Why do all businesses need professional graphic design? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Zadro   
Monday, 16 January 2012 22:32
You may well ask yourself, “Why should clients hire a professional for their graphic design services and not DIY?

If you find yourself thinking, “I do have a good eye for design and my brother has the New 5.5 Adobe suite...” or worse, “Word has a great selection of design templates to work from,” be sure to consider ALL the points below.

Perception is the first step to recognition in business. If you do not give full respect to the power of your branding and graphic design you may well pay for it in the future.

 If you launch your business into the market with a low quality logo from an inexperienced graphic designer you will undoubtedly be perceived as a low quality brand who may produce low quality services or products. This is not the time to cut corners. It is vital to get it right from the start and build your brand on solid foundations from which it can grow and develop successfully.

Graphic designers are trained professionals who have spent 4 or 5 years gathering the skills, creativity, knowledge and experience to produce the quality designs you need for you business. Every design job follows the necessary steps and procedures so that quality is ensured.

Let’s take a logo design as an example. Select a font, pick a colour.... hey presto we have a logo...

If only!

There are certain principles of effective logo design. It should be memorable, timeless, versatile and appropriate.  To achieve this you need to follow a process.  At Zadro we take the following important steps:

Step one: Asking the right questions
Graphic designers need to know the right questions to ask, in order to get the most comprehensive brief for the job. What will represent your business appropriately and effectively?  There is no point in us producing a fantastic logo that we love. You need to LOVE it too.

Step two: Research
We need to understand your business and the industry that you are in. Who are the clients, competitors, target market, stakeholders, associated media etc.

Step three: Inspiration
We ask our clients to do some research of other logos or branding that appeal to them. Go through a bunch of examples of well recognised logos and try to determine why you think it is successful, or visually appealing? Why does it work? Does it convey the message of the brand successfully? Why does it not work? What do you like about the individual elements of the designs?  What don’t you like about the shape, colours, elements, fonts etc? This is a step that allows us to better understand your tastes and ideas that you have for your logo.

Step four: Ideas
Now it is time to get the creative juices flowing on paper taking into account what was discovered in steps one, two and three.  We look closely at the name of the business, the key messages and objectives and also the individual letters or elements to be used in the logo. Then it is time to throw down ideas!

Step five: Computer rendering and fonts
In this step we take the ideas we feel have potential to the computer, render them in illustrator and test different fonts or elements by breaking them apart into shapes and personalising them if necessary.  In these early stages we do not use colour. Colour can be a distraction and influence decisions too early in the process.  We explore approximately 40 different ideas for any logo design.

Step six: Client feedback
It is vital to keep our clients involved in the design process so you are part of your brand’s development. I like to call this “bonding”. Ideally we would provide the client with 3-5 possible logo options that we have narrowed down from the 40 odd we designed. Within these options there is a safe option (what the client asked for), an option that we love and the option that we want them to pick, there is usually also a logo option that is somewhat outside the box.

Step seven: Colour
At this stage we have our final options to develop from the client feedback. This is the point when we experiment with colour and nail down the fonts that are preferable.

Step eight: Feedback and final versions
Again keeping you involved in the process, we present our two developed options with possible colour pallets. This is the first time our clients will have seen their selected fonts in colour, they are coming to life before their eyes!

Step nine: Artworking
After our last client consultation we have selected our final logo, which now needs to be perfected in illustrator so all lines are smooth and clean, tracking and leading are spot on, and font outlines are created for all text. We also lock our logo EPS files so no one can make any changes to them.

Step ten: Delivering the files
Files are delivered to our clients in CMYK (for print), RGB (for web), Pantone (for spot printing) and Grayscale (as a black and white option). You should receive these versions as .eps, jpg, giff or another form of file that might be needed. We also provide a logo information sheet (also known as a style guide) to the client specifying the fonts and exact colours used so the logo can always be used in a consistent way.

.....So Steven let me know how you get on with Windows Vista!
Last Updated on Monday, 16 January 2012 22:34