7 Best Design Tools For Digital Signage Content Creation
Digital signage can get your business noticed, but without attractive and visually compelling content, your digital sign is nothing but another ordinary sign. To enjoy the benefits of digital signage, you need to be able to create engaging and interactive content.
For you to create captivating content, you need to have the right tools. To facilitate your content creation process, we have provided the seven best design tools to bring your digital signage content ideas to life.
Importance Of Digital Signage Content
Digital signage is growing increasingly popular as a business solution to drive sales and increase brand awareness. However, with all the hype surrounding this innovative technology, it is easy to forget that digital signage is more than just a screen.
Digital signage is made up of four essential components which are a digital display, the media player, the content management system, and the content itself. Without these elements in place, it is impossible to have fully effective digital signage.
Although a digital signage display is built to command attention on its own, it is obvious that without content, your display will be nothing but a blank screen. Great content is the lifeblood of any effective digital signage.
The content uploaded to the digital signage hardware and displayed on the screen is the element that truly captures a person’s attention. This content is what engages, entertains, and enlightens your clients, potential clients, and other people that come about your digital signage.
The content you display is critical in fostering a relationship with your audience. It doesn't matter how big your display is or in what position, without the right content on the screen, you cannot connect with your target audience.
Your content can be anything you want. It can be a simple text message scrawled across the screen or a video telling a story. In fact, you can have different content for different situations, enabling you to diversify your reach and remain relevant to your audience.
Your content gives your digital signage purpose and helps you enjoy the benefits it was designed to provide. With the right kind of content, you can create a customer experience your clients and potential clients cannot get anywhere else.
Creating Captivating Digital Signage Content
Understanding that you need content to have a fully optimized digital signage technology is only the first step. Next, you must figure out what it takes to create quality content that will benefit your business.
Creating digital signage content is more than simply uploading a picture or video and calling it a day. Digital Signage is designed to be an innovative substitute for basic static signage, and as you will expect, there is a more intricate process necessary for digital signage content creation.
To create captivating digital signage content, you need the right tools. Since the design and your content's message are both priorities, you need tools to help create creative content to grab attention wherever it is displayed.
Although there is an endless list of design tools you can use to create content, each tool is different from the next and offers different features that will lead to different results.
As a tech-savvy and experienced designer, you might find it less challenging to navigate your way around the multitude of design tools available for use. As a beginner who has little to no idea how to use these tools, it will be more challenging to find a tool you can easily use for your content creation purpose.
Regardless of your level of experience, we have narrowed our list of the best design tools to those with which you can create captivating and creative content.
7 Best Design Tools For Digital Signage Content Creation
The type of digital signage design tool you need depends on several factors. Regardless of these factors, you will agree your goal is to create a design that will turn heads and command attention. To help you achieve this, we have compiled a list of the most effective digital signage content design tools.
Digital signage is effective, however, it doesn’t always come cheap. All components of the technology often require a financial commitment to ensure your setup continues to run effectively and efficiently.
Although many design tools require a subscription or one-time payment to enjoy their features fully, there are tons of free tools that are equally effective at helping you create digital signage content for your business.
Free design tools eliminate the need for a financial obligation and drastically reduce the amount you need to integrate digital signage into your business. These tools are a great option for small businesses looking to harness the power of digital signage to build their brand without necessarily breaking the bank.
Some of these free design tools are:
1. Canva
Canva is a free design and publishing tool. It was created to help small businesses produce engaging content that will give their content marketing strategy a boost.
Canva is a great design tool for beginners who have had experience creating simple graphics or have no experience at all. Its features are easy to use with a beginner-friendly and intuitive interface that designers and non-designers will understand. Canva can also be used on android and ios devices.
Canva is an online web-based app meaning it requires an internet connection for use. Even as a free design tool, Canva offers approximately 250,000 free templates, thousands of free pictures and graphics, and hundreds of designs for presentations. What’s more, it requires no software installation.
Canva is a great tool for creating a variety of content that suits your digital signage marketing strategy. From creating branded images or videos that guide your clients through the sales funnel to creating restaurant menu boards and eye-catching review displays to provide your business with social proof, you can have fun creating different compelling and attractive designs for your digital signs.
With the simple drag-and-drop function and the search feature that makes it possible to look for any element, you can create whatever design you want whenever you like.
Canva is an easily accessible and easy-to-use design tool that is handy for creating basic digital signage. However, it is important to note that to access certain features, you will need to upgrade to a Canva Pro account.
Regardless, Canva makes an effective design tool for small and medium businesses.
2. Pixlr
Pixlr is another free web-based smart design tool. It is easy to use and can be used on mobile devices or computers.
Pixlr is often compared to Photoshop due to its similarities. Like Photoshop, Pixlr is a photo editing and design tool that enables users to create attractive and creative picture designs. It offers an extensive folder of effects and other features to create designs however you like.
Pixlr offers features that make it easy to carry out actions like removing the background in a picture, adding filters, or layering stickers and icons. It also provides different text fonts that make it possible to add messages to your designs and decorate your pictures with texts.
Pixlr also offers other user intuitive functions like the features that allow users to display the working background in light or dark mode to match the time of day or the user’s preferences. This design tool offers free stock photos, pre-built design templates, social media integration, and a search/filter option, among others.
Users can freely import and export pictures as they like with quick access to images from Google or Facebook. All projects are automatically saved to the cloud to ensure you never lose a design you have spent time working on.
Essentially, Pixlr is a great tool for simple picture creation and manipulation. For access to more features, you can upgrade your free account to a Pixlr Pro option for $5 every month.
3. Rawshorts
If you are looking for a free design tool to create engaging and appealing videos for your digital signs, Rawshorts is the perfect tool for you.
Rawshorts is an artificial intelligence video editor and text-to-video maker. Creating a video from scratch is a challenging process, especially for small to medium business owners with little to no experience creating content. Rawshorts uses its features to cut the video creation process by approximately 90% using an easy video generation process.
These features are handy for creating and regularly uploading fresh video content on your digital sign to optimize your digital signage technology fully. With Rawshorts, you can create professional-looking animated videos to keep your customers engaged in your business establishment.
Do you want to create a ‘how-to’ video for a new product or service? Or do you want to make an explainer video showing your clients and potential clients why they need certain products? You can do it all with Rawshorts.
To begin making your video, all you need to do is upload your video script text. The AI machine will identify the main concept of your story and use its algorithms to find media assets from its extensive library of over one million assets that match your video script.
Afterwards, you can generate a voice narration, use the drag and drop editor to make the necessary adjustments, and save the final result!
4. Google Slides
Google Slides is a free cloud-based video presentation tool. It is used to create online slideshows in real-time.
Google Slides is compatible with any device. It can be used by anybody regardless of their experience designing video presentation content.
Google Slides is a great fit for businesses looking to provide clients with an immersive customer experience through digital signage. It helps businesses create videos that tell their story visually appealingly.
Basically, Google Slides helps its users to create, present, and collaborate on online presentations in real-time and from any device without software installation.
With Google Slides, you can create new slides to start your presentation, insert and arrange texts, shapes, or lines, and add animations to your slides, among other features. You can rearrange your slides to form the perfect slideshow on your digital display.
Google Slides allows you to share your creation with other users. With its features, you can control which other users can view, edit, and comment on your presentation. This makes it great for teamwork.
You can connect your Google Slides account to your other Google account. The platform is secure, so you do not have to worry about leaking or losing important data. Google Slides is the perfect tool for creating digital menus, special announcement videos, and other appealing signs.
Paid tools require a monthly or yearly subscription. They often have more advanced features and functions than free design tools. With these tools, you can create high-quality video and picture content for your digital signs.
Some of these paid design tools include:
5. Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a popular photo and video editing tool. It is an excellent design tool for creating pictures, graphics, paintings, and even 3D artwork.
Adobe Photoshop is considered easy to use but is reserved for intermediate and expert graphic designers. Anyone with fundamental knowledge of graphic design will be able to navigate the software.
With Adobe Photoshop, you can create unique, high-quality designs to display with digital signage. What you can achieve with this tool is limitless when you truly understand how to use the interface.
Adobe Photoshop allows users to change existing pictures or create their graphics from scratch. You can edit, color grade, layer, cut out, or merge your pictures or videos however you want. Adobe Photoshop offers a free seven-day trial, but afterward, you will have to pay $19.99, $20.99, or $54.99 per month, depending on your chosen Photoshop plan.
6. Adobe Illustrator
If you want a tool to create designs from scratch, Adobe Illustrator is an excellent tool to choose. It offers pro-level design creation features to help you bring your dream designs to life.
Adobe Illustrator is perfect for creating illustrative graphic designs, brand logos, cartoons, charts, diagrams, and other illustrations. It offers sophisticated features like letting users import pictures to trace out outlines.
Adobe illustrator is perfect for digital signs of all types. It allows users to scale their graphics down to mobile screen size or up to billboard size.
This tool is perfect for creating all types of content for your digital signs. Its plans have a starting price of $20.99 per month.
7. DaVinci Resolve Studio
If you are looking for a more advanced and professional video editing tool to create creative video content for your digital signage, DaVinci Resolve Studio is an excellent choice.
DaVinci Resolve Studio combines the power of color grading, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production video editing. It offers high-quality graphics and sophisticated design features designed to help users create masterpieces in no time.
Although DaVinci Resolve Studio is a top choice for advanced design jobs and powerful editing, it still features an intuitive interface that is user-friendly and easy to get used to.
DaVinci Resolve costs $295. Although there’s a free version, it is important to note the free version doesn’t offer most of the features the paid version offers.
The Best Tools For Your Digital Signage
The list of what tools you can use to design digital displays is endless. There are numerous tools for different experiences, skills, and functions.
Before you choose a tool to use, ensure you make proper findings or research about the tool and take time to explore the tool’s features and interface for the best results.