The ‘look’ of your business is your shop window. The first impression – as the old Will Rogers quote goes ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’. The thought and care with which you present your business can make a big impact on your bottom line. Small details like the quality of your business card can make a difference to the ‘feel’ of your business as you pass it to someone.
I remember learning that in printwork, leaving lots of ‘white space’ visually imparted a sense of affluence –the same still holds true for whitespace on the internet – check out Apple or Bang & Olufsen. If you have money to spend on white space then your products must be top notch and business must be doing well.
Making your products attractive and accessible with well thought-out imagery and photography, making your story attractive and engaging so that customers come back, and ensuring your website facilitates your customers towards easy and transparent payment windows all are about the image and brand identity. Your marketing should then mirror and complement the design work so that your story is told in an interesting and engaging way.
We were engaged to design a livery for one of the new Ridgeway transit vans. We needed to carry the strong Ridgeway logo and brand across the design and we also wanted to give is a sense of dynamic energy and a bit of fun. As inspiration I took the image of Iron Man the iconic superhero and wove it into the look for the design.
When you bring a designer into your business, they cover a lot of territory. First and foremost is the art, an understanding of design and original creativity to bring together shapes, colours, lines, images and words into a coherent whole. Secondly the all-important technical skills to make sure the specifications are right – you want that logo you put your heart and soul into to work when printed out at any size on any background. Commercial awareness is also important to throw into the mix. Nowadays a designer also has to be pretty tech savvy and keep up with the latest digital developments as well.
The art of design gives a business a unique and distinctive identity which conveys to their customers the core values of the business in an approachable and engaging way.