The small boutique design agency: why David is better than Goliath

Be honest, when you think of a design agency, what do you think of?

Is it a big London agency with a pool table, a bar for Friday drinks, and a bike rack outside to house all the sleek road bikes ridden by cultured young people wearing tight jeans and funky trainers, fresh from some degree somewhere, right?

You probably imagine some really cool space with plants and glass and fake grass for carpets.

Don’t get us wrong, that all sounds great and they have their place in the world. There are just a few things that they can’t offer. We can’t all do everything!

We’re a small design agency in Staffordshire and this isn’t a ‘bash the southerners’ blog post. We like them, we follow their stuff, and we connect with many of them on LinkedIn.

No, this definitely isn’t about that. This post is purely to show you why you might just be better with a smaller agency like ours. (Other smaller agencies are available, but they’re just not as pink or as good!)

 

 

Big flashy reports, no substance

Firstly, one thing these big agencies do get very right is their collateral. They have some amazing brochures and onboarding material. They’ll also have some great reports and documents that they’ll send to you when you’re working with them.

That’s all great, but…

When what you really need is bespoke feedback, advice for you that’s not going to fit their template, and some thinking that isn’t 50% automated; sexy reports won’t cut it. A small agency like ours won’t rely solely on a large system with set processes that can (and will) drive the comms between you and them. We understand why they have them; we just don’t feel they suit everyone.

 

 

Their way, not your highway

Big agencies will have a proven process and set of hoops to go through to onboard you. They’ll continue this slick process when they’re working with you. It’s not a box ticking exercise, but it does follow their agency ‘way’ and you’ll have to fit in with their procedures.

That’s all great, but…

What if you’re not the norm? What if your project really is ‘out of the box’ and requires more than some copy and pasted‘blue sky thinking’? (Honestly, this phrase makes us shudder as soon as it’s uttered!)

If your project is really pushing the boundaries, or it’s something that’s not been seen before, or a project that requires some gentle, regular tinkering and conversation, you may well find that the Goliath ‘one size fits all’ approach to client management is all wrong for you.

 

 

Small means flexible

Big agencies have done well for themselves. They’ve attracted the awards and the big clients and now they must maintain a certain way of working that suits them. That’s what – to a point – their clients buy into. They can’t always change that easily, or quickly. It’s harder for employed staff to be flexible.

That’s great, but…

What if you’re more of a hands-on and break the rules kinda person? What if what you need is more fluid than ‘set-it and forget it’? What if you need to try it for a little while, test it, and then review the whole idea and change it? What if you’re working in a space that can change overnight?

A small agency will work more closely with you and can (and will move) with you. The flexibility is what a smaller agency can provide more happily than a large one.

 

 

You mean more to smaller agencies

A large agency has a huge portfolio of clients and due to their size and profitable set-up and strong marketing and sales team, they can afford to lose clients and deal with a high client ‘churn’.

That’s great, but…

You’re not just a number! You’re not a notch on their bedpost or something they call ‘churn’ when you move on. You’re a special little buttercup, and you matter. You do.

A smaller agency is more appreciative of you and your business matters more. You’ll be a larger percentage of their turnover that month or year and you’ll develop a working relationship that means that little bit more to them.

 

 

Smaller agencies have one small team

Large design agencies have done well over the years and grown their team to a great size. They now have people to manage people and their office Christmas party needs the local hotel to accommodate them. (Handily, there are also more pool tables there, too!)

That’s great, but…

When they’re working on your project, your design and other collateral is moved from department to department and even the client manager doesn’t always know where they’re at with it all.

Call up a smaller agency and even the boss will know what’s going on. They’re probably working on or overseeing some of it, too! A smaller agency means smaller team. That can mean a more joined-up way of working and less things ‘lost in communication’ as the Chinese whispered email to project manager and then designer and then client manager gets misunderstood or delayed.

 

 

Davids can still work with many Goliaths (and other Davids)!

Large agencies know that it’s best to niche and work with a section of the market that they can specialise in and work with. A large agency then becomes the ‘go to’ agency for X or Y or Z.

That’s great, but…

What if you need your design and marketing to be truly different and to draw from many different projects from different sectors? What if you wanted to gain experience from more than just your sector? Smaller agencies tend to move from one style of project to another and the pool of expertise and skills this requires can be vast… and very useful for you!

 

 

David beats Goliath (sometimes)

We’re proud to be a smaller agency and we’re certain that there are times when working with us (or a similar smaller outfit) is better than the typical large, London agency.

We’re also certain that large agencies suit other companies, and that the people choosing them like to play pool and go for lunch at an overpriced fancy bar with the MD after.

It’s just a matter of choosing the right agency for you.

If you think it might suit you better to have a smaller team who care about you, your project, and its outcome, and you might like to work with an eclectic team with knowledge from many sectors – then say hello!

Why great photography is essential to your brand (and when stock photos simply kill it!)

You did it! You got a great new brand created, updated your marketing and website, and launched it into the world.

You’re getting great comments and feedback and it all looks like you’ve totally nailed it. Now you have to keep up the good work and keep that brand in that great place.

… but this is where most businesses screw it up!

We’ve never been ones to hold back on what we see and we’re not about to do that in this blog, so if you’re of a nervous disposition when you’re told some home truths about branding use then click away now.

Still here? Great… Let’s get this message well and truly out there so you don’t make some serious mistakes.

 

Good imagery reflects on a brand and so does crap imagery

 

Let’s get the obvious, “No shit, Sherlock” moment out of the way and make it really obvious what we’re talking about here.

  • Great imagery, great messages.
  • Crap images, crap messages.

The quality of photos used on websites and marketing collateral is getting very messy, poor, and so off-brand! If you’re thinking about stealing from Google images or buying cheap stock from some poor online store, or even using your poor-quality smartphone snaps – just don’t!

Your photos – and the quality of them – reflect directly on a brand and business. The brand and your story are the DNA of your marketing. It’s for this reason that you need to make sure you’re using appropriate images and images that are of a quality that you would want to be associated with your brand.

A brand needs to come alive through the imagery; not be killed by it.

 

How to kill a brand with smiley-faced white-teeth hand-shaky people…

 

You know all that work you did when you created the brand identity?

You know all those meetings, emails, calls, and big decisions you made when you created that new logo, the colour palette, fonts, values, and the tone of voice?

You can kill the impact of that by heading to one of those cheap stock photo sites, downloading a file of someone you’ve never met, who’s ‘super-excited’ to be doing something very mundane (or working in a space that clearly has never been worked in before), or working on a computer with a screengrab that bears zero resemblance to you, your message, or your brand!

Here’s what we mean. Have you seen how happy these ladies are to be eating a salad? Fake news!

 

Does your photo represent your brand?

 

No? Then why use it?

That wonderful brand you created and painstakingly worked on could be let down by imagery that doesn’t fit your brand identity. It really can make or break your brand.

You can really confuse people by saying one thing and doing something else. People need to trust you to buy from you, and this is all part of building the trust.

Photos and imagery are part of a brand.

(We’ll say that again in caps as it’s important and we want to shout about it!)

“PHOTOS AND IMAGERY ARE PART OF A BRAND!”

When you had the brand guidelines created, that was meant to cover everything you do with that brand and that obviously meant website, email, social media and traditional marketing materials.

But it also meant the way you present pitches, the way you behave at business events, the way you answer the phone, the car you drive…

… and the images you use.

Put it like this:

You wouldn’t exhibit at a business show with dirty crumpled clothes, wearing your slippers, with a broken banner and some crumpled leaflets would you? And we’re pretty sure you’d clean your teeth and brush your hair before going to a client meeting.

So, you’re not going to use poor images, are you?

 

We believe that image styles should be in brand guidelines

 

Create parameters around the photos and other images that you use with the brand and stick to them.

Make sure they are aligned to the brand identity.

This plays out across all the marketing your brand will do. When you consider how many channels and how many ways you can market now, that’s a lot of areas where photos could kill the brand!

Here’s some areas to think about with your brand guidelines for images:

  • How do you find and store images for your website (for current and future pages and articles)?
  • When you create images for social media, what style do they need to be in?
  • When exhibiting, networking, or creating an online profile, what images do you need?
  • When creating a new product or service suite, how will the images be selected?

Look, here’s the deal:

If your style is active and supportive, you wouldn’t use an image of a person stood still on their own, would you?

Think about that core message you have in the brand and then ask yourself each time you use an image or photo:

“Does this convey the message I’m trying to get people to remember and resonate with?”

 

Stock images can look false and are often out of kilter with your brand identity

Stock photos weren’t created for you.

Images that are created for you and are very much in line with your brand work 100% better.

Stock images were created for some generic situation like “Meeting” or “Walking” or “Greeting” or even “Women running in pencil skirt to a meeting”. They’re mostly just terrible and clichéd.

 

[Disclaimer]

Some stock image sites are now far better than they used to be. There are some great stock photo and image sites out there and you can use them – we’ll allow you! But you can only use them on one condition:

Make sure you choose images that match your brand identity.

We understand that sometimes the budget won’t allow you to have the best images or photos and you may well have to go for stock, but when you do, select stock images VERY CAREFULLY.

 

 

By the time you’ve spent hours looking for the right stock images, you may as well have paid a professional to get exactly what you want…

 

We’ve started offering this very service because we want to put a stop to the death of brand through poor images and photos.

Photos taken for a specific piece of content or brand identity are far more powerful and often a far more effective choice (for brand, time, and money).

Yes, you can find a stock site that suits a brand and we’re sure you might be pretty nifty with an iPhone, but you can’t beat unique and on-brand images taken with the brand in mind.

Wouldn’t it be easier to have your own bank of images of everything you need, so you can just choose from a selection you know are high quality and relevant?

</Rant over>

… well almost.

Go back to the website, social media, marketing, and wherever else you have images and then get your brand identity and guidelines to hand and be honest with yourself:

  • Do they represent it?
  • Do they amplify it?
  • Or do they kill it a little bit inside?

Choose wisely or create images for the job in hand.

The results are powerful, and you’ll have a far stronger message.

 

Here’s Why We’re Brief Makers, not Brief Takers

Getting a brief for any work is essential before we begin our design projects.

Knowing what you as a client want and needs is key to a successful project.

A brief for your design is a core part of the process… but there’s a problem we wanted to share with you.

  • What if the brief isn’t what you really need?
  • What if the brief is misguided or badly thought through?
  • What if… the person who created the brief isn’t actually the right person to do it?

This transcends all types of work and it’s not just limited to design. The key issue here is that the brief traditionally comes from you as the client; the person who needs the help to create it.

But you’re not the person who knows how to create it.

That’s why we’re brief MAKERS, not brief TAKERS.

 

Many design agencies are brief takers

Getting asked to do new work is exciting. Without that enquiry, call, meeting, or interesting email, our businesses wouldn’t flourish, and we’d all be in a painful place.

Getting the chance to work on a brief is a great feeling. We feel that many agencies simply let that excitement take over and they forget why they do what they do in the first place.

A brief doesn’t need to be set in stone, and it shouldn’t be taken as the only way. A brief is merely a set of instructions from a client.

If a designer follows a brief from a client to the letter – with the greatest respect – it’s unlikely to be a success. Our clients aren’t the best people to create it – we are.

The major problem (and we see and hear about it a lot) is that agencies are simply too lazy/afraid/inexperienced to question the brief.

We know, we understand, and we get it. Obviously we don’t want to lose your contract! But we understand that we won’t keep you forever if we let you guide the work and the outcome is inferior. We think we’re better placed to create the brief, or at least amend it slightly if need be.

Other agencies might use brief takers, who simply take instructions from the client and go away and create something according to what the client thinks they want, without question… and we wanted to tell you that that’s not how it should work!

 

Are they really solving the problem?

Any work we take on for a client (especially design and marketing) needs to fix a problem. Before we go any further, and way before we start work, we need to work out what that problem is.

This takes a good conversation, or workshop, or a session with the team or the core part of the business to do this.

We ask you: “What are you actually trying to do?”

Because the brief you created is what you want to do, not always what you need to do!

Asking the right questions, poking in the right places, and posing some awkward suggestions is where a real design brief comes from, not from a brief created on the basis that you think you should do something because “it looks good” or it’s like someone else’s or “similar to the competition”.

MISTAKE!

Your project is built on sand!

Ultimately, especially with what we do, the end result is highly dependent on the build or final format, and that’s dependent on creating the right thing on the right basis in the first place!

EXAMPLE:Let’s say that company A has a problem with their image.

They want to attract young millennials, but their messages, brand, and subsequent marketing falls on deaf ears with them as it simply doesn’t resonate.

Let’s say for a moment that company A’s directors and core team think it’s something else. They think they need a logo refresh and some brighter colours and maybe some kind of social media style graphics to add to their new comms plan.

If we went down the road of the brief, it might get close, but it wouldn’t hit home as well as it could have done, had we really dug down to the real problem.

In effect, the final project is built on sand!

Without a ‘dig deep’ conversation there is no real foundation to the project and therefore no one achieves the results they want (or expect).

It’s amazing how often this can come as a shock!

“Why didn’t it work?”

… because you solved the wrong problem – one your customers didn’t have!

 

You’re solving a problem, not creating another one

Design is there to create a solution to a problem and when we dig deep and ask the right questions, that’s when the magic flows.

The magic flows because we become entwined with you as a client, understanding your business, your challenges, your flaws, and your shiny good bits. We create that extra special relationship so we can reach in and tease out the answers to the problem in order to create results.

What we don’t want you to do is ‘wing it’ or allow yourself to be led down the wrong path by someone who means well but doesn’t fully understand what you’re trying to achieve with the project.

Don’t take the brief – MAKE the brief!

 

We’re right nosy, we are!

With 25+ years’ experience, Philippa, our MD is a nosy git!

She’ll ask the questions that people don’t think or dare to ask, and she does that because we want to give the best service and get the best results, and she knows that needs the right questions and the subsequent answers.

“Isn’t it a risk?”

Well, it all depends on the way you look at it.

  • We take on the brief and do what you ask, we’ll keep you happy.
    But that’s only a short term
  • If the design work doesn’t convert, it’s actually a LOSE.
  • But if we make the brief and challenge what you ask and get a great result?
    That’s a long term WIN for both!

 

It’s all about the long game and the end result

You need to get the results to ensure getting more business, and that requires you to start from the right place and not build your entire project on sand.

Be brave… your project will be all the better for it!

The Role of Colour in Branding and Design

Branding is far more than just a logo. A brand is a theme, a vision, a story – and in many respects a brand is a feeling! It’s not some wishy-washy concept either – it’s science!

Managed carefully, your brand can evoke a feeling in your customers. That needs careful attention and constant work. When you get it right you’ll attract the right people more of the time – and your clients will be attracted you because they see the vision and share the beliefs that you do.

 

“All from a brand?”

Yes – all from a brand!

 

There’s more to this than meets the eye then? Actually, it’s only partly about what meets the eye. You see, your visual branding is projecting almost subliminal messages to your clients, customers and leads via your messages, marketing and logo.

You’re sending out messages based on deep and hard-wired human reactive systems whether you like it or not.

So, are you asking your customers to fight, fly or freeze? Or are you asking for love, saying you’re reliable, or showing them that you’re a calm and collected company?

There’s a lot of psychology at play here!

Colour plays a massive role in how memorable and recognisable a design is and in this blog we wanted to delve into that. What does your branding say and how do the colours you use convey that?

 

The human brain looks for trustworthy brands

Like it or not, research shows that as humans we’re mostly asleep! Experts say that nearly 95% of your day is run on auto-pilot and marketers know this. Branding with an eye on the colours that provoke the right reaction can really help you to gain the trust of those customers who are mostly working in auto-pilot.

Great design is about creating harmony and balance among the elements of a brand and helping them come together to create a final product that’s simply outstanding. The colours chosen by your designer play a huge part in that.

But it’s also about creating trust and building authority. Big brands do this well and as well as their alignments with celebs and viral campaigns, big brands use their branding to build trust. Colours have a big effect on this with colours like blue and purple both being seen as very trustworthy colours.

 

Colour affects the mood of the design

Colours actually affect your mood and when you think about it, this is a safety mechanism that used to serve us well. The more primitive humans didn’t even have language, so triggers like colours to show safe places or dangerous animals and foods were essential.

There’s a lot of research out there to show that we’re still operating on these programmes to this day and so the colour of your branding can be very powerful indeed.

Using red for example can incite anger, love, and passion. Using blue can create a sense of peace, serenity, and security.

The colours that you choose go far beyond your favourites – they’re deeply engrained into our minds and you’d do well to research these before deciding on your primary and secondary colours.

 

The colour palette of your design has an important job to do. The primary colour palette, which usually includes one or more colours, which will be included in your logo will also have a secondary colour palette that complements this and brings the design alive. The important part of this is that the colours do complement each other in terms of design but also in message, and you’ll see why when we get into the colour psychology.

Sticking to your chosen colour palette is important and you should refer to this whenever you create any type of marketing material. It needs to be blended into everything you do and every touch point of your business should be on brand and using the appropriate colours.

Most businesses will have brand guidelines and it’s highly recommended that you follow them, especially with the colours, as this will have a huge impact on your message!

 

Colour can be negative as well as positive!

Yes, colour can be a real positive in your brand, but it can be negative too.

Let’s say for example that you want to be a calm and peaceful brand. Maybe you’re a meditation consultant or you run a yoga studio. The last thing you need in your brand is anger, excitement, vibrant thoughts or even an overly expensive feeling.

Avoiding some colours is often a good step and to create the feeling of calm, serenity and energy (as with the above example) you’d be better with blues, greens, or oranges rather than red or yellows for example.

Contrasting colours also need to follow this trait so choose colours that complement the other colours as well as making sure it matches your overall message, too!

 

What do you want your brand to say? Choose a colour that says that.

This might sound really obvious now, but choosing the right colours are incredibly important to your brand message and what it is you want to convey to your customers. What are your core beliefs? What does your brand say? What do you want it to say?

Choosing the right colour palette needs a carefully considered approach as this could make or break your message. You’ll choose a tagline or company values depending on the nature of your brand or project, and your colours need to follow that hand-in-hand.

 

Colour contrast is key!

One colour can say one thing, and another can say something entirely different. Take Amazon for example. Amazon is the world’s leading e-commerce brand so you know they’ll have this down to every last detail. In fact, Amazon’s brand guidelines are well worth checking out as an example of why good companies are strict with their design guidelines to protect their brand.

The main visual branding is

  • White (simple, pure, clean)
  • Black (quality, trustworthiness, sleek)
  • And then orange (happy, positive, and full of energy).

Amazon contrasts these colours really well throughout their site and once you know this, you’ll see it everywhere. Take their ‘One-click’ buttons for example. The ‘Add to basket’ button is orange, but more yellow in colour (maybe to reflect the fresh, vibrant and exciting feel of ordering something new) but their ‘Buy Now’ button in a darker orange, a more pressing colour, nearer red which symbolises action but not too near so that you’re in any danger when you click it.

The colour of buttons has been well researched and some suggest that simply getting the buttons to stand out so they’re noticed is more powerful, but Amazon are purely in the orange camp with a happy and positive feel to their click.

If you’re looking to use colour to influence a buying decision then one of the most important things is contrast.

 

So what do the colours in your brand say?

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it gives you a really good start. As with anything like branding and design, you’re always advised to speak to the experts (that’s us) but here are some very simple guidelines to cement this idea of colour and psychology in branding.

  • RED – Excitement, strength, appetite
  • BLUE – calm, relaxed, trusted
  • GREEN – relaxing, fresh, symbolises moving forward
  • YELLOW – fresh, vibrant, creative
  • WHITE – pure, clean, unblemished, perfect, gentle, sleek
  • ORANGE – happy, positive, energetic
  • PURPLE – luxury, quality, trustworthy
  • PINK – positive, romantic, loving, and Smart (Oh OK, we added in Smart!)
  • BLACK – Classy, expensive, trustworthy, sleek

It’s obvious now why Ann Summers are pink, Apple are white and Morrisons are green and yellow, right?

The choice of colour in branding is key and if you’re looking to make true long-lasting impact then we need to go deeper and look into the mind of your customers. We’re all operating on a system that was build to keep us safe, show us excitement, and drive us to be hungry, passionate, take action and feel safe.

Doesn’t it make sense to align your brand with the right message?

If you’d like us to look at your brand colours to see whether they fit with your business just get in touch for a chat.

Just how brave are you?

In the course of our working month, we deal with a lot of different clients in the briefing process.

The briefing process is a necessary stage for us, as your design agency, to understand what you’re trying to achieve so that we can craft the best solution to achieve the best result.

As part of that process we’ll ask you questions, not just the basic Who, What, Where, When but the deep searching questions that really get to the ‘big idea’. One of the questions we’ll ask is ‘How brave are you?’ Now you could be reading this thinking ‘what on earth has that got to with the price of chips?’ We ask that question because it’s very important to us (and to you hopefully!) to provide a creative solution that gets real results. The answers we receive are varied, depending on the person we’re dealing with and the culture of the organisation. Many clients like to be seen as brave and will want something that turns the status quo on its head but the reality is often quite different.

As a design agency it’s our responsibility to push creative boundaries and we’ll often come up with 3 or more creative concepts depending on the project that range from ‘safe’ to ‘more exciting’ and ‘wow!’.

When we present the concepts, the client who has briefed us will love the most off the wall option and their response is immediate. But once it goes round the exec team or the marketing team for ‘feedback’, nine times out of ten I can bet a tenner that the creative will be watered down and tamed.

Our observations are that probably only 1 in 10 clients are brave enough to go with the most off the wall concept.

And this is a real shame, because with a watered down concept comes watered down results and therefore the money spent has not been maximised.

So come on people, be brave, take the leap and get much better results for your project!

What makes great design?

I’m often confronted by design that a business has had created and they ask my opinion. Quite often it leaves me with a sinking feeling, not that I’m decrying other designers’ work but I feel I must help educate design buyers to understand what makes great design.

Design is about creating harmony and balance among the elements and having them come together in a final product that is outstanding. It’s not simply a case of throwing some images and copy on an advert or brochure. It’s so much more than that.

The designer/client relationship is a partnership and often this is not the case. By taking the time to choose the right agency and getting to know how each other work, you get so much more out of the relationship. Being thorough with your briefing and the agency being thorough in their questioning and research, the magic happens.

I want to help design buyers really understand what makes great design. It’s not a guide to help you to design yourself but how to get the best results from hiring a design agency to create the project for you. After all that is what they do, day in day out, for a wide variety of clients. It’s a guide to help you assess the design concept that is presented to you.

 

1. Do the ground work

You wouldn’t build a house without creating the foundations first; if you did it would fall down! The same goes for any of your marketing – think it through. What do you stand for? How do you do it differently than anyone else? Who is your ideal client, what is your message and then finally what channels will you use?

 

2. Stand out

In today’s message-heavy world it’s an absolute must to stand out or you’re wasting your money. By that I mean standing out with a great offer or proposition. Be different. Don’t just create something that everyone else is doing because you won’t stand out.

 

3. Work out your hierarchy of message

Your logo isn’t the message, so don’t have it at the top of the marketing piece as the main feature. The main feature should be the message/benefit you want to convey – the point you want to put across.

 

4. Appropriate typography?

Keep to a maximum of three typefaces and choose the typefaces to suit the message and the audience. For example, where you’re creating a message for your tenants to move them from traditional contact points to digital, choose a typeface that is friendly and non-threatening.

 

5. Lines and shapes

Lines are effectively used in separating or creating a space between other elements or to provide a central focus. The direction, weight, and character of the line can convey different states of emotions and can evoke various reactions.

Use shapes to add interest to your elements. Angular shapes indicate masculinity while velvety and curvy shapes like circles indicate femininity. Square shapes, elements, or designed items communicate security, trustworthiness, and stability. On the other hand, circles are like eye candy: They are organic, complete and communicate wholeness.

 

6. Alignment

When elements are aligned, they create a visual connection with each other that communicates a story. Alignment helps to put elements together in a visible and readable arrangement.

 

7. Choose the right imagery

Put the cook in the kitchen, so if your ideal client is an elderly person, don’t use images of a young person. Even more to the point try and avoid stock imagery – invest in good quality bespoke photography – besides probably seeing your image elsewhere, you really can tell it’s stock imagery!

 

8. Sets you apart in the mind of the audience

There are many companies in your field doing what you do – unless you’ve invented a time machine. The key is, does your design set you apart? Does it position you as credible and align with your values?

 

9. Adaptable

Often at the outset of your project and the briefing stage, the agency should be asking you how this project will be used. Will it need to be used elsewhere and will it work on social media for example? We recently designed an annual report which included a set of infographics that were to be used on social media so it was important to ensure they were easy to dissect and supply as individual images.

 

10. Instantly understandable

There’s no point making it difficult for your customer to understand what you are trying to say – make it easy for them. If they have to think too hard about it they will quickly move on.

 

11. Simple

‘Less is more’ and the most effective design pieces are those that are simple and uncomplicated. For example if you need a roller banner for an exhibition don’t try and put enough text for a brochure on it because people won’t read it. The roller banner is designed to give a snapshot of your business because it’s viewed from a distance.

 

Space is powerful when you want to deliver a direct message without the clutter of other design elements.

 

12. Contrast

You want your message to be conveyed to as many people as possible. Think about contrast of colours. Don’t for example allow yellow type on a red background as it will ‘jump’ and many people won’t even be able to read it, particularly those with visual impairment or the over 50s. Think about the contrast of certain colours and make your design piece as accessible to as many people as possible.

Contrast is also used to make elements stand out and grab attention. It creates a focal point in a design, creates visual excitement and increases the interest of any design creation. It can, for example, redirect the attention of a reader to a more important part or message of a presentation.

 

13. Colour

Colour affects the mood of the design. It represents different emotions and different personalities. The use of the colour red can incite anger, love, and passion or strong will. On the other hand, the colour blue, creates a sense of peace, serenity, and security.

Colour puts emphasis on the pertinent information that is conveyed by the other visual elements. It’s well worth checking out the psychology of colour that can easily be searched for on the internet.

 

14. Walk in their shoes

Imagine viewing the design concept from your ideal client’s point of view; look at it standing in their shoes – does it grab your attention? Does it provoke an action in you in some way?

 

15. Achieving the brief

Refer back to your agreed brief with the agency – does it work? Does it convey want you want it to convey?

 

 

Beware:

  • Don’t use Comic Sans or Brushscript – it’s so last century
  • Don’t use drop shadows – it’s so last century
  • Do I even need to mention clip art?

The value and power of good design

How do we quantify the value of good design?

I felt compelled to write this article having seen some instances, due to reduced budgets, where there has been what I would describe as poor design. When I say poor, I don’t just mean the way it looks but the lack of design thinking or thinking about it from the audiences’ shoes. 

Some campaigns don’t land the message in the right way because it’s viewed from the organisation’s point of view and not the audiences. Comms teams need to talk to their audience and ask: What are their issues, what do they want to see, why don’t they engage, what are the barriers to them engaging, what channels do they engage with currently? Every design project should start from this standpoint.

As the Managing Director of a design agency it’s very easy for me to say that design can create great results for organisations, but that’s not enough – how do we quantify it?

We should really be asking ‘does good design create an increase in sales, engage teams, create a reaction in your audience or raise your company’s profile?’

If you think about innovative companies like Apple or Dyson, it’s quite obvious that design is at the very core of their business. It’s not accidental or a last-minute thing, its central to the strategy in all areas of those businesses. And this design thinking approach should be used more extensively in the public sector as well; it would benefit them massively.

Graphic design is art and commercialism combined where we understand there is a problem or challenge and look at it from the viewpoint of our clients’ audiences. We are paid to solve that problem.

Design can give businesses a competitive advantage and add real value to their business. In the public sector it can create real change. Organisations that invest in high quality design from respected designers perform better and are more able to secure investment, increase their market share and create change.

In a Design Council report from 2012 called Design delivers for business the following benefits were identified:

  • Design increases turnover: For every £1 invested in design, businesses can expect over £20 in increased revenues
  • Design is linked to profit: For every £1 invested in design, businesses can expect over £4 increase in net operating profit
  • Design boosts exports: For every £1 invested in design, businesses can expect a return of over £5 in increased exports

And the businesses areas strengthened through design were:

  • Stronger and more compelling brands that stand out in the market
  • Accelerating new ideas to market
  • Creation of new products and services that have transformed existing markets or opened up new ones
  • Establishing improved or new processes for product and service development to more effectively support innovation activity

How can design help organisations in the public and private sector?

  • Design is a differentiator. Good design can be a source of competitive advantage, through brand equity, customer loyalty, price premium or customer orientation.
  • Design is a motivator. Staff can be motivated by brilliant design, and this will often be reflected in their performance. A strong brand has the power to influence a workforce.
  • Design is good business. It can lead to new business opportunities, increased sales, better margins, higher brand value, greater market share, and a better return on investment.
  • Design can create cultural change in teams and audiences and can help public sector organisations reframe their challenges.

Many of the most successful organisations think of design as an investment and not a cost. Saving on design costs might be the most expensive decision you make, and in Ralph Speth’s words (CEO of Jaguar Landrover):

“If you think good design is expensive, you should should see the cost of poor design.”

Good design isn’t good enough for us, brilliant design is what Be Smart Design focus on; give us a call on 01902 797970 to find out how we can help you with your challenge.