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You’ve probably heard that graphic design and branding are some of the best ways to establish yourself when you start a business. Your company’s visual identity helps your customers remember you and sets you apart from the crowd.
You don’t need to be a design pro to make your brand stand out. With today’s tools and a little guidance, small business owners can easily create designs that boost brand visibility and engagement.
This guide walks through the essential steps of getting started with graphic design and both logistical and aesthetic best practices to ensure eye-catching, effective branding for your business.
Define Your Brand Identity First
Before creating any visual materials, it’s important to clarify your brand’s identity. This includes visual elements (like your logo, colors, and fonts) and verbal elements (like your mission statement, values, and tone).
MassageBook’s guide to marketing suggests you take these steps to establish your brand:
- Identify your brand personality: Think of a few adjectives that you want customers to associate with your brand. Do you want them to think of your brand as playful? Serene? Professional? These choices will inform your design strategy and ensure that you reinforce those feelings.
- Develop a consistent look: While your brand personality can be anything from professional to irreverent, consistency should be a top priority in your graphic design efforts. Out-of-step visual branding makes your business look untrustworthy and illegitimate, but uniform colors and font usage instill confidence in your customers.
- Create a basic brand style guide: Having a document to refer to while creating marketing materials is extremely helpful when ensuring visual alignment. Take note of specific colors (down to the hex codes), fonts (including whether/when to use elements like bolding or italicization), and images (such as best practices for finding stock images or creating your own images).
Taking these steps helps you build a strong foundation for your graphic design efforts and ensures that you have a clear vision for what your design should communicate about your brand.
Understand What Works
If you’re new to design, one of the best ways to build confidence is by seeing what tools and design approaches are working for businesses like yours. Your peers can be a rich source of inspiration, and today’s design tools make it easier than ever to bring those ideas to life.
Here are a few ways to approach your research:
- Start by collecting examples of websites, mailers, and other marketing materials you admire, especially from businesses in your industry or local area. For example, if you run a massage practice, look at other massage therapist websites to see what platforms they use and how they use design elements to connect to an audience similar to yours.
- Find a mentor who can help you follow marketing best practices. Ask connections in your existing network how they approach marketing and find online communities that offer relevant advice for your industry and goals.
- Match your tools to your needs, whether you want full creative control or a more guided design experience. Look for features like drag-and-drop editing, font and color customization, and pre-set sizes for print formats. Additionally, seek out templates that are specific to small business needs or to your industry to make the process even smoother.
Remember, taking inspiration from others and using plug-and-play design tools doesn’t mean simply copying others’ work. You need specific knowledge of your audience’s personalities and preferences to create successful designs that resonate with them.
Design Essentials: Keep It Simple and Impactful
When it comes to design, sometimes less is more. Clean layouts, legible fonts, and strong visuals are your best assets. Here are some basic best practices to keep in mind:
- Use hierarchy. Hierarchy refers to the arrangement of content according to its relative importance. Instead of confusing readers by giving them every piece of information all at once, map out a clear journey for how their eyes should travel through a page. Headlines, for example, should draw their attention first with larger fonts at the top of the page, and then should break into subheaders if necessary.
- Avoid clutter. Colorful and engaging design is great, but too much visual information can become overwhelming. Embrace white space on the page to give readers’ eyes a break.
- Choose high-quality, relevant images or icons. Which business would you trust more: one that uses blurry images in its marketing materials, or one that uses high-quality images? Crisp, high-resolution images show readers your professionalism and provide a way for you to break up any text elements in your materials. Make sure your images align with your brand guidelines, too.
These simple tips will keep your marketing messages focused and clear. Regularly revisit your design strategy to see how people react to different design approaches. For instance, try conducting A/B testing to see how interactions with your content vary based on design.
Design for Print vs. Digital
Allegiance Group + Pursuant’s guide to omnichannel marketing defines the term as “a communication strategy that integrates various communication channels to create a unified, consistent experience for your audience of supporters.” It’s important to incorporate your graphic design into every channel at your disposal, including text, email, and direct mail, and tailor your design to each platform.
Here are a few ways you can do that:
- For direct mail and print pieces: Use the CMYK color model to ensure consistent color output and set your resolution to at least 300 DPI for sharp images. Incorporate bleed and margin guides so nothing essential gets cut off during printing. Also, save your files in printer-friendly formats like PDF/X and double-check that fonts are embedded or outlined to prevent rendering issues.
- For digital platforms: Design in RGB color mode, which offers more vibrant colors on screens. Save your images in web formats like PNG or JPEG to optimize their loading speed, and aim for a resolution of at least 72 DPI. If your designs will appear on a website or social feed, make sure they are responsive to various screen sizes.
- For email campaigns: Keep it simple. Avoid overly complex layouts and make sure your design looks good on various email clients and devices. Use standard image sizes (600–800px wide) and add alt text for accessibility.
Using various communication channels and platforms helps you better connect with your audience and increase brand recognition. Encourage interaction across platforms by implementing strategies like adding QR codes to print materials or adding a sign-up form for direct mail to your website.
When to Hire a Designer (and How to Do It Affordably)
Sometimes, it’s worth investing in professional help. Whether your business is undergoing a rebrand or launching a major campaign, outside expertise can ensure that you make the right impression. Professionals can help you build a new brand identity that feels true to your roots and assist you in complex design situations like multi-piece direct mail campaigns.
While looking for the right design service, be sure you’re asking the right questions in advance. What is their experience with various media? Can they provide file formats that meet your printer’s requirements? Do they include revisions in their pricing? Look into their reviews, case studies, and testimonials to see what types of organizations they work with and the results of their previous projects to determine if they would be a good fit for your small business.
With a clear brand identity, the right tools, and an understanding of design best practices, you can create visuals that leave a lasting impression. Your graphic design is your way of showing the world who you are and what you do, so taking the time to thoughtfully create your brand identity is well worth the effort.
