Tag Archives: Visual Communication

The benefits of graphic design

The Benefits of Graphic Design

Graphic design is about more than just appearances, and provides many more benefits than simply making something look good. Its importance is often underestimated, but good design can bring many significant business benefits. When used effectively graphic design can boost your company’s marketing and messaging through visual communication, giving it greater power to inform, educate, or persuade your audience. Here are some of the benefits:

Professionalism and Consistency

You want your company to make a great first impression. The use of logos, pictures and design can help create a professional image of your company in the eyes of your audience. When properly applied, graphic design offers visual consistency through all of your marketing efforts, which builds your company’s identity and brand recognition.

Identity and Brand Recognition

Graphic design helps establish your visual identity, which reflects your company’s mission and values. Your company’s branding begins with a great logo then expands to every aspect of your business communications, be it stationery, presentation templates, brochures, ads, websites or video. All of these things work together to build your identity and brand recognition. Your brand should provide an instant connection to your company’s mission and values as well as to the products and services that you offer, and good graphic design can forge that kind of connection.

Communication

Graphic design extends beyond establishing identity and brand recognition. It can be very effective at attracting attention and encouraging your audience to want to learn more. It also can be employed to produce visual aids that can better help you communicate your ideas. An informative image can transmit ideas that cannot be expressed with words alone. You can use professionally designed images to create a positive impression and help strengthen your message.

Build Trust, Goodwill & Loyalty

A well designed brand helps create a professional appearance that builds trust and credibility, which is essential to growing your business. Your brand fosters unity and commitment among your employees by providing them an identity and values to rally behind and promote. Trust plays a crucial role in convincing buyers about the quality of your products or services. Companies that thrive are ones that have developed a brand that is trusted. Good design plays a key role in creating communication that can enhance that trust.

Increase Sales & Market Position

With good graphic design, you not only gain high visibility, but you can also convert your audience into buyers, leading to increased sales. All of the above benefits can contribute to one powerful result: more sales and revenue for your business.

A Strategic Investment

Running a business is a long-term commitment. In today’s ever-growing marketplace, standing out is becoming more and more difficult. Using good design to establish your identity and brand is a great way to communicate who you are, what you do and why it is important.

The use of good design can improve many aspects of your business. Contact us to find out how we can help you strengthen your communication, marketing, and brand through graphic design.

How to work with a graphic design firm

How to Work with a Graphic Design Firm

Good design requires successful teamwork between the designer and the client. Working with a graphic design firm starts with providing solid input at the beginning of a new project. Preparation is key. The project you entrust to a design firm is going to represent your company, so it’s important to give them as much information as possible up front. Here are some things you can do to make the design process easier and more productive for both you and your design firm.

Purpose: Let your design firm know what you are trying to accomplish.

  • Who are you are you trying to reach? And what do you need to tell them?
  • Is there a call-to-action? Do you want your audience to do something specific after seeing the piece?
  • How will the design be used? Is the piece for web? Print? Or both? Is it something used in person? By mail, etc.?
  • Is there a specific or targeted deadline for completion?

Message: One of the most important elements of graphic design is getting the message right and delivering it in the right tone.

What are your company’s values, attitude, purpose and personality?

Look and feel: How do you want your company to be perceived?

    • Provide descriptions such as, “conservative”, “clean”, “elegant”, “innovative”, etc”. These offer clues about the tone you want from a look-and-feel perspective.
    • Provide examples. A picture is worth a thousand words. Find websites or materials that you think are similar to the look and feel you’d like to achieve with your project. And describe why you like them (“I like the dynamic look of this”; “I like these colors”; “I like how clean and professional this feels”).

Budget: If you have a set budget, let your designer know.

Costs will vary depending on what you want. Like building a custom home, the more complex the project, the higher the price. A total re-branding is going to cost more than a single logo or package design. Discuss the final deliverables and your budget constraints with your design firm so they can offer recommendations based on your budget and provide you with an accurate cost estimate.

Deadlines: Keep deadlines in mind.

Provide your targeted deadline for completion at the start of the project. A design project has many steps and requires some back-and-forth between the design firm and the client before completion. Once the project is underway, be sure you meet your own deadlines. Provide content and feedback promptly. If multiple people in your company need to review the work, provide collective feedback from your team. This will help keep your project on time and on budget.

Keeping each of these points in mind as you begin a project will help ensure a smooth process and an on-target solution from your design team.

How to choose a graphic design firm

How to Choose a Design Firm

Whether it’s from television, the internet, or printed materials, consumers are exposed to hundreds of companies every day. If you want to stand out, simply having a logo isn’t enough. Consumers are attracted to eye-catching, message-sending, innovative brands. And that’s where good graphic design can help transform your company’s product, message, and mantra into one cohesive visual design that really makes an impression.

Many clients have difficulty choosing a graphic designer, mostly because they aren’t quite sure what to look for. Here are some points you should consider when looking for and choosing a graphic design firm:

A great portfolio.

Obviously you want to choose a firm that will help you look your best, so start by looking at a firm’s portfolio. Pay particular attention to any descriptions that accompany their projects. A project may look good, but each has to fit specific project requirements to be an effective communication tool. You will want to choose a firm whose style of design matches the style you need to best represent your brand and reach your target audience.

Look for experience that relates to your project.

You don’t necessarily need to find a designer who has experience in your exact industry, but make sure the design company has experience in the medium that you plan to use – whether that is printed brochures, websites, presentations, trade show booth graphics, or multimedia. Or whether they have solved specific design challenges similar to yours. You want to find a design company that has the insight needed to understand your purpose and your content, and has the ability to effectively communicate both to your audience.

Meet them.

These days it is very common to do everything via text and email. Yet, if you can meet with potential designers, you can get a feeling for whether they really understand what you’re looking for. If you can’t meet in person, try for a phone or video-based meeting. If they can hear you explain what you’re looking for and you hear them explain the way they see it working out, you might come to a meeting of the minds much quicker.

Think Long-Term.

Good design requires both a good designer and a good client. Choosing a design company that takes the time to understand what you want and how you want to convey it is the basis for the best designer-client relationships. These long-term engagements help develop a clear understanding of branding and execution. If you and your designer are comfortable together, you will receive better results.

By keeping these things in mind during your search, you will be much more likely to find a graphic design firm that meets your visual communication needs.