Graphic Design that speaks to your target customers
Design can be the difference between telling customers that you are a professional and showing it. A well-considered logo or brand mark will help to make your business stand out, be memorable and show what you stand for. Likewise, packaging that is designed to work with your product will draw attention and play an important role in your marketing mix, whether it’s a label for a product on a customer shelf or the design of a delivery box. In marketing, the design of an email can have a bigger role to play in the time people spend looking at it than the message itself.
Design plays a key role in decision making
Design plays a key role in the decisions we make, the brands we choose and the way we understand the world around us. Your target customer should feel attracted to and reassured by the way your business looks. More than that, a great brand creates a sense of ‘feeling’, not just an appearance. Graphic design plays a key role in the whole brand experience, along with what you sell, how you sell it, what your stand for and what your mission is.
Designed to fit in with your brand
Square Balloon offers graphic design that ties in with all of our other services. There are many individuals and companies that offer graphic design services but we pride ourselves on connecting up the visual elements to the wider brand and business objectives. In collaboration with our Brand Definition services, we create design with sound strategic thinking and purpose. More than that, we take the pressure off you having to manage your graphic identity and keep everything on-brand ourselves by working as one cohesive team, whether your design is being applied to a website, corporate collateral or marketing materials.
How can Graphic Design help my business?
We would never claim that everything comes down to how your brand looks but if you have invested time and effort into making sure your customers experience your business in the best way possible, it is important that your graphic identity is playing its part. Great graphic design doesn’t need to be complicated, in fact the most impactful designs are simple in their execution and leave a clear impression.
Square Balloon have a team of graphic designers with expertise in designing everything from a digital banner to a billboard. We will consider all elements from colours and shapes to the style and size of type. Professionally designed graphics are distinct from off-the-shelf options as they are created bespoke for what your brand needs to achieve and the way that you will be using them. We can help you to strike the right balance between fitting in with your category to reassure customers and standing out against your competitors.
Graphic design is a visual way of bringing all parts of your brand together for your customers to experience. It can tie together the look of your business card with the vehicle that turns up at their door, or the advert they recall seeing with the website they search for. This combined visual approach gives a professional, lasting impression and builds trust. Studies also show that customers expect to pay more for high quality service from well-designed brands.
What is Graphic Design?
Graphic Design is a term used to describe the application of design in 2D graphics, in the same way that structural design would look at 3D structures such as bottle shapes and box creation and product design is the development of new items that you can use or buy in themselves such as toys or office furniture. For instance, a product designer might create a new multi-use pen function and shape, a structural designer might create the best box to ship it in safely or display it in stores and a graphic designer will design the way that box looks with the images, typography and colours used.
There are many applications and platforms that allow everyday users to create something that looks nice nowadays, but nothing matches the bespoke approach of working with a graphic designer who understands your business and can create you something unique.
Is Graphic Design separate from Branding?
The terms ‘logo’ and ‘branding’ or ‘brand mark’ are often used loosely to mean the same thing. In fact, they are connected but not interchangeable. A logo is a visual device, it can have substance, it can look pretty, or it can just as easily miss the mark and not create the right impression. A brand mark brings in the foundations of the brand to create something meaningful that fits with the rest of the brand experience. Branding is the consideration of this whole experience.
A logo is rarely viewed on its own: if it is on a sign, it is part of the building you see behind it; if it is on a website, it is part of the overall impression the website gives you; if it is on a product, it is only part of what a customer will be taking in when they see the pack. It’s important to consider how the logo works in the ways that it will be applied and what that whole experience should feel like. A clearly defined brand will ensure that the visual interpretation of it fits with this and inspires your target customers into action.
How can I use Graphic Design in my business going forward?
Having a clear visual identity for your brand takes the guess work out of how your brand should look. It prevents the different elements of your brand experience from being disjointed or confusing. Having a determined colour palette, type style, photo or illustration style and logo will help to keep everything on brand. If you have a wider team who will be creating or using these elements going forward, we can create brand guidelines that keep it all aligned and prevent misuse of your visual identity.
A distinctive brand will make decisions like what your offices should look like, which vehicles to use, what sort of marketing merch to buy and any business uniforms a simple choice. When everything is tied together visually, it is much easier for customers to remember and recall.
Square Balloon also offer on-going graphic design services and corporate collateral design so that you can make use of all of the skills and software we have access to without having to learn them yourself or hiring somebody to carry out these tasks.
How do Square Balloon work with you on Graphic Design?
Whether you have a great visual eye or have never considered graphics before, we will take you through the whole process and help you to create graphics that you are proud to have representing your business.
The process starts with a chat about where your business is now or what you are trying to create. Our design and branding team will help to ask you the right prompt questions to inform a brief for design, highlighting the aims, any preferences you have and pulling out inspiration from other brands that you admire or would like to stand out against. We always plan for the future too, to prevent the investment you are making in the short term from proving lacking in the longer term. This means that if you have plans for an e-commerce website in the future, or physical premises, or creative social marketing campaigns, the right expertise will be brought in early to make sure that work is ready for you to scale up. This means that while we take care of the projects you need completing today, you can focus on building your business, knowing that your brand is ready to step up when you are.
If we create your brand graphic design, we can continue to work with you long after the initial project is complete. You can choose to outsource all graphic requirements to us so that you never have to worry about whether any elements are off-brand, keeping your own focus on building your business. Alternatively, we can act as brand guardians, offering guidance and advice when you take the brand that we create in-house to use every day. If you would like to discuss a retainer model for templates, presentations and regular design requirements for your business, please book a call.