In a world where it’s all too easy to default to ‘whipping up a design in Word’, or shelving design as a ‘non-essential investment’ when cash flow is tight or budgets are lean, we encourage you to refer to the below design tips as a reminder of why you should prioritise quality design for your long term business success.
If you are serious about your business and what it communicates to its clients, get serious about what you put out for clients or prospects to see. Hire a designer and allow them to use their expertise to create effective communication pieces. And let your clients and prospects judge your book by the cover you want them to see.
When you start a design project, pull together your copy, images and ideas / inspiration before you begin. This will
The first design step in creating a recognisable brand is to ensure you have a professional logo or word mark that connects with your audience. Only once your identity is complete should you begin developing any other marketing, sales or admin collateral.
This ensures brand consistency, cohesiveness and clarity for your clients.
Use high quality original or stock images to portray your message.
There is nothing worse than a blurry or pixelated photo to subconsciously make your customer think you’re not serious about your business or that you won’t invest the time and effort to professionally present your work.
Get your message across simply and quickly.
Complicated designs or using too much text, only confuses your client and makes your work ineffective.
Fonts evoke emotion, give meaning, need to be appropriately paired and used with restraint to effectively convey your intention. Your designer will likely recommend one or two fonts in line with your brand to use throughout your collateral. Take their advice.
And please please don’t use comic sans or papyrus.
Ever.
Selectively use stock images to sit alongside your own photography in your design projects. It’s generally obvious when a photo is staged or fake, and if you want to make a personal connection don’t use stock images throughout.
Don’t work with an order taker, choose a creative professional.
A designer should have worked for years perfecting their craft especially for you. Just like an electrician, a carpenter, a lawyer and any other profession.
Don’t DIY, it will never be quite the same quality and you’ll save a ton of time.
Speaking to and engaging your graphic designer is often a last minute thing, where it should be given a higher priority to ensure a better result. Give your designer enough time to allow for creativity, rather than consistently pushing for tight deadlines which actually does the opposite, and stifles the creative process ultimately compromising the quality of your work.
If you want great design, give it time.
We hope you have found these tips to be of benefit, and would love to hear if you found them helpful? Please pop your comments below!
If you would like to know more about how you can work together with our design team for your business success, be sure to get in touch with us.
Creatively Yours, Rosie & Anthony @ ideapro
Great advice guys. I’m pleased to say that with your guidance I’ve done all of the above with my latest campaign 🙂
We couldn’t be more happy to hear this Jodi! Love working with you and look forward to seeing your business grow due to your unwavering commitment and investment.
Very sound information. It’s easy to make costly mistakes so these tips are very helpful.
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