, allow for great creativity, and reinforce your image as a source of information and product knowledge. In order for them to be effective though, they should be clear, well written, concise, and have to be cohesive with the look of the rest of the store. What they shouldn’t be is to look as if someone hurriedly slapped them together. They should appear as if a great deal of thought went into them by someone who knows exactly what they are talking about.
To some, making good signs is easy and effortless. For others, it is a daunting task that never seems to move past the product’s name and price. Certainly, those are good components of product signage, but hardly compelling enough ones to grab someone’s attention or entice them to buy the product. A good way to think about individual product signs is to imagine what you would want to tell a customer about that product if you were talking to them in person with no time constraints. You would want to tell them, for example, how it tastes, how it is made, where it originates, and perhaps what makes it superior to other similar products. Are there characteristics of the ingredients, the production method, or what region or locale it is from that makes this product special? Is there a good story behind the product? Is it a centuries-old tradition or a modern innovation? What is the best use for this product, how should you serve it, and what other foods or beverages would pair best with it? In other words, relate a good story.
Your signs should have a cohesive design, as if they all came from the store. They can have the store logo or name with distinctive graphic elements, such as a wheel of cheese, a bunch of grapes, fish, and so on, to differentiate departments. Try to maintain continuity in the signs so that customers know where to look for the information they want without having to read the whole sign each time. For instance, the price should always be in the same corner of the sign, as well as the name of the product, country, or region of origin, and description. If someone is seeking out Spanish cheeses, they should be able to do so easily. Leave room for creativity, and above all else, be accurate and up to date with your information. Remember, you want your customers to trust you and your signs implicitly. If a knowledgeable person sees information they know to be wrong, it can erode that trust.
Following is an example of an informative sign that goes well beyond name, rank, and serial number. Consider Jamon Serrano, the air-cured ham from Spain. Not an inexpensive item, there are definitely much less expensive hams on the market that a consumer could choose from. Why should they buy it? Here are two versions of a possible sign for this product:

Jamon Serrano. Spain. $19.00/lb.

Jamon Serrano (literally, ‘mountain ham’). Spain.
Long revered for its supple texture and buttery flavor, this delicious artisanal ham is cured by cool mountain breezes combined with the salty sea air that wafts in off of the nearby Mediterranean Sea. The ultimate appetizer, it is perhaps the quintessential taste of Spain. Best sliced thin and served with fresh fruit, toasted nuts, and cold fino sherry, wine, or beer.
$19.00/lb.

Of course, that’s a lot of information for one sign and you may not want to devote as much to every product, but it is rather more enticing and informative than the previous terse sign. Nevertheless, if brevity is the soul of wit, then consider this sign written a few years ago by Steven Jenkins, general manager of Fairway Market in New York and a great practitioner of sign making. It’s short and to the point, but loses nothing of the allure of this fine cheese:

Vermont Shepherd’s Cheese
The Major Farm Grand Prize award winner; 100% raw sheep’s milk. Extraordinary in all respects. Long, lingering flavor. Toothsome texture. $4.99/1/4 lb.

Nothing is tentative about this sign. It evokes tangible images of artisanal production, gives a hint as to the flavor, and most of all, makes a compelling case why someone should purchase the cheese. My goodness, why wouldn’t you want to buy the cheese! Confident signs like this one seem to have been written by someone who has a clear understanding of the product, has perhaps been to the source, and gives someone the sense they are being let in on a secret. People love to make new discoveries.

Here’s one more by another master sign writer Ari Weinzweig, co-owner of Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Mich.:

Nunez de Prado Olive Oil
Made via the ‘flower of the oil’ method.
This oil is made by allowing the oil to drip naturally from the olive paste without added pressure. Exceptionally complex & full flavored. Using over twice as many olives per liter as other oils, it is left unfiltered to bring you the full flavor of its estate-grown olives.
One of Ari’s favorite oils. $19.99

Some stores, like the aforementioned Fairway and Zingerman’s, are known for the quality of their signs. Yours should be, too. If your signs aren’t doing their job — making your store more easily navigable and boosting sales, then it’s time to upgrade your signage program throughout the store. Confucius may have been right about the thousand words, but when your products are pictures themselves, you won’t need a thousand words to connect with your customers, only a few well-chosen ones.

If you want to seek professional help with your signage program, here’s how to contact the following:
Lind Design International
800-297-5267 or 718-463-1100
www.linddesign.com

Visual Graphic Systems Inc.
800-203-0301 or 212-563-5600
www.vgsonline.com