What is Visual Communication?

Your Visual Communication is an essential tool in your business’s brand identity toolkit. It is made up of all of the graphics that supplement your logo, forming the graphic “face” of your business and anchoring your brand identity.

Think of your logo as the “boss” of your brand, and the Visual Communication elements as its “employees”; in many design applications and finished materials, your logo won’t appear by itself. It will have the help of all of these visual elements to accomplish its job of communicating and connecting with your target market.

Your Visual Communication can include design elements such as:

• Font styles: You should have a small collection of typefaces, font weights, and styles that you use regularly in your materials. Consider fonts for both print and web use, and specify styles for headlines, subheads, and body copy in each case.
• Colours: Creating a colour palette for your business can add flexibility to your marketing materials and give you an easy resource to go to when choosing colours for illustrations, graphics, or any other part of your Visual Communication. If you keep your colours consistent and limited, then you’ll develop a more focused palette that will be easier for your audience to associate with your business.
• Shapes: The shape that you use for your bullets, break-out boxes, colour-blocked areas, and even borders in your materials can create a strong visual component that will contribute to your memorability.
• Layout: The layout of a marketing piece covers elements like the number of columns and the placement of all of the other Visual Communication elements.
• Backgrounds: Using background screens or shapes, or even a specially designed watermark, can give your materials extra flair. You can also develop a special background that will make your materials stand out.
• Photographs: Photos can add a lot of personality to your materials and really help you to make a connection with your target audience. You can purchase stock photography inexpensively these days; buy a few shots that are compelling and really match the rest of your Visual Communication. Make sure that you buy the highest resolution and the largest possible size to ensure you have images for both print and web.
• Special textual treatments: For very special text that you want to highlight, such as your tagline, marketing bullets, sidebars, or bullets that detail your specialties, consider specifying a particular typeface, size, and colour to use in all of your materials.
• Paper type: Printing your materials on a special type of paper can make them look even more interesting. Papers come in different colours, textures, and thicknesses that can contribute to the uniqueness of your business marketing material.

Crafting a tool kit for your visual communication and then using it consistently will define your business in the marketplace and create a strong brand.

 

Santa Claus understands his branding

Santa Claus is a pretty smart guy who must have studied marketing when it comes to his brand. He simply follows the golden rule of ‘consistency’, and because his branding is always consistent he is instantly recognised in the western world.

His colours are always red and white. His style is always traditional, old fashioned and nostalgic. His tagline never changes – ho, ho, ho! Santa’s brand evokes emotion that helps his target audience to connect with him. He appeals to all ages and demographics. Santa has never re-branded, his audience would lose faith in him.

We can learn some valuable lessons from this world recognised brand: ensure that your branding is consistent, that your website colours and logo match your business card, that your signage reflects your brand. Your twitter and facebook page should look like they are connected to your business, your email signature and brochures should all carry the branding of your business proudly and consistently, and really it’s as simple as that. Good on ya Santa!

 

To template or not to template… that is the question.

Of late I’ve been quoting to provide clients with design templates set up in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign. This is not our preference because of course we would rather provide our clients with a finished product designed in our Adobe software.
The ironic part of this is that our dear clients then require training to use the Adobe templates? These programs are the tools of our profession and for most of us it has taken a degree of 4 years to learn how to use them.

We love what we do and we’ve earned the right to design. Please have a little respect for graphic design as a profession and us as the professionals. Word is not a design program for more reasons than will fit in this blog and InDesign cannot be taught in two hours. Allow us the pleasure of serving you with our design skill and finished products that won’t fail you – we promise you won’t be disappointed.

 

What can you expect to pay for graphic design services

The standard hourly rate for graphic design work is anywhere from $120 to $180 per hour depending on the service and the studio. As a general rule of thumb freelance (solo) designers will charge at the lower end of the scale because they have low overheads. SME studios will charge medium rates, and larger studios charge out rates will be the highest.

Most services are charged per hour but some are charged per page or per item. For example we charge by the page for typesetting work and per hour for author corrections. Illustration and Photoshop work is from $180 per hour due to the skill and time required. There are fees to create final art files because there are many things that need to be checked thoroughly before we send it to print.

It’s a good idea to consider your budget before you engage a designer. Keep in mind that a freelance designer will charge less but you only have access to that one designer and their particular design style. If budget allows you will have much more creative scope from a studio employing several designers. We tend to all work on the initial conceptual designs so that the client receives different styles to choose from.

Obviously the bigger the budget the more creative freedom for the designers and the better the end result, but having said that a set realistic budget will give a very good result in any case.

 

Do you have blurry branding?

Recently while working on some promotional material requiring sponsor logos, I put out a request to the sponsors to send me their logo in a format suitable to print. My request was simple, or at least I thought it was:

Full colour
 300dpi TIFF, JPEG or preferably EPS version

. (Please note that logos saved from your website will not suffice, so please ensure the logo is of high quality.)

But no, I received all manner of poor quality logos taken from websites weighing in at a hefty 20kb and re-named ‘Large’? You can’t fool me – Photoshop doesn’t lie. This was both amusing and frustrating.

Please check your files and ensure you have a high quality logo for print. An EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) vector file is the best for designers because it is scale-able without loss of quality, but you probably won’t be able to open it, that’s ok we can. The next best thing is a JPEG or TIFF at 300dpi. You will know if the logo is high resolution by the size of the file, for example a 20kb logo is weeny and will pixelate badly when printed. It will need to be at least 800kb. If you only have low-resolution small logo files, it would serve you to check back with your designer and request an EPS file for print media.

Here at Papercut, after we create your branding we provide you with these necessary logo formats on CD as clearly labeled files in folders for print and web and with a users guide. If all else fails and your designer has left the country we can re-trace your existing JPEG logo and create an EPS for you! To save some headaches and keep your brand looking professional and crystal clear on all media – we recommend you get that EPS.

 

Chocolate cake and drawing games

The Papercut team had a planning day a few weeks back that was spent at the lovely Olims Hotel in Ainslie. The whole day was devoted to creating a vision and purpose for the business and setting some major goals.

One of the ideas that came from the day was a team inspiration session every week. Currently a team member is responsible for the house duties each week and part of this is to provide afternoon tea.

Last week it was Tamar’s turn and she provided home baked chocolate cake (gluten free) and coloured textas to draw pictures – using the Samitomoto drawing game.

The cards are such fun allowing an easy transition into drawing. As you throw the dice and turn over each card you reveal another word to form the image. The first drawing we all did was that of a ‘determined purple snail drinking tea’ and the second was ‘a noisy hot pink dolphin in a hammock’!

After our initial inhibitions, we finished up laughing and sharing our silly drawings and feeling very relaxed. We enjoyed so much this creative process that took us away from our computer screens, that we agreed to make it a weekly event. I think wine and cheese on a Friday afternoon would work equally well.

It’s very important for designers to have regular creative time out. Another idea that stemmed from the planning day was to take a two-hour block once a month where we down clients work and produce an inventive piece, purely for creative indulgence, with no limitations or restrictions. I believe a US design company started this idea and called it the ‘Fedex hour’, so everyone has to deliver in the given time frame, but there is no brief so you can go creatively crazy.

This is the sort of stuff that keeps our designs fresh and nourishes our creative right brains. If we allow ourselves to be inspired and free to imagine, then when we come back to our computers we can continue on because we’ve had a creative fix.

 

Mindful Design

As designers we take our job pretty seriously, especially when it comes to the impact we have on the environment.

Our intention is to be as creative as possible without abusing the resources we have so readily on hand. The easiest way to do this is to start with the end in mind. By that I mean think about the product’s end use and how it can be created efficiently, with low waste and limited use of energy and resources.

We are learning every day about new and better methods to produce our clients designs. We liaise with our printers and ask their advice about the most efficient use of sheet sizes that will use the maximum amount of paper with the least offcuts. We always source recycled materials and have just found that even some plastic sheeting is carbon neutral.

The message I am sending is simply this: be mindful, question your suppliers and above all design beautiful things that will be more likely treasured than discarded.

 

Speaking from the heart

Recently I was given the opportunity to speak at a women’s networking function on the subject of­ nominating oneself for a business award. I decided beforehand that I would simply relay my experience of winning the Business Woman of the Year award last year, and speak from my heart.

Not being one to revel in the public speaking arena – I was nervous at first, despite the small group. But once I began to speak (unscripted) my words began to flow naturally and I felt at ease. What I noticed most from my audience was the intense genuine interest in my story and an overwhelming feeling of acceptance and support. Very simply I had shared everything I knew in order to give something back to my peers, so that they too could win an award and have this amazing experience. It was really easy to give and share in this environment.

Because I felt safe I had the courage to share my belief in the law of attraction, and encouraged the act of visualising actually winning the award, just as I had last year. On a lighter note I also mentioned that the vision should not stop there, because it would have been helpful had I visualised the radio interview before it happened, and then perhaps it would have been a more comfortable experience. It’s the little things that make all the difference if you know about them and hindsight sure is a beautiful thing. At the end of my talk there were many questions that combined with the uplifting energy in the room created a powerful experience.

This wonderful experience restored my faith in the sharing of information with other women. I have learnt some lessons of late with regard to women’s business groups, some of which are: Speak your truth from your heart, be inclusive, embrace differences and do not judge. I think generally women are very good at sharing and supporting. I believe that if we offer each other genuine support in our businesses then the world will continue to spin around ever so smoothly.

 

Why should I hire a Graphic Designer when I have Photoshop and can do it myself?

Papercut Creative Director

Graphic designers are trained in their chosen profession like any other, just because design software – the ‘tools’ are available to everyone, doesn’t mean that the necessary ‘skill’ to use the software is possessed by everyone. For example, owning a stethoscope doesn’t make me a Doctor right?

Using a new business branding as an example, a Graphic Designer will create a logo and branding to suit the specific business through a strategic process. We work with you to find out what will differentiate your business from your competitors. We research your competitors. We target your audience. We help you to come up with a suitable tagline or byline. We investigate colours to suit your branding and we understand how colour effects people. We know about fonts and how the wrong font can kill your branding. We ensure that your branding is well designed to support and enhance your business into the future.

Graphic design is not just a logo, but a considered application of branding to your entire business that will effect how your clients perceive you. If it appears that you have cared enough about your own business to brand it professionally, then that will send a message to your potential clients that you care and will care for their business too.

Producing your own brochures in Word has limitations for printing. A Graphic Designer will use appropriate software that is supported by printers. Producing the final art files for any design work is a skill in itself and will affect the final outcome if not prepared correctly. Some may think that creating a print ready PDF is simply hitting a button, however there are many considerations for the type of PDF file required for the selected media, and designers are trained to know the difference.

A good Graphic Designer will take the worry out of the project and manage the external suppliers as well. Designers are used to managing print and web jobs and understand the requirements by these professionals and the file types that are needed. We understand the industry jargon like: EPS, DPI, GSM and FSC.

Your branding is an asset to your business so it’s important to get it right from the start. Clients will judge your business by the way it looks, and your logo branding and website is the first impression of your business to your new client. A dodgy home designed logo is not going to serve you well in the long term.

Would you give your own tooth a filling? No, you leave that for the Dentist? Your business deserves the right treatment as well. Engage a professional to create your branding and you will have invested well.

 

Top 10 tips for writing a design brief

Design briefs are produced to ensure absolute clarity, understanding, and agreement from all stakeholders. Many design projects go wrong because someone ‘assumes’ someone else knows what they know. All parties involved must be able to ask as many questions as necessary when developing the design brief.

Gathering as much information as possible in advance to briefing a designer not only helps with initial discussions, it also assists with potential negotiations later if the designer has strayed off brief.

1. What is the business? – Provide a paragraph or two of background information about your business along with a brief history.
2. Current situation – Explain what’s happening to bring about the need for this project. For instance, a new product launch that needs advertising or is it new business branding?
3. Objectives – What do you want to achieve? Make your objectives specific and the results measurable.
4. Competition – who are they and what makes you different from them?
5. Target audience – the knowledge of your target audience is vital for your design. Demographics – the age, gender, income, employment, geography, lifestyle of those you want to reach. This will greatly affect the look and feel including colour, style and effectiveness.
6. What do you require? – List the items – think about the overall scope of the project and work down in detail.
7. How will the design be used? What sort of media do you intend for your design, i.e. Print, internet, signage or television.
8. Visual references from pages of a magazine, brochures, books, business cards, designs, colours and anything that inspires you will assist the designer to get an idea of what you like.
9. Providing your budget tells the designer if it’s worth his/her time initiating the design process. Professional design is an investment in your business that offers value for many years, it’s worth spending the money to get it right from the start.
10. Document the design brief and send a copy to all parties involved. This will help when reviewing the final solution for implementation.