Digital signages are the most diffused instore technologies with their effects on perceived store atmospherics and behavioral outcomes relying heavily on their visual design and context. To further inform and understand the effects of visual design, this research investigates the effect of digital signage designs from the lens of FuzzyTrace Theory which differentiates between a verbatim and gistbased processing of (visual) information. The designs were embedded within a store environment and without this context to validate the design’s effect in context. The results of our study using functional nearinfrared spectroscopy show activated brain areas in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) accompanied by a lateral PFC deactivation, which indicates cognitive relief and increased emotional processing for gistbased designs. In store context, the cognitive relief is no longer found, yet the emotional attribution was still found. These results provide several theoretical and practical implications for the visual design of digital signages