Graphic design is essentially a communication process in which a message is conveyed to a certain audience. This message is an art form and involves the placement and creation of text and images.
Anyone can attempt graphic design, but not everyone has the eye for it, nor the market experience needed to attract a certain demographic and audience. In this post on Graphic Design, we’ll highlight some of the craft’s many benefits, along with the importance of using a professional.
The Importance of Graphic Design
In previous posts, we’ve talked about the value of professional and appealing graphic design. We might be so bold as to say it’s one of the most important parts of successfully branding a business. It’s the reason that some businesses succeed and others fail. It’s also why it’s a pursuit better left to the pros.
Graphic design is one of the most important components of creating a strong and memorable brand. You can hand out all the flyers, business cards, and promotional materials you want, but without a professional and eye-catching design, those efforts may be all for naught.
Have you ever glanced at a brand’s logo and thought they could have done better? Maybe you stumbled across a flyer that looked as if the business used clip art from the 90s, assisted only by Word’s friendly (but limited) paperclip assistant. Whatever the reason, we’ve all come across poorly designed marketing materials, and we may or may not have made an assumption and took our business elsewhere.
In a world with so much competition, with millions of businesses with similar ideas, the way you design your logo and other marketing materials plays an important role in helping you stand out from the crowd.
As consumers, we make judgments based on the way things look. It’s the reason why we’re more likely to buy “Brand X” instead of “Brand Y”. Most of us may be doing it unconsciously, but often, choosing between one brand of beans and another has more to do with how the can looks than it does with what’s inside.
In the next section of this Graphic Design post, we’ll go over some of the benefits that the visual communication form has for businesses.
Benefits of Great Graphic Design
Professionalism
Whatever you do, you want to look professional. Even if you’re an easy-going, fun-loving person — in the world of business, professionalism rules. What may come as a surprise, is that the way shapes, letters, and lines are arranged on a page has a ton to do with how your business is perceived by customers. Consistency, neatness, and proper placement all work together in logos and marketing materials to create a solid brand image — and something customers can count on.
Brand Recognition
Say you’re a new business with a simple logo, but you haven’t exactly sorted out your color scheme or brand-specific fonts. Over the first 6 months, you play around with colors, sizes, and shapes. The problem here lies in the fact that customers can’t recognize your business. Because it’s always changing, they aren’t able to identify it and thus visit it. Creating a consistent image with the same proportions, colors, and symbols helps consumers recognize your business.
Stay Relevant
Over time, businesses must evolve to stay relevant. They might add or tweak services, discontinue products, swap ingredients, or call in their graphic design team for a subtle change in their logo or marketing materials. Think about some iconic logos from 50 years ago — take Apple for example. If you saw the original Apple logo in 1976, you’d be shocked, and we can bet you’d probably walk right past their shop in the mall. If you’d like to check out other iconic brands that have changed their logos over time, click here.
Increase Value
To change the way customers think of your business, change your image. Rebranding is often done by companies that want to freshen up how an audience perceives them, sometimes, adding a completely new perspective. Have you ever visited a grocery store and noticed that your favorite brand of cookies looks different all of a sudden? The font is more rounded, the colors more contrasting. Whatever they’ve done, it oozes luxury (yes, even cookies can be luxurious!) and usually, an increased price tag follows. Now that you’ve got an idea as to how graphic design can boost sales and benefit your business, we’ll show you the difference that hiring a skilled graphic designer can make in how your company is perceived.
Why Using a Graphic Designer is Smart For Business
Knowledge
A skilled graphic designer knows what looks good. They’ve studied design, composition, color theory, typography, and digital imaging — components that all work together to create an effective ad, poster, logo, etc. Graphic designers know how all of these elements mesh, and how something as slight as the size of an image or the slant of text can affect the way your business is perceived.
Target the Right Audience
Along with artistic knowledge, graphic designers know how to target a certain audience. Aside from studying it in school, they’ve been exposed to hundreds of different brands that have either become successful or not. With that knowledge, they can tailor your logo or marketing materials to reflect what a certain demographic is looking for in a product or service.
Let Your Employees Focus on What They Specialize In
Say you run a salon. You decide to “save” on the costs of graphic design, instead, asking your manager to create all of the posters, flyers, and menus for your business. Instead of that manager focusing on staff and more role-specific tasks, they take hours out of their day designing a poster and trying to figure out the way things go together. While they may do an alright job, the tasks that they really should be doing are waylaid, and the business as a whole slightly suffers that day.
Conclusion
By hiring a professional graphic designer, you are not only guaranteed a great-looking design, but you can work with them, tailoring it until it feels authentic to you. You’ll let your employees do what they’re best at, increase the value of your business, and ensure you are putting your best image forward. Contact us today!
