3 graphic design elements that every business owner needs
Today I want to talk about three graphic design elements that I believe every business owner needs to create cohesion in their business, recognition for their viewer, and overall peace of mind and confidence in the business owner themselves.
These three things are:
A logo or brand mark
A color palette
A selection of fonts
We’re going to dive into each one and why it’s important a business owner needs each, and how having each of these three can create a lot of peace and calm in running a business.
We all know that running a business is stressful. You are handling clients, managing people, making sure processes and systems are working. A lot of the time you don’t have TIME to think about some of the more lofty ideas that really impact the growth and success of your business. Like whether or not you are creating cohesion in your business through your marketing, visuals and aesthetics, or whether or not you are creating recognition with your facebook ads or events, etc.
When you have these three things in place, it crushes all doubts that you have the things already figured out to ensure that cohesion and recognition is happening, and happening well. So let’s dive in.
A logo or brand mark
This may not mean a gorgeous thousand dollar logo. It may be as simple as a consistent mark or font that you use for your logo that doesn’t change. Obviously as you grow you may want a professionally designed logo that connects more with the feelings and ideas you are wanting to portray, but I always encourage start ups especially to grow and experience a little before rushing into a full branding project.
Having a consistent mark that you use on everything helps your customers begin to recognize your business in all mediums, whether they see a post on instagram, an article in a magazine, a poster on the street or your sign above your store. Recognition is key! Once your viewer begins to recognize and remember your mark, it is stored in their brain for the next time they want what you sell or offer.
So the key pieces of having a logo or brand mark is having either a symbol or a font that is:
First, simple and reflects your business and how you want customers to feel
Second, is used consistently throughout all aspects and doesn’t change
Third, can be used in all mediums whether it’s digital or print, vertical or horizontal, etc.
Color Palette
You’d be surprised how much peace of mind you can have as a business owner by having a color palette nailed down. This is because you won’t have to constantly be recreating the wheel (no pun intended) each time you go to market something, create something or even buy something.
Having a color palette not only helps your marketing when you go to create facebook ads, graphics or printed pieces, but helps your overall aesthetics, especially if you have a brick and mortar. Making sure the paint colors, shelving, furniture and decor fits into your color palette and the feeling you are wanting to portray is essential for a pleasing space that customers want to come back to over and over again.
If you’ve done the work prior and have the colors that portray exactly what your goals are, then all you need to do is sit back and work within that palette when you go to create anything new.
A selection of fontS
Just like your color palette, fonts go deep into your customers psyche and if you haven’t picked fonts that portray the feeling or idea you want to come across, then sometimes there is confusion. If you’ve gone through the work, picked out 2-3 fonts that you can use everywhere, then you create that cohesion, consistency and recognition that customers hunger for.
This also creates peace of mind for when you go to create anything new, whether it be a new promotional poster, your spring menu, a graphic or ad, or even a new venture within your business. Instead of having to recreate the wheel and go back through the hundreds of thousands of fonts out there, you have your core selection that you know works and can pull from.
I would suggest having a header font, a subheader font and a body font for your brand. With those three you will be able to hit almost everything you need within your business marketing and they give you enough variety to get creative.
Like we said earlier having a consistent mark or logo, a color palette and a font gives you as the business owner peace of mind, and creates the consistency and cohesion that leads to ongoing and frequent customers.
It also equips you and your employees and partners with what they need to run with things without having to constantly come back to you. It also ensures that you won’t have inconsistent or confusing messages when you have partners creating things that you don’t necessarily have 100% of your energy devoted to.
These are also very important if you are going to work with a graphic designer, interior decorator, artist or marketer. Having these three pieces together and able so send over to a partner, like a graphic designer shows organization and allows them to do the best work for you, because they will get an overall sense of the feeling you are wanting to portray immediately and won’t be spending the majority of their time pulling new colors and fonts for your business.
Having these three things nailed down within your business streamlines everything having to do with your aesthetics and in turn makes you a more calm and confident business owner.
If you realize that you don’t have any of these three and it is causing problems with your peace of mind and consistency around your marketing, you may need to work with a graphic or brand designer to put these in place. And you’ve come to the right place. If you are interested in learning more, check out my design process and get in touch!
