7 Ways To Make A Lightning First Impression With Graphic Design

If you know your intended audience that's great. If not, any research to build up your knowledge is going to pay real dividends. This information is gold dust for any graphic designer, as in taking forward

your brief we can factor in your audience preferences. Whether it be through humour, aspirational messaging or recognition of sector issues, anything that will resonate well with your stakeholders will increase your chances of making a vital first impression.

 

To make the right impression, graphic design needs to be pleasing and the key to this is symmetry. Achieving visual balance through the placing of text, graphics and use of white space across the design ensures that your eyes see order, which ensures our subconscious approval. Being symmetric doesn't mean boring, you can still be edgy and daring in design whilst achieving a quiet balance, it just about underpinning the work with the laws of good practice.

 

It's one thing to consider your audience, but it's equally important to target your design to recognise the context in which they will be viewing it. For instance, if you are advertising on an underground train you have a captive audience, so the design can focus more on messaging to make an impact. On the other hand, if you have general street advertising or are fighting to be seen in a newspaper or other publications, then there is greater emphasis on imagery to make an impact in a flash.

 

There is a science behind the successful use of colours and it’s not just the application of primary colours or blending across the colour wheel. Colours subconsciously tap into our emotions. From the passion and importance of red, the naturalness of green and serenity of blue, colours provide visual and emotional depth to all design work.

 

If you want to hit your customers between the eyes with a piece of promotional material or a website landing page, it is easy to be drawn into shoehorning in as much information into the design space as possible, but you would be making a mistake. All great graphic design has room to breathe through creating negative space around objects in the image so that they pop and offer key balance to the composition.

 

The effective use of fonts is more than going for bold and blocky to shout out a call to action. Like the use of colours, typography evokes emotions. Whether you settle on thin and contemporary, vintage or

retro, the options are plentiful. So while not being the centrepiece of any design, the application of fonts can make or ruin the visual experience.

 

It’s great to have a design that is going to jump off of the page and garner real interest with its audience. But, also remember that it needs to be clearly identifiable as belonging to a person or business. As such, the design should be consistent with its use of colour, fonts, messaging and the like. Equally, you are not marginalising your existing clients who have grown to be comfortable with the feel and look of your material. Making an impact with your design doesn’t happen by chance. Careful planning is required to ensure all of these key elements feed into producing an eye-catching piece of work that will showcase your business in the best possible way.

 

At Little Design Box we are committed to going the extra mile for our clients. Why not contact me at hayley@littledesignbox.com to see what I can do for you.