Digital signages are the most diffused in-store 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 Fuzzy-Trace Theory which differentiates between a verbatim and gist-based processing of (visual) information. The designs were embedded within a store environment and without this context to validate the design\u27s effect in context. The results of our study using functional near-infrared 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 gist-based 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