Content standards

Design principles

The design of digital signage slides should be clean, simple, attractive, appropriate and brief.

As a rule, the viewer should be able to comprehend single-image slides within five seconds and a series of image slides or an image-with-words slide within 8-10 seconds.

Key principles to keep in mind are brevity of your content, thoughtful design placement, and a clear call to action. You don't just want your audience to look at your content, you want them to follow up on your messaging.

Keep it simple

Reducing unnecessary text, image and design clutter in your slides will result in a message that is understandable to a passerby.

Some of the best-communicated messages are simple and to the point. Remember that digital slides are not posters. Viewers will only have a few seconds to view your message, so the information should be brief.

As a best practice, try to adhere to the 30-words or less when developing your slide content.

Content sizes and formats

Static content

All slide content must be created to the dimensions of 1920x1080 pixels (landscape displays) or 1080x1920 pixels (vertical displays), have a resolution of 150ppi (pixels per square inch).

Supported static file types include JPEG, PNG, GIF, PDF, SVG, PPT, Word and Excel.

Programs for creating static content:

• Windows PowerPoint
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe InDesign

Video content

Video content must be 1080p (1920x1080 pixels) at 30 frames per second.

Supported video file types include MP4 and WEBM.

If the video is being submitted to central content for campus-wide rotation, it must be no more than 15 seconds long. 

If you will not be enabling audio on your display, audio should remove it from your file.

Images

For images that will exist only in a digital medium (digital signage, websites, television, etc.), it’s best to think only in terms of pixel dimensions. The optimal resolution for digital mediums is 72 dpi (72 pixels per inch).

Pixel size: about 400-600 pixels wide for a large image

Resolution: 72dpi

Appropriate file size: 200kb

Tip: If you’re building digital content in PowerPoint and you're not sure how to check pixel size or resolution of an image, note that PowerPoint integrates photos at their maximum size. As a general rule, don't stretch or increase the size of a photo once it'as been moved into PowerPoint. Any additional manipulation will result in a pixelated, distorted image.

Permissions

All images representing UVic students, staff or faculty must use those actual students or employees. Stock photos are not permitted. Any individuals identifiable in an image must have signed a photo release form. Access a photo release form on the UVic brand site. 

It is the responsibility of content creators and submitters to ensure that all images, video or content used in digital signage have appropriate permissions and do not violate copyright or other restrictions.

Respecting UVic’s brand elements

We have generated templates for digital signage to assist content creators with adapting to the UVic brand and style.

If you're not using a template, please refer to the UVic brand guidelines for instructions on logo placement, treatment and colour palette options.

UVic Style Guide

Please ensure that copy written for digital signage follows the UVic Style Guide.