When considering Digital Signage in your business, several things should influence your thought process. Screen orientation (landscape or portrait) should be one of those “things” to consider.
In the DS world, the landscape screen orientation is king. It looks familiar to TVs at home. Most video is shot in the landscape format. Plus, some studies show that info on landscape screens is recalled better than on portrait screens (this is possibly due to human’s field of vision being wider than it is tall).
So, what about screens hung in the portrait orientation? There is a need for it as well but it is a smaller, more brand/product oriented need. Portrait screens are typically reserved for clients with specific product campaigns or specific brand design needs. Or, in other cases, business owners hang the screen in the portrait orientation for a specific need like building directories, wayfinding or digital menuboards. Otherwise, the portrait orientation can be daunting and complicated.
It all starts with how the screen is hung. Is it hung in a +90 or 90 degree orientation? Is the brand logo that typically appears at the bottom center of a TV screen on the left side or right side now that it is hung portrait orientation? Knowing this will determine how the content creators will design content. Content is another major issue with portrait screens. Business owners considering portrait should have a content strategy or at least a good idea of what they want to convey on the portrait screen. This is not going to be the type of situation where someone could grab a couple vendor videos and throw them on the screen. Vendor videos or most (if not all) video based content will be in landscape format. That is not going to fit or look good on the portrait screens. Furthermore, business owners without a marketing team or access to creative content designers will not easily be able to make their own content to use on the screen. Of course, there are companies that can both create and manage the content offering to make it easier but it comes at additional costs. Otherwise, what happens is the business owner finds it too hard to manage and loses interest. The screen does not get used to its full potential and the signage falls short of everyone’s expectations.
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– Submitted by Lee Jackson, Visual