Friday, February 26, 2021
13 Minutes
Graphic design such as logo, stationery, billboards, and many other design work plays a crucial role in the success of your business. You must be able to market your brand aggressively in order to stand out from the rest of your competitors.
Graphic design is a vital look to help build your brand identity that can evoke a sense of trust and credibility. “You should convince people that they can trust your products or services” (Henny Kel, 2017). Therefore, having a unique and differentiating design can leave a lasting impression on your target market’s mind, which can help in branding your business. A graphic design company can use various design elements that can convey your brand message, such as using the perfect colour or typeface that will evoke a certain feeling/emotion. Here are ways you can strengthen your brand identity (John Rampton, 2017):
- Create a visual of your brand in the form of a logo so that when prospects see your logo, they will be able to recognise you and make that connection.
- Deliver content your audience can use by selecting the right combination of design elements and information that can provide them with the value they need and hoped for.
Do you know where you stand in the market? Are you identifiable enough? If people do not know or recognise your business, you are not doing enough. With graphic design, you can increase awareness and become recognisable in your niche market. Graphic design can be of service to you because it helps you “strengthen your business in your target market” (Henny Kel, 2017).
An example to strengthen your business’s position is to create and develop a responsive website. Many people first look at a company’s website before they further purchase or use their products and/or services. Therefore, with graphic design, you can create an interactive and eye-catching website with relevant information for your business. Most people are not aware of the fact that a graphic design company can design layouts for websites without doing the back end of the website that is required by developers.
People are exposed to a lot of information on a daily basis. With graphic design, you can create mind-blowing artwork that can highlight key features of your product and/or services.
Especially when it comes to marketing campaigns, creating strong visuals in a unique way can differentiate you from competitors. Adding a visual aspect to your company using graphic design is a useful aid in differentiating yourself from the rest. Stand out from the crowd. A graphic design company can create logos that are different from other companies using their expertise to design something that is visually pleasing and reflects the company’s core offerings.
“Advertisements are essential for any business to increase sales” (Henny Kel, 2017). You will find that people are attracted to certain advertisements because of the creative concept and appealing designs.
A graphic design company can design artwork for your business that would attract your user’s attention. By incorporating design elements such as your brand colours, font, symbols, images, as well as a slogan can overall, create a memorable advertisement that can be used in captivating ways. A graphic design company knows “the ways to create an ad for business promotion and to increase sales” (Henny Kel, 2017).
It is said that users form an opinion about designs in less than a second, especially when coming across a design for the first time. One way you can make sure you leave a lasting first impression is to identify and highlight key design elements within your brand identity.
What stands out the most and what layout is required to present your business in the right way? A graphic design company has the knowledge and understanding to create design work that is memorable, distinctive, and can be presented in the most effective way for your business.
With graphic design, you can create artwork that can be used on all your social media platforms.“Branded graphic design will help people recognise your posts quickly and help your company standout” (Strategy Marketing & Technological Solutions, 2017).
Social media is a tool that can be used to reach a wider audience and engage with them on a more personal level. Therefore, with graphic design, you can create artwork that can reach them effectively, as long as you incorporate design elements such as your logo, tagline, colours, icons and even powerful images that represent your brand.
With graphic design as a visual aid to telling a story, its target market should reflect in the design and speak to different personas. Your target audience should visually provoke a feeling. Is it sad? Is it happy? Does it affect you?
Those are the questions a graphic designer should create for their personas and who are they trying to target specifically. Though using all the above factors one should have created a target audience through those factors.
It only takes less than one second to grab people’s attention. Make it a good one. Graphic design is an integral part of your brand strategy. Whether it is a poster, billboard, website, social media banners or even brand stickers – graphics are everywhere. It can influence your target audience and reinforce your brand message with the desire to communicate an idea in an artistic way. The aim is to create a good design that will attract your market’s attention and promote your products and/or services in an interesting way.
- What is graphic design
- The difference between graphic design and illustration.
- The power of graphic design
Graphic design is like telling a visual story with the ultimate goal of using imagery in the most creative, pleasing and impactful way. “A good designer’s job is to visually tell a story in a way that supports the brand’s message and creates emotion” (Jennifer Carole). The aim is to create a strong visual concept, using imagery to communicate an idea that informs and captivates your target audience.
“Graphic design is communication through the use of art. It is an art that is typically used to inform, persuade, organise, stimulate, locate, identify, attract attention, provide pleasure, and/or express feeling or emotion about something” (Poggenphol, 1993).
Whether it is physical or digital, graphic design is a powerful tool you can use to attract your target audience and convey a certain feeling or emotion about your brand and the products and/or services you offer.
To describe Graphic design in the simplest form by breaking it up graphics and design is conveyed as the following according to Google, the word graphic is an adjective word meaning the following relating to “visual art, especially involving drawing, engraving, or lettering and with the word, design comes up as the following noun, “plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or another object before it is made” therefore Graphic design merely means visual art before it is made.
What is an illustration? An illustration is a visual representation of a text or an idea which is a drawing or a picture. "Many people do not distinguish graphic design from illustration. For them, both are more or less the same. But there is, in fact, a clear difference between the two. A graphic designer must clearly know this difference for a better understanding of the work in hand." (David Paul, 2017) As stated above a graphic design is a visual design that creates concepts in means of form and function, however, in a graphic design company you can have either graphic designers or graphic designers and illustrators, as illustrators have a specific skill set required
There is some negative connotation with regards to graphic design such as, “advertise a deadly product, persuade impressionable people that they should look, feel, and act a certain way, or just waste important resources” (Anna Zinchenko, 2018). However, graphic design can also inspire and inform people and, “create awareness of products and lifestyle that are important to different types of people (Anna Zinchenko, 2018).
When it comes to good design, you need to consider the design elements that would capture the user’s attention immediately. The reason being, consumers are constantly being faced with an immense amount of information every day, therefore, the aim is to create graphics that will grab their attention in the most captivating way.
According to Google’s own research, users spend less time forming an opinion. From the research they conducted, it takes 17 to 50 milliseconds to capture the user’s attention. Therefore, you must have the understanding, as well as the creative methods and techniques to create attention-grabbing visual elements that will show people what your brand is about and what you can offer in less than a second.
When it comes to graphic design, you need to ensure your brand identity and all its elements are kept consistent and cohesive throughout every customer touchpoint. “Customer touch-points are your brand’s points of customer contact, from start to finish” (Survey Monkey). A graphic design company, who specialise in building brands, is able to help your business create, develop, maintain and improve your brand. DU Paint + Tool is an award-winning Plascon distributor in South Africa, and we used our out-of-the-box thinking to create a corporate identity that truly set the brand apart from their competitors. A graphic design company used a combination of design elements that convey a brand that is fresh, exciting and creative.
With so many trends and an immense amount of information and innovative designs, it is important to remain relevant. By always wanting to be able to create the best design work from your competitors, you will be able to utilise innovative techniques to create graphics that are relevant to your target audience, as well as relevant in the current market. This will definitely keep you ahead of the competition and place you in the forefront of any other design trends that are to come.
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