As with all things, once something becomes popular, trends appear and disappear.
This article doesn’t have the predictive powers to guess which trends will endure, but you can sort-of guess based on what the latest digital trends are today. Here are just a few of them.
Three Dimensional Signs
You probably saw the one they did for Final Fantasy VII where the character Red XIII could be seen sleeping, moving around and playing with toys. It looked as if the character were actually reaching out of the screen and looking out at the people below.
Nike have followed in their footsteps and have made their own. This may only be a starter trend since the cost of the large signs and the technology to make three dimensional content is still pretty expensive. However, it is not a one-off trend that is going to die off (like the Chinese drone displays).
Restaurants Using Digital Signs
McDonalds doesn’t get nearly enough credit for its use of digital signs. They allow you to pick from the menu, pay, and wait for your order without ever having to queue up and speak to the person behind the till. It is a brilliant innovation, but people were too busy worrying about elections to notice the sheer brilliance of what McDonalds. The surge in popularity of Kitcast for restaurants is another sure indicator that restaurants are taking up the digital sign trend. For their sake, one hopes they are using them for digital menus, but even if they are using them to promote their food, it does make an impact being able to see a video version of the food before you order it.
Replacing Posters With Digital Signs
Companies have been doing this for years, but now we are seeing smaller companies doing it too. The premise is pretty simple. Instead of putting up posters showing off your promotions, you put up similarly designed digital posters on digital screens. Modern digital signs, TVs and digital signage software are pretty cheap, so smaller businesses can easily afford them. Rather than having posters, putting them up, taking them down, you run your posters on your digital signs. You can go two ways with it, you can have your posters change every few minutes, or you can run the same poster continually and then change it up every few weeks.
There are also those who run small videos with their digital signs, which is the more traditional use of digital signs in businesses and stores. A nice idea is to demonstrate your products or services while in the store. For example, people can’t really see your lawn mowers in action, but with a digital sign they can see it in action and can even hear how loud it is. It is like watching an advert for a product that is right in front of you, which is ideally the best time to have an advert. Videos are trickier to produce, so it is easy see why so many companies are using digital signs as digital posters rather than digital video players.
Giving Directions With Digital Signs
If you were watching Star Trek ten years ago, before things got terrible when the post 2009 period began, you will have seen signs everywhere telling people what they can do, where they can go, and so forth. Modern businesses are adding digital signs that tell people everything from where the restrooms are, to which exams are being held in which halls. This novel idea of electronic signs giving people directions is just as sci-fi and high tech as it sounds, and the great thing is that these days it is very achievable. Companies are looking for ways to minimize human interactions because they want to make themselves future proof for the next pandemic. They want to be able to operate when the next pandemic hits.
