Graphic design is important for companies who are building their brand, website, social presence, and much more. With an experienced professional on your team, the possibilities are endless for what your company can create.
After interviewing the Rise Marketing Group graphic designer, Regan, we learned valuable information to consider when doing graphic design yourself or when hiring a graphic designer.
Steps to Building your Brand
While every brand is different, it is important to remember that there are certain steps every company should take and in the correct order before approaching a graphic designer. Completing these preliminary steps can help expedite the process greatly.
Step 1: Understanding Brand Identity vs Guidelines
The first step to beginning the graphic design process for your company is understanding your brand guidelines and identity. Graphic designers primarily need the brand’s font, colors, and logos to start working with a new client. If you feel as though these areas are not properly fleshed out for your company, you may need to first understand brand guidelines vs identity.
A brand’s guidelines refer to a specific document that outlines the usage of fonts, colors, traits, and logos specific to the brand. A company like Amazon would have brand guidelines explicitly stating which shades of blue and orange are appropriate, and how graphic designers can manipulate their logo. Your brand guideline helps expedite the graphic design process and makes your visuals look recognizable and cohesive. McDonald’s would never be where it is had the arch kept changing colors and sizing, so don’t do the same for your business.
Brand identity is less technical and more based on traits. This information should also be written into a document that is either shared or separate from your guidelines. Your brand’s identity should be a consistent feeling your customers resonate with when they interact with your brand. Apple goes for a sleek, cutting edge approach that gives off a futuristic feel to consumers. Meanwhile Coke-a-Cola often plays upon nostalgia and community, making customers feel sentimental with their products. Your brand’s identity exists in the background of your brand and is more felt than seen.
While incredibly useful to have, these items can be daunting to develop especially for those without a background in design. Even without said documents, Rise can still work with you so long as you have a sense of what you want your branding to look like. Before approaching a graphic designer, we recommend answering the questions below to better visualize your company’s branding.
Step 2: Questions to Develop your Brand
When first approaching a graphic designer, you should have a good idea of the previously mentioned guidelines and identity. If you are struggling to develop those assets, these key questions can help discover more about your brand and how you want it to present:
- How do you want your customers to feel when they interact with the brand?
- What 5 words describe your brand?
- Do you know what you want visually, and can you trust someone else to create your brand visuals/extend or implement your visual identity?
- What features of other brands, websites, posts, etc. do you see that you like and feel could also represent/communicate your business visually, and why?
- Do I know what I want the brand to be perceived as?
- Am I an expert or new? Do I have helpful materials?
Be sure to ask yourself, do I have a sense of what I want? Do I have reference images, examples, screenshots, and design vibes to bring to the kick-off call? All of these answers will result in a more effective vision created by the designer and your marketing team. Additionally, brand guidelines are often publicly shared online, find companies you wish to emulate and research their graphic qualities!
Step 3: What To Prepare for your Graphic Designer
When a graphic designer starts working with a client you should provide them with all of the content you have available to start working with them. This should include:
Brand identity and guidelines – Graphic designers are taught to apply the brand’s voice and characteristics to their creations. That should be a basis for every facet – copy, design, and direction for marketing.
Brand photography – clear idea of what you need to be created if you do not yet have it. Using your own photos is highly recommended.
Your brand vision or voice
Font files, color codes, vector logo files (.png files if no .eps or .ai – transparency is key)
For small businesses – If you are just starting out, it is smart to have an idea of what you are looking for. It is beneficial if you do your research before a call. This is especially true if you would need a logo.
Time Frame for Designing
How long does it take to design specific criteria for a brand? For the most part, it depends on the designer’s experience with the client & what their needs and availability are. An estimate and important factors to consider are as follows. If a brand is starting from scratch, it will take more time and a call/meeting to discuss. Preplanning your brands’ identity and potential guidelines can help expedite the process, as well as being attentive to your graphic designers needs. Being collaborative, engaging, and helpful to your graphic design team are all effective ways to shorten your time frame.
Although every case is unique when it comes to these time frames, it is important to understand that certain aspects take longer than others. A logo/website is necessary for any company’s branding, often making it the first and longest task for those just beginning their graphic ventures. These assets are long-term, meaning the sooner they are done, the less you need to worry about them. Other content like graphics for emails or advertisements may only take a few hours to produce so long as the previously mentioned assets are complete. Depending on where you are at with guidelines, identities, and logos greatly impacts how long the design process takes. Determining your current starting point is the best way to determine a time frame for designing.
Platforms for Designing
There are numerous design platforms for specific areas of graphic design work. Our in-house designer recommends the following:
- Adobe: Adobe is seen as the industry standard for design work, and offers a variety of software for different design needs.
- InDesign: Great for printed work, and long text formatting. A great and versatile software that emphasizes layout and print.
- Illustrator: A powerhouse of design excellent for creating vector graphics and experimentation. Regan’s software-of-choice for logo and digital asset design has many other uses as well.
- Photoshop: Great for editing and manipulating images to import into other software. Can also be used to create printed or digital assets with text and other effects, but mostly depends on the designer’s preferences and the needs of the project.
- Adobe XD: A program for designing a web page or app layouts, and for sharing work and receiving feedback. Versatile and similar to Illustrator, but not quite as powerful in some areas.
- Figma: Figma has become the new industry standard for website and user interface design/layout. After an unsuccessful attempt at purchasing Figma, Adobe has slowly stopped updates for Adobe XD, making it the less popular option especially for newcomers in the industry. Figma is known for its ability to allow for collaboration, easy to follow templates, and AI integration.
- Canva: Canva is an excellent platform for templated graphics, and for sharing access amongst team members. Important to note is that using any template or graphic element created by Canva cannot be copyrighted, and will not be unique to your business. For projects like logos and brand identity, Canva is not recommended.
There are many third-party software and web-based applications that can also be used for design and should not be discounted! These are items in a designer’s tool belt, and a good designer will make good work regardless of the platform they use.
Conclusion
To recap, your first step should be determining your starting point. Are you starting from scratch, or do you have brand guidelines already created that could be used by a designer? If starting from the beginning, the best solution is to spend some time brainstorming how you want your brand to look and feel. Do this by determining how you want your brand to be perceived, asking questions to help develop your brand, and formally preparing this information for a graphic designer to use. That way, when first approaching a designer, they have something to work with.
Need help creating your brand’s guidelines, logos, or identity? Contact our team at Rise Marketing Group today for a free consultation!
