A study shows that 90% of data perceived by the human brain is visual. It also reveals that the brain can process images & visuals 60000 times faster than text.
A graphic design guide for small businesses is important because of this and many other reasons. It empowers you and your business to deliver your message effectively & efficiently to your users, be it your mission statement or what you do.
Most discussions on graphic design are limited to marketing. A graphic design guide is integral for marketing your business but it is most definitely more than that! It defines your brand – how your users view your small business and much more.
If you are wondering why graphic design is important for your small business or what can a graphic designer do for your small business or agency, this blog is for you! In this article, I have created an end-to-end graphic design guide for small businesses as well as large enterprises, covering the following points.
- Why is Graphic Design Important for Any Business?
- Essential Components of Graphic Design for Business
- Role of Graphic Design At Different Stages of Branding
- Business Brand Style Guide Examples
Let’s begin!
Why Is Graphic Design Important For Any Business?
In today’s competitive market space where every other business claims to be the best, graphic design gives a unique touch to your company and makes it memorable among your customers.
In this graphic design guide for businesses, here are a few stats to show why graphic design is important for any small business or large enterprise.
- A research found out that every £100 spend on design leads to a turnover increase of £225.
- More than 40% of consumers respond better to graphics & visuals than plain texts.
- Within just 80 seconds of viewing it, people create a subconscious judgment about a product. 62 – 90% of this assessment is based just on the product’s color.
Graphic design defines how your customers view & perceive your products and/or services of your small business which makes it too important for any business to miss out on!
Big companies understand the importance of graphic design for businesses. You can see how minor logo changes Facebook has made in its 16 years of existence!
Facebook understands that its users have associated the color “blue” with its brand and changing its logo to a completely different color can impact the business.
Having said that, here are the top 5 reasons why graphic design is important for any small business, agency, or large enterprise.
Create A Powerful Brand
Everything you use on your website – from your logo and website layout to newsletters or anything else, is perceived differently by different users. Graphic design helps you unify all of these efforts to send out a consistent message to your consumers.
“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” – Paul Rand
Be it a product-based business or service-based agency, everyone aims to become a brand in their industry. Graphic design can help you build consistency and connect with your audience.
- It takes 5-7 impressions for an average user to remember a brand.
- Presenting a business consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%.
Creating a brand identity for your business or agency is a very intricate design process and can be broken down into separate graphic elements. Maintaining consistency in all these elements through graphic design is important to portray your company as a brand and this is where a graphic design guide becomes important for your small business or agency.
Deliver Your Message
Did you know that over 94% of the world’s population recognizes the red & white logo of Coca-Cola?
Companies and Agencies understand the importance of sending out the right message to their audience. This graphic design guide for your small business can be key to this.
Have you ever observed Amazon’s logo? It simply says “amazon’ with an arrow from ‘a’ to ‘z’ meaning that they provide everything – from A to Z.
From packaging design to social media banners, infographics, and your website, a good design can help you convey your company’s message through all these elements.
Improve Engagement
Posts with relevant designs are viewed 94% more than posts without them.
Graphic design helps you to improve engagement with your audience – be it of your blog, advertisements, social media channels, or anything else. Besides, it’s not just about that. Studies have shown that information paired with a design is 65% more memorable! This is why this graphic design guide is important for your small business.
A good designer chooses every aspect of a graphic – from its font type to color scheme, to make it more intriguing and visually appealing to your audience.
Kill Your Competition With Creativity
Did you know that 94% of first impressions are design-related?
It takes, on average, 2.6 seconds for your visitors’ eyes to settle on key areas of a web page but they form an opinion about your website within just 50 milliseconds.
An average business website sees a bounce rate of 35-40%. Do you know what that means? A prospect just exited from your website and, in most cases, gets in business with one of your competitors.
With a good graphic designer by your side, your product-based business or service-based agency can make great impressions with your audience. So, you can kill your competition with creativity!
Elements of Graphic Design For Small Businesses
Now that I’ve your attention with the importance of a graphic design guide in small businesses, let’s look at the essential graphic design components for the same.
A graphic design guide for your small business is more than “make it look more pretty”. It can take days and even months to design something that looks simple on the outside.
The present-day Amazon’s logo looks simple. But it took 14 years for the company to transform from the logo from “1998 – 2000” to its current logo!
There are many different elements of graphic design for your small business but expert designers believe that design has these 7 basic components.
- Color
- Line
- Scale
- Shape
- Alignment
- Contrast
- Space
Here’s what a simple contrast change can do design for your website, infographic, social media, and more. Expert designers understand how to use the components of graphic design in the best manner possible and create something that aligns with your brand identity and message.
A graphic designer has a working knowledge of all these components which makes them an essential component of graphic design for your small business or large enterprise.
Besides these, here are a few other things that make a good designer an integral part of any business.
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Aesthetics
Your audience might not understand what graphic design is but they know when something looks visually appealing (or looks pretty) to them. This is what a good designer brings to the table – making your business & products “look pretty” for your customers.
Let’s say that you are thinking about creating a product.
You know its technicalities but not necessarily how it will look like. A good designer can read about your product’s brief and create something that will get your message across to your audience.
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Technical Skill Set
It is a long way from understanding the theory of graphic design to creating something you need for your small business or agency. As such, a technical skillset becomes an integral part of this graphic design guide for small businesses.
Graphic design for small businesses or big enterprises requires a technical skillset, such as proficiency in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Besides these, a good designer understands what types of file works best for your website/app without impacting its performance.
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A Designer’s Perspective
It doesn’t matter where you run a B2B business or B2C company, you always need a designer’s perspective. Someone who has an understanding of what can work for your audience and what wouldn’t, in terms of graphic design.
A good graphic designer brings a different perspective that helps you present your services/products in the best way possible while delivering your message.
How to Create a Brand Style Guide? (With Examples)
Remember how I told you earlier in this blog that maintaining consistency in graphic design for your small business or big enterprise is important? Well, a brand style guide is for just that – conveying your brand requirements quickly to a partner, your development or design team, or anyone else.
A brand style contains everything that defines the visual and feel of your company – from the exact colors for your logos to typography and more!
So, what should a brand style guide include? Here are a few steps you should follow to create a brand style guide for your business.
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It’s a good idea to begin a style guide with your Brand Story. Include all the details such as your origin story, your mission, core values, your audience, etc.
This is how Skype does it.
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Your logo is a core part of your brand identity. This is why the next part of your brand style guide should contain – font size, spacing rules, color variations (if any), etc.
Your logo is probably the most circulated and most common graphic design element of your small business or agency. So, make sure that its core is powerful enough to send your company’s message across. Starbucks does it in a fun way before getting into the technicalities of its logo.
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The next important graphic design thing to include in your brand style guide is the color palette of your business. Most companies include hex code to be more specific about their color palette.
Did you know that ⅔ of big companies use some shade of blue? While it’s a good idea to go for safe choices like blue, you can choose a rare color palette to stand out but not too rare to be overwhelming.
A good color palette usually includes – 1 main color (of course), 3 or 4 complementary colors, and 2 accent colors. Here’s the color palette from Netflix’s brand style guide.
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Typography is another important thing to include in your brand style guide. There are hundreds of font choices out there and defining this will help you stay consistent across your collateral.
Companies often choose a trending font type in their brand style guide but what usually happens is that it stops trending after a while. So, it is always a good idea to include 3-4 font families in your brand style guide.
Here is a snippet from Google’s Brands Style Guide.
Source
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If required, you can also include a few data visualization and imagery guidelines in your brand style guide. You can be as detailed as you want like Shopify.
There were just a few graphic design things you can include in the brand style guide for your small business. You can also include guidelines for other relevant things for your business like your brand voice, iconography, etc.
Graphic Design Guide for Small Businesses: Final Words
Graphic design has become an integral part of every business. It allows you to connect with your audience, send a powerful message across, and in multiple different ways.
While some of the design work might look easy, it’s important to hire professional graphic designers for your product-based business or service-based agency! This is where we come into the picture.
Resourcifi is an award-winning Staff Augmentation company. We have a huge team of expert graphic designers who can help you with the custom requirements of your business or agency!
Contact us today with the graphic design requirements of your business.
