Represent Your Brand

The first thing you need to think about when designing business decals is your brand. Your brand should be conveyed strongly with your decals. Your decals should have the same general identity as the rest of your marketing materials.

What are your brand colors? Regardless, they should be included in the decal design.

What font do you typically use with your brand? In any case, it should be used for your decals.

Do you have a logo for your brand? You should, and you should use it in the design of your decals.

You might even have a slogan or catchphrase. You don't necessarily need to use it for your decal. However, if it's a strong part of your business' identity, you should consider using it.

What you don't want to do is utilize design elements that aren't present in your other branding materials. Brand consistency is vital in marketing and must be represented on your decals.

Choose a Background Type

When it comes to decals, there are 3 principle background types. These include die-cut, clear, and white.

A die-cut background is a background in which nothing exists. The decal is cut out around design elements to ensure that there is no blank space remaining on the decal itself. As such, the item that the decal is stuck to ends up serving as the background.

A clear background is what it sounds like it is: a background that is see-through. This offers a similar effect to that of the die-cut background but is not quite as clean looking. The trade-off is that it's cheaper.

And then there's the white background. White backgrounds don't look quite as professional as clear and die-cut backgrounds. That said, they allow for more variety in design and could very well be the right choice for you.

Make It Readable

Apart from utilizing your brand identity, the most important thing to do when creating business decals is to make them readable. The easier your decals are to read, the more effective they'll be.

Now, this isn't to say that you can't get a little creative with fonts. However, if creativity gets in the way of legibility, you should go with something else.

In addition to using a readable font, you should also be sure that the text is big enough. There's no standard for this. Just consider where these decals are going to be used and consider whether the text will be big enough for passersby to read quickly.

Finally, ensure that the text isn't too cluttered. Use adequate spacing and be cognizant of how other design elements could impair readability.

Avoid Clutter

Clutter is never a good thing. Whether it's a cluttered house or a cluttered decal, it's going to feel overwhelming, and will subconsciously cause you to turn away from it.

Therefore, when designing decals for your business, it's vital that you avoid clutter as much as possible. Try not to run different design elements together.

For instance, when it comes to your logo and the text in your decal, keep a few inches of separation. White space can be beneficial, as it can help to maintain balance both aesthetically and mentally.

Keep It Simple

Not only should you avoid clutter but you should also aim to keep your decal simple. Now, what does this mean? It means to keep everything to a minimum.

For instance, when it comes to text, there's no reason to tell an entire story. Use text to convey the gist of the message and nothing more. Ideally, your decal will contain no more than two lines of text.

When it comes to your logo, a single logo will do just fine. There's no reason to cram all of your brand designs into a single decal.

And don't be afraid to present different design elements line by line. In other words, don't try to get too creative with spacing, backgrounds, and the like. What might look cool to you could actually be confusing to others.

Be Conservative With Colors

This is a business decal. As such, it should possess a professional feel. If your decal possesses 5 different colors, it's not going to feel professional; it's as simple as that.

This is why we suggest using no more than three colors. One of these colors will serve as your base color and will see the most use of any color on your decal. The next will serve as a secondary color and will be used for things like sub-headers and portions of your logo. If you have a third color, it should be used only as an accent.

Color contrasts can really help a decal pop visually. However, if too many colors are used, they can have the opposite effect, and simply make the decal look loud and gaudy.

Looking to Print Business Decals?

Have you designed your brand decals? Looking to print business decals currently? If so, we here at Creation Station are the ones to see.

We print out designs of all kinds and can have hundreds of business decals ready for you in mere days. Regardless of your color and style preferences, we have you covered.

Contact us now with any questions you might have!