It is the elephant in the room or perhaps, more accurately, the elephant on the screen in any marketing meeting these days, and something that many teams are still trying to figure out between them. Exactly how do we tackle the design for this product or campaign, and who are we trying to please?
Learning the “art” of design is like learning a new language, with the same number of nuances and idiosyncrasies. While many small businesses may be able to get away with a “do it yourself” method for the first year or so, there comes a time when every business needs to step out of the limits of their own knowledge and speak to a professional.
There are very few aspects of marketing that small businesses cannot tackle themselves and even fewer aspects of marketing that will suffer from a less-than-perfect attempt at giving them a go.
The bottom line is that most people can post to social media, and with tools like Wix and WordPress, most people can figure out a website in under a week or so, but when it comes to graphic design it is always best to ship the work out to a professional marketing agency such as Eleven Marketing.
Graphic design is the public face of your business, and you need to make sure it is on point with regards to branding, colors, fonts, and everything else that goes into good design.
Here are six ways good design can make a company and why bad design can break a company.
This does not quite fit under a good or bad scenario; it all depends on how good your design actually is.
As a small business owner, you really need to remember that your customer’s first impression of you might not be from you yourself, it is actually more than likely do with your aesthetic and your look, your brand.
If you own a coffee shop, for example, and you create flyers that look like they are advertising a kids playgroup, you are unlikely to entice in the working remotely digital nomads crowd. Maybe you were aiming for the mummy groups, with good design you will always hit the right group of people – and with bad design, you will not!
Have you ever wondered what is so special about Harley Davidson that hundreds, if not thousands of people have their logo tattooed onto their skin somewhere? The truth is, they have excellent marketing behind them and they have excellent branding to go with it too!
Having good branding is nothing, though, if you do not have the first clue of how to do the designs. The bottom line with this one? Be cautious on what you pick for a logo – the aim is to have it as a tattoo!
With a small businesses a quick mess up in the design department could end up costing you more than money, it could cost you your reputation.
Reputation in small business is an elusive thing, you can spend years building your reputation to ensure people are happy with you and much more likely to buy from you. What this does is that it ensures you are standing out. A small slip-up can stop people coming to you forever.
If the design looks like it was done by someone without any professional knowledge or experience at all, run a mile because you do NOT want your business associated with that kind of design!
A common place where design and the vision of designers does not always match is on websites. While designers may want it to be neat and functional, your webmaster or web design company is probably bouncing ideas around that will ultimately help your business grow.
As with any collaboration, it is better to work with someone than against them when ordering graphic design work. Nothing will grow, however, if you do not tend to the relationships of the people that can do that part of your job easier.
Work out a proper schedule for working with your graphic design freelancer so that you have some independence and some reliance at the same time.
Have you ever been sat at a dinner table trying to think of a name or a brand of something, but cannot remember it? or you can remember adverts and songs, but have no idea either what the company was or what they sold.
Good graphic design and good branding create an image in people’s minds that do not let them forget you.
Getting your graphic design sorted from the very beginning will make your company better, as everyone will be able to see who you are and what your business is. The eventual aim is that whenever anyone wants your product or service they remember you before anyone else.
When it comes to success on the digital platform, good design really cannot be overstated in the digital world.
From video to social media, getting a good and consistent brand across all platforms really matters.
