Graphic Design Basics

 

Graphic design basics - a beginners guide to great design by Anne Ink. Great design is the first step to corporate success and building a successful brand that stands out in the marketplace. To accomplish this goal, start with your esthetic perspective, the elements of great design, then move to deciding how to incorporate them into your branding materials for corporate success.

Discover your aesthetic perspective and
the elements of great design.

The road to discovery is often started with the end goal in sight. When you look at art, do you notice tiny details, or rather the larger view? Exploration opens your esthetic ideals to new opportunities when you identify your perspective of what great design is. You create the map by examining other designs that speak to you.

What is great design? It is design that gets the target audience to act, pick up your product, investigate and purchase. It's that simple. And great design can be subtle, complex, simple, decorative, or plain. The goal is to determine your market, your target audience, and what design will position your product and company to attain market presence, and retain positioning.

 

Follow our graphic design basics - tips and methods:

1. Develop your color pallet.
How will color be used? What is the underlying message?
Color will define your brand, the tone and mood.

2. What are your primary and secondary font choices?
Does it immediately identify your business?
Fonts will influence the way headlines and body copy will be read.

3. Define the graphic design perimeters. 
Discover your purpose and goals as a corporation.
Your core values and purpose guide the graphic design process.
Images, videos, fonts and color combine to create the design focus.

4. Who is your target audience?
Think in specifics to find your target audience.
Your audience will have specific tastes, level of sophistication,
idea of what's fun, and standards of elegance.

5. What design elements do your competitors use?
How do you wish to be perceived and interact with your audience?
You do not want to copy your direct competitors, and to develop messaging that stands out as great graphic design, you need to be aware of the methods they use.

6. What are your vehicles of delivery -
print, packaging, web, social - all  of them?
When the avenues you will use for your graphic design are predetermined and viewed as a whole, it will be easier to ensure consistency of design. Think about headline length, available space, how different formats require image formatting.

7. What are your strengths to stand out from competitors?
Explain how you are uniquely suited to succeed in your business aims. Use your strengths to create great design that stands out. Is it the product itself. the way it is prepared or manufactured, the way it is packaged, or all of the above?

How To Proceed to Graphic Design Success

Your answers will help determine how you proceed.

• Start with developing the largest and the smallest foreseen sizes your message will be designed for. This will help you set boundaries for font use. Pinpoint the color scheme you will work with.

• Choose key art elements - background images, product images, and logo to set the tone for graphic design. It's like assembling the ingredients before you start to bake a cake.

• Remember consistency is key. Great graphic design is all about what works for your audience. Cohesive messaging is all about standing out in the market, delivering engaging and compelling design.