So when and why should you invest in graphic design? 

The most obvious time you might need a designer is when you need a logo and a brand for a new business venture or product. A strong visual identity can work wonders for your business. I’ve summarised a few reasons below.

Stand out amongst your competitors 

A strong visual identity will help you stand out from the crowd and make you more memorable. Design is a differentiator and it can help strengthen your current brand or product and can be a mechanism for growth.

Attract the right target audience 

Design and marketing go hand in hand – good brands know their target audience and how to appeal to them. The choice of typefaces, colours, style of photography and icons are all used to appeal to different people and create different emotions. 

Colours have become synonymous with certain industries or qualities and designers use them to communicate the type of business or product it is, pulling in your brand values to help you reach your intended audience.

For example:

Blue = professional services, trust, loyalty 
Purple = luxury, royalty, sometimes spiritual
Yellow = happiness, optimism, creativity 
Red = love, energy, strength, bold
Green = fresh, natural, healing 
Black =  sophisticated, glamour, strength 

One of my favourite examples is the cereal aisle in the supermarket, think about how many different types of cereal there are, it’s quite clear when you look around what cereal has been designed to appeal to children, ones aimed at females, healthy eaters or men looking for a protein kick. 

Change people’s habits / perceptions 

The strongest brands go as far as changing people’s perceptions or shopping habits. The biggest challenge designers and marketers face is how do I get my customer to do X Y or Z? And a strong brand has the power to help.

Some of the most prominent brands changing people’s perceptions are the eco-friendly ones like Ecover or Method – brands that have identified a gap in the market and developed a product to fit but have also invested in a strong brand with clear brand values that’s communicated clearly through their packaging.

But graphic design isn’t just about logos and visual identities 

Yes, they’re an important step and a building block for future design work but ultimately graphic design makes things easier to understand. 

People process graphics a whopping 60,000 times quicker than text and with social media and the internet being such a huge part of our lives, graphic design has never been more important or more prominent. Everything you look at online has been designed (it might not be good, but it’s been designed).

Improve data presentation

If you’ve got lots of statistics or information to format, graphic design can help you communicate them more effectively. We love infographics because they help us take information in quicker and are able to retain it easier.

The same goes for if you’ve got a 100 page word document in Arial 10 – it probably looks long and boring with no breaks in the page and it’s likely the important information gets missed. A designer can help make documents more legible and user friendly, enticing a reader to delve into your report, pulling out key bits of information. 

My top tips:

Invest in design 

According to Design Council Research, for every £1 invested in graphic design, they gain a £4 net operating profit. Design can add value to any business, so set aside a budget for graphic design – no matter how small. 

A logo and visual identify doesn’t have to cost the earth and there’s plenty of affordable options around on freelance marketplaces such a Fiverr or Upwork or local freelancers who don’t charge big agency rates.

If your budget stretches further, it’s worth investing in a good graphic designer who can help you create a strong brand and communicate your message visually.

Be consistent 

If you can’t afford a designer to prepare a logo or brand for you and you do it yourself, be consistent – choose a colour palette and typeface and stick to it, identify a style of photography or icons that work for you – all of these things help to create your visual identity and people begin to recognise, remember and associate you with it. When you think of Lydia or I Do Marketing you immediately think lilac/purple!