21 March Design Features that Will Catch Your Client's Eye March 21, 2023 By sma Franchise, Marketing, Social Media business website, digital marketing, email marketing 0 DESIGN FEATURES THAT WILL CATCH YOUR CLIENT'S EYE March 21, 2023 | Marketing, Social Media, Franchise | email marketing, digital marketing, business website By Melisa Rana, NPI, Inc.'s Graphic Designer When developing an overall brand for your business, there are many aspects that need to be considered in order to establish an image that is cohesive, strong, and recognizable. Your brand is displayed through every facet of your business: through the products or services that you deliver, through your customer service, and through your unique attention to detail. But when talking about how you plan on displaying your brand visually, this is where the fundamentals of graphic design come in. Through strong graphic design techniques, you can develop a brand that is recognizable while also conveying what makes your business unique in an efficient and effective manner. To get a better idea of how you can capitalize on your brand, let’s review some of the features of graphic design that help define your business. Typography Reinforces Your Tone Although typography is crucial to your business, this fundamental building block of graphic design is often woefully overlooked. Typography refers to the specific design, font pairings, and representation of the words on any marketing materials, websites, and other works either online or printed. While this aspect tends to be one that is rarely on the forefront of a business owner or client’s mind, this is the first part of a brand that a graphic designer needs to get right. Typefaces are generally divided into three categories: serifs, sans-serifs, and decorative. Serifs make use of small tails at the end of a stroke on each letter and generally give off an air of tradition, trust, and authority. Meanwhile sans-serifs (meaning without serifs) are characterized by their lack of these tail marks. Sans-serif fonts tend to give off a bold, modern feel to a reader, and they are known to be especially readable from further distances. Regardless of the fonts that are chosen, it’s important to consistently utilize your selected fonts, typeface style, and font pairings throughout all of your marketing materials. Your unique typefaces will be what clients and customers see when they learn more about your business or your services, so it’s important to establish your tone early on and build a recognizable, unique style without sacrificing readability. In short, consistent, unique fonts that reinforce your business’ tone is the first step towards building a strong brand. Color Conveys Your Personality Once you’ve established your tone, the next most important piece of your business’ graphic design strategy is color. Every color has the power to evoke an emotion and its consistent use is what reinforces your brand’s identity. The psychology of color and the strategies of color selection are known as color theory. People use color theory every day without even realizing it, and many are familiar with how some colors can subconsciously influence mood. For example, the color red is commonly associated with anger or caution, while the color blue frequently evokes more calming moods. In marketing and graphic design, these connotations are similarly taken into consideration in order to reinforce your brand. For example, a serif font may have already been chosen as a primary typeface in order to help establish your business as one with a long legacy that can be trusted. One color that might be smart to pair with this typeface might be a dark green which is commonly associated with stability. With these two initial building blocks, your business begins to build a recognizable visual brand based on feelings of trustworthiness, reliability, and credibility. Select Images With Care While color and typography cover a large part of your brand identity, it’s important to also consider the importance of images. Images are a powerful tool to break up your informative pieces and catch the attention of potential clients. Additionally, images have the ability to convey a large amount of information in a small amount of time. Images might be broadly divided into the categories of photographs, images, and graphics. Depending on what piece you’re working on, a different visual element may be selected to reinforce your message. For example, photographs are usually regarded as concrete and factual (since they depict elements as they are represented in the world). Photographs might be used to build authority on a fact or provide evidence on a particular subject. On the other hand, illustrations have great potential as tools for storytelling and communicating statistics. When describing intangible products and evoking powerful positive emotions, illustrations and graphics again have a considerable edge over photographs. Depending on the context and message that you’re attempting to get across in each situation, different image-types will suit your needs best. Understanding these overall trends along with your educated situational judgment is your best bet when trying to make the ideal image selection! Develop A Consistent Brand Once each of these elements is carefully considered, it’s important to use and reuse them with consistency. Just as your business might use a consistent tagline, your established style is what builds recognition for your clients. When you combine a positive customer experience with strong branding, your services will be more memorable and there’s a greater chance your customer will find your business again in the future. If your brand changes too often or is inconsistent in general, a client who could have been an advocate is more likely to forget your business’ name the next time your services are needed or when the opportunity for a referral comes up. With strong typography, selective color schemes, deliberately generated images, and their consistent use throughout your marketing efforts, you should have the basics down to conduct your business with confidence. As a franchise owner with National Property Inspections, you have access to a vast library of marketing content that already follows NPI’s brand bible, and for anything custom, feel free to contact your marketing team’s graphic design experts at any time! Running a small business requires you to wear many hats–be sure to take advantage of the resources at your disposal so your time and attention is directed to what you do best! Contact the marketing team with any of your graphic design needs: marketing@npiweb.com. For more information on how you can benefit from franchising with National Property Inspections, request a free info packet today! About the Author Melisa Rana, Graphic Designer Melisa graduated from the University of Nebraska Omaha with a B.F.A. in graphic design in 2022. As the team’s dedicated in-house graphic designer, she creates digital and print marketing collateral for NPI and GPI inspectors on a daily basis. With a background in layout design, brand identity, and photography, Melisa also creates visual content for our organization’s three blogs, email marketing campaigns, and social media accounts. She enjoys crafting professionally branded materials so our inspectors can always make a great first impression and stand out from their competition. Comments are closed.