The process of design, branding or added design features can feel like a HUGE undertaking. Bringing your vision to life through the artistic hands of a graphic design team or individual designer requires solid communication. The design team at Red Orange has some amazing tips to share that will help you through the process of bringing your vision to life:
Be Open & Know Your Why:
Understanding your brand and sharing how your business works, your audience, how you connect with people and how a project fits into the grand scheme of your marketing plan helps your designer to fulfill the overall goal of creating something that best fits your business and builds upon your brand and company strategy. What is your WHY? Can you identify the goal? What will it achieve? Why should someone care if they see it? What actions should it elicit? Your designer can create stunning pieces that factor in all of those elements when they understand your reasons and the passion behind your graphic design project.
Think with the End in Sight:
What happens after your project is completed? Will something be mailed or handed out? Do you plan to hand write something onto it? Will it fit into a larger package? These are details to consider at the beginning of a project to help the designer make purposeful choices to accomplish the overall goal. Be mindful that some papers are not suited for writing, some sizes cost more to mail, other colors don’t reproduce well in both print and online. All of these details are key to the scope of a project.
The Design Process Takes Time:
From logo creation to annual reports, there are a lot of components to the Graphic Design Process: testing, proofing, editing, printing, problem solving, ordering materials/papers and launching. These tasks are best done in timely succession. A rush or emergency project will not only cost you more, but creates higher stress for everyone involved in the project (client, designer(s), vendors, suppliers, etc). Rushing can lead to mistakes and overlooking important elements. There will be instances where you need something quickly, just understand the impact a time crunch has and plan ahead to allow for proper/necessary flow of the process.
Even More Time — Being Detail-Oriented and Proofreading:
It is important you take time to check for grammatical errors and misspelled words before you sign off on or submit something to your designer. Designers really dislike having to do things over due to lack of detail or because of missing pieces. It is best to have more information than necessary, than not enough. Seeing the whole picture allows us to ensure what we design makes sense for how it will be used. Reworking and fixing issues rounds later will be costly and can cause delays.
Finally, Treat your Designer like a Teammate instead of an Order-Taker:
When your designer feels you value his or her ideas, creative insight and problem-solving, he or she will work harder and bring a much more energy and enthusiasm to your projects. If you treat him or her like an order-taker and fail to discuss their thoughts or feedback, they will still do a great job but may feel less empowered to pour more into the process. So encourage their participation, feedback and creativity during the process.