GRAPHIC DESIGN AND YOUR BUSINESS

Business owners often underestimate the importance of graphic design. Sure, other fundamentals like sales and strategy are vital, but good graphic design’s power in brand recognition and trust is undeniable.

Visuals are so much easier to connect with than words. Implementing creative work into your website, social media platforms, prints, and more is essential to building a brand. Plus, it will help to distinguish you from the competition. Learn what designs your business should create and where to incorporate those designs to set your business apart from others in your industry.

*Need more information on graphic design and its different areas? Read our Different Aspects of Graphic Design blog post to understand completely what eCommerce graphic design is.

Before you begin creating graphics, designate exactly what your brand identity is if you have not already done so. Plan the impressions you want your business to make, and get a feel for your brand’s personality through color schemes and design style. Decide what visuals you like (using sites like Pinterest can be helpful in creating mood boards that you may want to take inspiration from), and create a layout of colors and fonts you want to use as part of your unified brand identity. 

These graphics reflect your business, so if you own a plant company, your graphics should reflect plant life. Using colors like green and brown is probably more appropriate than blues and yellows. If you want to portray power, colors like red and black can help accomplish that. Want to attract younger or hip users? Pick modern fonts. Think about who your target audience is and what you want to portray in everything you create.

After you know what graphics you want to create and use, think of strategic places to incorporate designs. Developing thoughtfully placed on-brand graphics is the key to communicating brand identity. We recommend a few highly trafficked locations for implementing graphic design, such as your website and social media platforms.

The very first, and arguably the most important, place to implement graphic design is on your website. Because this is the first thing potential customers may see, it needs to be visually impactful.

Strategically place graphics on highly trafficked pages that represent your brand. You could be losing sales and not even know it with a lack of design on your site, which is why good graphics can be a game-changer. 

Take a look at a graphic on Boxwood’s SEO agency page. It’s an instant comparison of a business with and without SEO. Potential customers will immediately understand what the image says without reading anything. It is strategically placed at the top of the SEO page so customers can quickly see how much better your business can be with SEO. 

List the most important and the most visited pages on your website. Start there with creating new graphics to get your target audience to notice and remember your brand identity!

Another crucial place to implement graphic design is on social media. This is an easy platform to upload great graphics for potential customers. You want a strong portfolio of work, and effective graphic design helps make your products or services look better, regardless of your industry. When your target audience researches your company, a strong social media presence adds a level of professionalism to your image.

Do you also do a lot of in-person business? Create well-designed takeaways or print material you can give to potential customers. A takeaway is something similar to a brochure, flyer, or note customers can take as a thank you for their business, or it can be more informative if someone is thinking of doing business with you.

These prints can easily share information about your business as well as portray the emotions you want to associate with your brand. Potential customers can see your design on the brochure, takeaway, or print and they’ll be more inclined to do business with you if it looks professional and memorable.

Graphic design is a powerful tool for telling a potential customer a lot about your business in a brief amount of time. Deciding on brand identity and using it to develop graphics for highly visible touchpoints will make your business feel more professional and more memorable. Don’t lose out to competitors because your business’s branding didn’t make a strong enough impression.