5 Creative Design Tips for Small Businesses
We live in a world dominated by images and visual platforms. Design matters now more than ever, especially for small businesses that are competing with larger brands with bigger budgets. Good design is not optional, it’s a must to stand out from the competition. Here are a few quick creative design tips that your small business should keep on top of your mind when looking to build a brand that will grow your business.
Identity by Design
Design plays a powerful role in the way customers perceive your brand. Color pallet and font style are two design elements that help shape the mood, feeling, and tone your brand voice and identity communicates:
- Color: Color provides more than differentiation and recognition, it has the power to influence moods, feelings, attitudes, and behavior. Though there are varying opinions as to practical takeaways, there are, however, basic behavioral patterns worth considering. Choose two to four colors to be incorporated into your visual designs.
- Font: As a general rule, designs should feature no more than three fonts: Heading, Subtitle, and Body. It is also important to establish where and how fonts are used. When it comes to typography, the focus should always be the same. Ask yourself: Does this particular font style enhance the message and does it address the needs of the platform to be used?
Design Specifically for Your Platform
Each of today’s five leading social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat, and Instagram) vary in look, feel, and function. It is, therefore, necessary to engage each with tailored design strategies. Don’t take a one size fits all approach that will deliver distorted and blurry images and don’t let low resolution, image distortion, and massive data size ruin a great design. Make use of helpful digital editing tools such as Shutterstock Editor.
[Tweet “5 tips to help produce #creative and appealing designs when #marketing your #smallbiz.”]Speak the Language of the Platform You are Designing For
There are many differences in the way content is processed on various social media platforms. Where and how your design will be viewed is a critical factor in determining how to present and position your design. For example, while Instagram users value highly visual and creative content, Twitter’s 140 character limit has created an environment that calls for attention-grabbing visual designs.
Instill Value in Your Design
Great design generates great enthusiasm. It bridges our common identities, our relationships with friends and family, and our desire to discover something that has never been seen before. Design can make an impact. Whether it is engaging with positivity to spread an uplifting message or offering practical value, assess whether your design is delivering the maximum value to your audience.
Keep Your Design Fresh
Identifying emerging design trends can help guide creative planning. Shutterstock recently released its annual 2017 Creative Trends Report, which predicts trends that are on the rise around the world. Driven by millions of searches and download data, the report identified four global themes; White Texture, Halftone, Heads-Up Display, and Emojis, and four design themes; Organic Texture, Tropical, Glitch, and Laser Cutting. Keeping some of these trends in mind when designing will help keep your brand one step ahead
Because design plays such a massive role in the identity of your small business, great design should be a priority. Follow these creative ideas, and you will soon be on your way to creating a strong, cohesive brand that will get your business noticed.