Digital Signage

Hi everyone, new to the forum.

I’m trying to learn digital signage. From hardware choices, how to design motion graphics (thinking after effects?), and what software to connect remotely to screens to manage them.

Does anyone have a guide or any resources I can read/learn from? I’ve searched the net but it’s mostly companies offering their services and no guides.

Can anyone help?

Hi Digisign. Welcome to the forum.

Are you a graphic designer or are you wanting to skip over the basics of design and head straight into a specialty?

Field Trip!
https://www.digitalsignageexpo.net/packages-and-pricing?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_oO7t46T4QIVw4izCh2edgtlEAAYASAAEgJKaPD_BwE

You don’t become an expert on this stuff by simply reading stuff. You need to have some kind of immersion in using it. Think content development production companies/studios.

Hardware choices depend entirely on the experience desired. Most of the stuff we do is managed on-site by the end client but some do have IOT capability so they can be managed off-site. Not my department so can’t really help you out much beyond that.

I am a graphic designer / programmer. I am proficient in photoshop, indesign, illustrator and web development.
Thanks for the link.
In the meantime I am looking to set something up to start testing but it seems info out there is so limited. Has anyone here done this yet?

It isn’t so much that info is limited. Quite the opposite actually.

What kind of content do you want to test? Do you want LED equipment or Touch Screen or just plain old digital monitor? Are you looking to do live feed (think broadcast environments) or static imagery with screen changes (think menu boards at your favorite coffee shop) or customer interactive stuff with touch screen capability (think bank kiosk at simplest, or educational science museum game.)

Interfaces are everything from simple keypad for text entry, to image upload, to video feed, to robust gaming code.

Looking to do motion graphics as advertisement for local shops. Thinking monitors with some type of wifi connection so I can remotely access the monitor to change animations/graphics.

With my simple linear mind here… I’d find a shop that does what you want to do, then ask them if you can job shadow. Maybe you could learn right from the ones who are already doing it.

Are you in the US or the EU.

The reason I ask this is digital signage with motion graphics is heavily regulated, especially where it can be viewed from the street. And the regulations change pretty much town to town in the US.

Digital advertising in-store is pretty much handled by the franchise. I’ve only rarely seen it in anything smaller than 50Ksf venue.

DocPixel, asking to job shadow something like this is like asking someone “hey, show me how to do this job so I can become your competition.” It’s a student internship opportunity for sure, if you can find an opening, but no one is going to bring someone in off the street for this, especially if they have no previous aptitude.

Where I work, we mostly install the hardware handed to us by the content studio for the project. Or we buy it at their spec. The programming is left to the content studios. That is where the knowledge is. It really depends on the system and the client as to how that system is managed. A lot of it runs on proprietary interfaces. Some of it runs on internal computer systems that are loaded on site via data transfer from USB drives or DVDs, or over the internet. The stuff exposed to the internet HAS to be secured through a firewall and that is usually handled by the site IT service, not the content studio. There’s a lot that goes into this.

Here’s another resource.
https://www.signsofthetimes.com/channel/term/material/electronic-digital-signage

PD, good point. A person could and should frame it in a way that makes it clear they’re only looking to gain the knowledge. Hopefully those who have the knowledge could be willing to share, as long as they don’t feel their job is threatened. Or maybe not, but I feel it never hurts to ask. If you don’t ask, you’ve already answered the question.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to shadow someone as I work full time. I do have time at night to learn though. I am in a b2b position to have access to a ton of potential clients.
I find most of the info out there rather vague.

Here, let’s make the question easy.
How do I sit at my computer at home and access a couple of screens directly at work and display motion graphics. A menu-board lets say. A computer tower is out of the equation. Does anyone know where this info is online because I can’t find it?