4 Useful Types Of Digital Signage Templates And How To Customize Them For Your Needs
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Stephen Kendrick August 25, 2016
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Stephen Kendrick |
Stephen Kendrick is a software engineer and digital signage expert who has been developing digital signage software for more than two decades. If you have ever been to an airport terminal anywhere in the world, then you have to thank him for pioneering digital scheduling and event software usage across all the airports in the world. |
Stephen Kendrick
has written 1 articles for WebKnowHow. |
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The uptake of digital signage solutions in the past couple of years has led to the need for you who are considering owning this solution to at the very least be an enthusiast of DIY solutions. What this means is that since most of the vendors who are offering these solutions as Platform as a Service, PaaS, usually bundle up this solution with templates, you can then simply edit to your liking and deploy live on your digital displays.
Before we jump the gun, a little definition of terms would suffice to ensure that we are all on the same page. So, what exactly is a template? Well, a template is just a pattern or framework that is a prototype, which can be customized for your specific needs and purposes. In this case, a digital template is a pre-made digital banner, which you can adjust to fit your needs by changing the names, fonts, images or videos to fit your particular purposes.
Digital Templates Make Life Easier
Most digital advertising vendors bundle such templates with their solution to make it easier for you to have your digital campaign up and running in no time at all. This means that if say you are a restaurant owner, you will find several menus bundled with the software which you can then customize by making sure that you change the name of the restaurant, including your own name and logo and changing the items of the menu to reflect what you need.
This digital signage software allows you to edit the templates that are available in a wide variety of formats. The formats include Pdfs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and you can edit these documents with ease since they are made using formats that you are already familiar with. The templates can also contain video and audio in containers, such as Mp3, Mp4 and other easy-to-edit formats.
Digital Templates Contain Static and Animated Content
These templates can contain static and animated content and you can exploit them by changing the colors, animations and product displays. You can set them up to loop, set up a simple playlist or let them run in sequence, the choice is entirely yours. The templates are usually available in either horizontal or vertical screen orientations. They are usually preset for the following product categories, which sum up the most common uses of digital signage;
- Advertisements- The templates are pre-designed as turnkey solutions for advertisements of various types. They are designed to be deployed live in a matter of minutes advertising your products, sales and special offers. You simply edit the fields that are of concern to you including text, videos and images.
- Event and Schedule- These types of templates are ideal for hospital waiting rooms, banking halls and airport terminals. You can edit these templates to show your clients important information including locations where they need to be at a specific time and you can interactively change this to reflect the changing circumstances.
- Menu Board- This is the ideal digital banner for restaurants and all other clients who are in the hotel and catering industry. The templates, which are fully multimedia, come bundled with stock images and videos that you can use-as-is or alternately, you can upload the specific media of your choice. You have the ability to edit all the individual menu items, putting in place your items and their corresponding prices.
- Live Weather – This template come integrated to websites that offer weather information. This information can be of value to passengers who are on transit at airport terminals and also at trade shows and the likes.
You can use this type of banner alongside any of the other three mentioned above. They will typically display current conditions, short term forecasts and weekly forecasts, according to your preference.
WYSIWYG Editors
All the above mentioned templates though unique in their applications have something in common. They can all be very easily edited right from your user dashboard and you do not need advanced designed skills in order to pull this off. The editor is WYSIWYG in nature, which means that What You See Is What You Get, it makes for live editing and you can see the changes made in real-time.
For instance, the digital menus come with an assortment of images for your use and the number of items can range from 10 to over 40. So, whether you are a small establishment or a big one, you are sure to find a template that suits your needs entirely. The beauty of this is that whether you have one outlet or several outlets distributed across different geographical regions, you need not worry, as this solution will display across all your restaurants, regardless of where they are located in the world. |