6 Graphic Design Tips That Every Business Owner Should Know

If you run a business, then one of the important things you will be focusing on is advertising and promotional activities. Good graphics can go a long way in ensuring the success of your marketing efforts. However, just relying on a design firm alone is not recommended. In fact, you should involve yourselves with the design firm so that the final graphic turns out to be top-notch and impactful. Below, we will take a look at six graphic design tips that every client needs to know.

Swipe File

When designing any graphics, it is normal for you to first look at similar graphics created by competitors. They will act as an inspiration for you to design your own graphics regarding the subject matter. As such, it is important that you create a kind of a ‘swipe file’, or specifically a folder in your computer, where you store all your inspiration images. Doing so will enable you to regularly check the images every time you get some creativity block and are unsure how to move forward with your graphic design project. However, do keep in mind that these stored images should only act as an inspiration. You should copy even a single element of any graphics. This is not only wrong from an ethical point of view but can also pull you into copyright lawsuits.

Color Palette

One of the important things you need to decide before starting your design work is the color palette. This will essentially depend on what the graphic is intended to convey. For example, if you are creating a fun graphics for use in your advertisement about an amusement theme park, then you can use bright and bold colors like purple, orange, yellow, and so on. In contrast, if the graphic is supposed to be shown in an advertisement by a law firm, then a more monochromatic scheme with colors like coffee brown, sepia, navy blue etc. will be required. Discuss with your graphic design company, and you should be able to finalize a color palette that completely suits the graphics project.

Element Space

Make sure that all elements have adequate space between them. Many a time, a design will have multiple elements that are too close to each other. This creates a feeling of congestion and the overall graphics might look rather too complex for a viewer to appreciate or even make sense of. Whether it is text or image, adding an adequate amount of space between them will make the graphics look organized and well put, and the viewer will more easily be able to understand the message you wish to convey. And if you can equalize the spaces between all elements, then you can create a very structured graphics that are ideal for scientific and related fields.

Font Types

Given the large variety of fonts available at your disposal, most of which are free for commercial use, it might be tempting to use three four, or even more fonts in a single graphic. This might not turn out too well. Usually, people are more comfortable with seeing similar looking fonts. You can play with the weights and styles of the fonts. For example, if you choose to use ‘Arial’ font, then you can choose the ‘Arial Narrow’, ‘Arial Black’ and such variations. But when it comes to the font itself, it is better to limit the fonts to just two varieties at max.

Icons

A big trend over the last few years has been the increasing use of icons in graphics. For example, if you mention your address or phone number, then put in an icon of a building or a phone. Similarly, if your graphics contain any mention of the internet, then you can add the icon of the internet symbol at that spot. Icons bring a fun, quirky feeling to a graphic. Just make sure that you don’t use them excessively since too many icons in a piece of graphic design can easily complicate it and make the graphics look very inaccessible.

Contrast

When it comes to color, try to create a contrast between the multiple colors. This will give you the best possible results. Not only can you make certain elements stand out from the rest of the elements in the graphics but you can also give off a fun vibe when you put elements with contrasting colors together. This is especially true in case you are using textual content atop an image. In such situations, the text needs to be of a lighter color when compared to the background or vice versa. This will make the graphic be more impactful.