Graphic design: What’s all that about then?
Graphic designers make your business information appealing to your target audience. They’ll take your text (copy) and images and pull it all together to create a piece of marketing literature or information that not only looks attractive, but helps you sell your products and services as well.
Professional graphic designers apply their flair and understanding of your business to achieve the following:
• Create logo designs and business stationery
• Make complex information easy and straightforward to read by creating hierarchies with different font sizes, colours and typefaces
• Apply brand guidelines to ensure that all your literature looks like it’s come from the same company
• Ensure that your leaflets and brochures look inspiring and engaging to your target audience
• Give your marketing collateral a professional appearance
Some top tips for choosing and working with a Graphic Designer
• Make sure you see their portfolio before you commission them – do you like their design style? Do you think there’s a good fit?
• Design is a subjective thing – do you get on well with your design company – do you think they like your business? Can you see them being able to help you?
• Does their portfolio inspire you?
• Discuss your budget and what you’re looking for upfront. It may be that what you want is unrealistic with the budget that you have, but better to find out at the start than halfway through!
• Graphic designers usually work either to an hourly rate, or a fixed fee per project. Do be aware that if you change your brief partway through, or start adding things, that this is likely cost you more so try to think about everything you’ll need/ want at the outset.
• Think carefully about your brief (a good designer should run through this with you but spend some time before the briefing session thinking about what you really need): who is the target audience, what’s the purpose of the piece? What do you want people to know, think and do when they receive this?
• Take examples of other leaflets or brochures that you like and talk to your designer about why you like them and the elements that you think might work for your business
• When you get the proof back give as much constructive feedback as possible. Take some time to think it through rather than just firing off an email straight away. Talk to friends and colleagues about it and then formulate your feedback – often this is great if you can send an email with specific changes, but also call your designer and talk to them about what you loved (we’re only human!) and the elements that you don’t feel fit with your company’s style.
• Check, check, check and check everything. Graphic design packages don’t have the sophisticated spell checkers that Word might have, so check everything – prices, phone numbers, postcodes as well as proof reading your copy.
