Most new business owners put way more focus on the interior of their stores or restaurants than they do on the exterior. While that’s a good starting point since customers will see more of the inside than the outside, you also need to focus on the outside since that is the part that draws people in. Unfortunately, many past businesses have failed due to this massive oversight, so you need to make sure you don’t make the same mistake by reading our list of tips for outdoor commercial building design.
Colors and Textures
We’re sure that all of you have heard about how the colors we see subconsciously affect us in various ways. If for some reason you haven’t, you need to look it up immediately. Not only for the general knowledge aspect of it, but for the business strategy side as well. To give an example, red and yellow are both highly associated with hunger, which happens to be McDonald’s exact color scheme.
Not only does this apply to colors, but textures as well. When someone is looking for a car, they want something that looks sleek, which is why many dealerships use floor-to-ceiling glass windows and metallic paint on the exterior of their buildings. No matter your business, you can employ the same tactics for your building to garner similar results.
Pictures and Lettering
Making your establishment bright and welcoming isn’t enough. You need to let people know what you have inside to convince them to check it out. This is where plastering your company’s name and logo everywhere comes into play. Obviously, there is such a thing as too much, but you want to make sure anyone that’s passing by has a chance to see it.
Choosing the right font for your building is vital to this process, but you need to consider who will be seeing it most often in order to make the right decision. Are you on a busy road with lots of moving cars? If so, make sure you choose lettering that is large and easy to read at a quick glance. Maybe you’re located downtown. That means you’ll have a lot more foot traffic, which will allow you to keep things smaller and give people more to read while they stroll by.
Overall Theming
The most important thing to note in this list of tips for outdoor commercial building design is to keep your theme on point with your current brand. If you think a glossy blue finish is the best way to seem trustworthy and inviting to your guests, but you have not a single drop of blue inside or as a part of your logo design, then it’s going to be off-putting or confusing to potential shoppers.
You need to either find colors and fonts that match your theme, or do something a little more drastic and change your current theme to match the plans you have for your exterior. Either way you go about it, you need some level of consistency, or else your new design direction might turn off new and existing customers.