Design Isn’t an Option
Design isn’t an option like we choose if we’re going to buy a new car or not. Design is necessary. It is an absolute. The only choice we have as business owners or entrepreneurs is: Will we choose good design…or bad design?
We’ve all seen the signs before. You know the ones. Someone decides they’re going to do some roadside advertisements. They think to themselves, “I need to advertise my business, but I don’t want to spend any money.” After all, spending money cuts into profits, right? And the less profits, the less we have to spend on the things we need and want. So, this do-it-yourselfer takes a stake (or any piece of wood, really), a piece of ripped up cardboard, and a Sharpie (multiple colors if they’re really creative). They then proceed to write out in a haphazardly way, “Such and such Company, Call XXX-XXX-XXXX.” As you’re going down the road or coming to a stop at an intersection, you see it. It slaps you in the face. Unfortunately, you can hardly read it. The handwriting is terrible and the colors they used are hardly differentiated from the cardboard it was written on.
What do we do from there? Most people simply forget they even saw it (I see it and want to cringe, call the number, and tell them to pay for actual advertising). No one wants to work with a company that can’t take the time to pay a small amount for halfway decent posters or advertisements. If they don’t value you as a potential customer, how are they going to value you as an actual customer?
So does the importance of design stop there? Absolutely not. Design goes into every aspect of your business. There’s the roadside ad, of course…but there’s also the Logo, the Business Cards, the Mailers, the Posters, the News Ads, the Website, the Facebook and other Social Media, and even your workspace (whether it’s an office, retail, or any other). All of these things have an importance and work together to tell potential customers Who you are, What you do, Why you do it, and more. Together, they make up your Brand Identity.
This next part might get a little rough for some of you, but it’s all in everyone’s best interest. One mistake many businesses make is to do design themselves with no previous knowledge in Graphic Design. This, in most cases, ends up in poor design decisions (i.e. wrong colors, distracting fonts, and cookie cutter logos). The other downfall of this choice is that it can often end in inconsistency in the Brand Identity and I’ll speak more on that in a moment.
The other mistake in design that many businesses make is to hire cheap “designers”. Now don’t get me wrong here. There’s a difference in a good designer that’s doing you a favor for a low price (maybe a family member or friend) and a “designer” who does very low quality work to make a quick buck. There are two reasons this is bad for you as the business owner:
You end up with a terrible logo that does not work well. Sure, you may think it looks neat, but I assure you, there are serious problems with it. It may not work well in print or it’s too busy or a number of other problems. Here are a couple tests to see if your logo works well: Does it look good printed in one color (Answer should be: Yes)? Are there more than two fonts in it (Answer should be: No)? When you put it next to logos from other companies in your field, does your logo make you feel the same way…does it belong (Answer should be: Yes)? If your answers don’t match up to what they should be, you probably got a bad logo. (This isn’t law. There are exceptions. But it’s a decent starting point to know where your logo stands.)
The second reason hiring a cheap “designer” is bad news is (and this is a serious one): Some of these so-called “designers” do nothing more than rip off legitimate designers. They take another’s work, paste your company name on there, maybe change the colors, and voila…you have a decent logo for your company for pennies on the dollar! Unfortunately, that nice logo you have quite possibly belongs to someone else. And even more unfortunate: If you don’t have a good contract in place and that someone else decides to sue you because you’re using their logo, guess who’s in trouble? That’s right…You!
So now you’re thinking, “Ok. Don’t be cheap. But a lot of those designers are really expensive!” My response to that is this: Good design is not just some expense that you add on to your paper and pens you just bought. Good design is an investment. “You get what you pay for”, right? The same goes for design in all forms. If you present your business with bad design, you come off as cheap and not worth spending money on. However, good design presents your businesses as trustworthy and something that customers will want to invest in. So, in short, bad design will turn away business while good design brings business in. That means you have the potential to make more money if you just take that little extra step and invest in good design for your company.
