If you find yourself with the assignment of coming up with quality visual content for your business, your blog, or your ad campaign, then you have found yourself at just the right spot. Graphic design is no easy task; it takes a lot of knowledge, precision, and an understanding of your audience to create a design that truly stands out.
Speaking of standing out, 73% of businesses invest capital into improving their design game with logos, infographics, flyers, or their websites so that they can have the edge over their competition. They also do it because 92.6% claim that good design and persuasive visuals are the number one factor influencing purchasing decisions.
So, whether you are here to improve your art, know some design basics, or make your business look appealing, learning graphic design will benefit you in more ways than one. At the end of this writing, you will surely leave with enough knowledge to embark on your visual reconnaissance and increase your business or social engagement with the best possible designs.
Here are the 15 graphic design tips; let us get into it.
15 Graphic Design Tips For Increased Engagement
1. Prioritize Readability
If your design is not readable to your audience, then it might as well be pointless. The main point of graphic design is to send a message, so this comes first on the priority list since you have to make sure that your audience can distinguish the elements you intended for them to internalize.
Whether this means splitting elements apart, having a distinct and readable font, or having contrast from foreground to background, many things need to be put in order so that your design can be easily digestible for your audience.
If you are wondering which fonts are best to use, then Georgia, Helvetica, Open Sans, and Proxima Nova are some of the best options at your disposal.
2. Color
Being able to master color palettes and color psychology can improve your design exponentially, being able to carry it to greatness. All of us have our favorite colors, so humans already have some bias to something that appeals to their preferences, and that is what color can do for your design, to touch innate emotions.
90% of people make a consumer decision based on color alone. It increases your chances of being recognized because customers will associate your brand with a specific color you use. Color psychology also allows you to study which colors affect customers in a particular way.
For example, the color blue typically symbolizes safety and security, which is why companies such Paypal, Blue Cross Blue Shield, or computer companies such as Dell and HP have dominantly blue logos to tell customers that they are reliable and secure.
3. Typography
A graphic designer is also a communicator. The very point that designers do what they do is that they aim to connect with an audience, and the bridge of this connection is found in how they handle typography.
It does not necessarily mean having the cleanest or simplest font, but it also matters which audience you are targeting as well as the theme of your design. You can go full creative with your typography; for example, mother’s day cards generally have very bubbly fonts filled with symbols of motherly love, lines swirling around the letters, and such so that it achieves a light and romantic mood.
If you want to make the most out of typography, be aware of your goals and audience and not let your font look confusing or out of place.
4. Duotone colors.
The duotone technique is an old one, but it does not mean that it can not be relevant today. We highly encourage you to explore duotone colors since they can achieve many things with so little.
Duotone technique means that you employ two complementary and place a bright overlay over the image so that the lights and dark of an image can pop out and be emphasized. It can easily draw people in with its alluring spell of color, and it can be used for emphasis, achieve a consistent theme, or appear both subtle and full of life at the same time.
5. Minimalism.
It is all good for a creative to go off the road, pull some risks, and full-on express themselves with their design. However, this can lead to confusing and overbearing illustrations that your audience can disapprove of because they will usually look for instant answers to their questions, the reason why minimalism is still prevalent today.
With straightforward designs, font, minimal elements, you leave no room for confusion and fill it all out with efficiency, which can be appreciated by both busy people and people casually browsing their options.
6. Black and white.
These days, there is value in returning to the past. Retro designs that tap people’s nostalgia are prominent not only in the design industry but also in the entertainment and food industries. However, we are focusing on you being able to master the black and white filter.
A back and white filter will establish a vintage look, as well as bring that greatly-valued balance to your design or photo. Moreover, blacks and white are easily flexible on your edits and allow room for subtle changes.
You can do a lot with that black and white filter despite its lack of color, and if you want to turn your images black and white, you can use Pixelied’s black and white image converter and easily have a black and white filter in just four steps.
7. Add depth.
Depth in your images, when done right, can add so much charisma to your work that it becomes famous for it. People value creativity in the right places, and when they know that you put in the effort for it, you will undoubtedly leave a mark on their minds.
Depth is achieved with white or negative space that singles out elements front and center, but that is not the only thing at play here. Depending on how you do it, you can hide all sorts of things in the white spaces in between the frontal element, take, for example, the Spartan Golf Club, which clearly shows the helmet of a spartan. But, if you look at it further, you can actually identify a golfer going full swing. Or maybe take Flight finder, which has unmissable double F facing each other, but most people forget there is a plane that forms in the middle of the two letters.
Depth can tell many stories with so few elements that audiences can not help be impressed by the creativity, and it already tells them what your business is all about with a single stroke of genius.
8. Social media templates.
Chances are, if you are designing something, it is going to end up on at least one social media platform. Social media is vital for your business plan, with 2.62 billion potential customers. Most of which will grant your design three times as much attention and interaction anywhere else; getting your design over there is a no-brainer.
However, designing something specifically for social media might be difficult since each platform demands something else. Different filters, elements, and templates are all you will face depending on working on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
To make things easier for you, employ a graphic design tool to help relieve your troubles. A powerful graphic design tool that offers the best templates will cover you from head to toe.
9. Dimensions
A simple mistake that you can make but might set you back hours if not days of work is to forget to put your dimensions right. If you are just freestyling on your design, you surely do not need to know the specific dimensions for your project. But if you are creating a presentation, a banner, or a social media post, then you will surely need to take note of the right width and length, so you do not have to readjust everything after.
10. Personalized photographs
These days, people will more or less depend on stock photography when they need images for their graphics. It is not their fault; stock photos look okay, they are accessible, and they save time when we do not have that to take our own. However, what if we did?
Well, then you would have a clear edge over your competition because personalized photographs will help set you apart in a big way. You can not have photos that you can confidently choose to fit your design, but you also have no other equal in the globe. That is an under-appreciated quality, but it dramatically affects your audience’s perception and greatly improves the authenticity of your design.
11. Organization.
The quality of your design will also depend on outside factors, such as how you handle yourself while you work. You can easily be lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday work, losing files while being unable to find the right tools and gadgets to get started.
It is essential that you have specialized folders labeled right so you can quickly get to your files; you can go the extra mile and create subfolders that have even more organization for your work.
You will not only shave off lost time but will also help you gain mental strength and stability so that you do not lose energy in the process.
12. Scaling it right.
Scale is a fundamental principle of design that you simply can not ignore or underestimate. Scale refers to how you size your elements in your design, so it will help decide what is important and what is not in your graphic.
You can help integrate it into your design creatively, manipulating the amount or size of elements accordingly to help create a story or statement. You can build more attention to a faraway detail rather than making it fill the entire graphic, or even have text cover over elements to help set them apart.
13. Repetition.
An outfit-repeater is somewhat frowned upon in the fashion industry, but it is the one trick that leads to success in graphic design. Repetition means consistency and confident branding, establishing a great deal of trust for audiences as well as familiarity with your brand.
You should keep an eye on three things when repeating – Fonts, colors, and logos. In order to have proper repetition, a trademark color palette will allow you to set yourself apart from the get-go; audiences will recognize your brand once you own that specific hue that becomes synonymous with your business. A familiar font will put in the confidence and feel of your brand; whether your business is a wild one or a fancy one will be decided on that font. Finally, the impact of repetition sets in when you strongly paste your logos on almost all your products so that people will know that you are aware of what you are doing and the directions you are headed.
14. Excited about the holidays.
Something that has been a tradition for all markets globally is having sales, makeovers, or new products whenever a holiday is coming up. Halloween-themed pizza, Christmas hats during December, or firecrackers on new Year, markets tend to adapt to what time of year it is. So, it would not be such a bad idea if you and your brand did as well.
Being aware of what holiday is upcoming will help your audience perceive you as time-conscious and, in some ways, relatable because we are all just celebrating one big festivity, thus making it easier for them to connect. They would simply appreciate your designs joining in on the fun and vibe, and it also helps keep your brand fresh and not too stale.
If you want to take it further, try adjusting to oddball holidays. Of course, everyone knows that it is Valentine’s day on the 14th of February, but how about international make a friend day on February 11th? It can be fun for your audience and interactive, as well as it targets specific audiences such as big batman fanatics on May 1st.
15. The right file for your design.
When you are done with your design, and you feel like calling it a day and uploading it to your designated platform, well, that would be a grave mistake. The last step in perfecting your design is the download process because different illustrations or designs need different file types to appear how you want them to be.
If your design needs to be constantly resized or edited, you need to download it as an EPS, AI, or PDF. It is perfect for logos or stamps. One thing to note is that some images can decrease in quality if you reduce their size, such as in the case of JPEG. But JPEG is perfect for web projects because it assures quality; just make sure that you pay attention to file size.
There are a lot of these to remember and abide by, and if you want to know more, then do your research online, or whatever mode of knowledge is available on the subject.
Takeaway
The graphic design world is more than just flashy colors and quirky shapes or letters; it encapsulates how much a business cares about its audience and service. Being able to provide quality designs means that you care about how your audience perceives you and present your product in such a way that it feels like a novelty, something that people can actually be curious about. Communicate well, look well, and connect well with this list of graphic design tips that will surely lead you to greener pastures.
Author’s Bio:
Shelly Solis is the co-founder of SaaSLuanchr.com, a digital marketing website dedicated to SaaS SEO, content marketing, Product Hunt Launching assistance and guest post outreach for SaaS businesses.
