The age of digital signs is upon us. Whether a company, organization, or small business chooses digital printing, lighted LED signs, or moving information streams, the new technology ensures that their message will reach its target audience.
It is hard to ignore even a digital printed poster or notice, since the software available today can allow personnel managers to use color, logos, pictures, and any style and size of font to really make a statement. When the notice is presented with lighted numbers or words, with or without movement, the signal really comes across. Imagine a printed sign: ‘All employees on site must wear hard hats’. Then picture the message in a changing digital format: ‘Be Safe. Remember your hard hat!’ Which one has more impact?
Today digital signage lets you know the time and temperature (common for banks), how fast you are going as you come into town, how much the gas prices have changed since yesterday, and what’s on sale at the garden center. As you wait in line at the pharmacy, a video presentation may tell you more than you want to know about some over-the-counter or prescription drug.
Digital signs are placed on towering pillars at highway exits. These signs are updated by computer, saving staff time and eliminating the danger of climbing fifty feet up a pole to change a sign. The displays are visible at night, with no need for supplemental lighting. Signs can shine steadily, flash on and off, and loop a series of advertising or other information. People in major cities can catch breaking news as they walk down the sidewalk.
Many of today’s animated digital signs in Houston and other major cities are managed by software at that particular location, but others are connected to the Web. These displays can be managed from any computer, so the store staff is free to do other tasks and management can be at home, in the office, or even at the central headquarters across the country.
There are many types of digital technology, from systems that use all-mounted video screens or plasma TVs to portable, folding signs that can signal ‘Accident Ahead!’ or a temporary reduction in the speed limit or the number of lanes. The big flashing arrow signs on super highways that alert drivers to the need to merge right or left cannot be missed day or night.
Las Vegas still stands out for its use of this technology, but now signs and messages are everywhere, from the microwave on your counter to the farm supply store. Digital signs are today’s way to communicate, whether it is between a business and its customers, a company and its employees, or a community center or a church and the public. The possibilities are endless.