Your boss has just presented you with a fantastic concept for a new piece of collateral. What now? Where do you begin? Before starting any design job, do yourself and your designer a favour by answering the following ten questions. It will save time and money for your organisation.
1. Budget
Is the first decision to be made while contemplating any design. Your budget will impact every aspect of your project, including its size, shape, and weight. That yearly report your supervisor desires to be issued to clients? Consider investing in high-quality pictures to develop an online annual report instead of spending costly postage for mailers.
2. Deadline
In general, brochures, mailers, and posters need three to five days for design and an additional week for production. Nonetheless, major projects and unique items may need up to three weeks for design and two for production.
3. Audience
Take a time to imagine your target audience. This project is intended for a younger or older demographic. Male or female? Modify specifics based on the intended goal. A brochure for a senior living complex may need a huge font, but a zoo information sheet might use vibrant colours and pictures.
4. Branding
Ideally, Brand Design should correspond to a company’s stated brand requirements. This guide helps guarantee that your designer uses the correct logo, fonts, and colours.
5. Purpose
What is your design’s intended outcome? Clearly establishing a call to action allows the designer to graphically portray an emotion or concept. This rule is often seen in political advertisements that employ vibrant red imagery to promote a ‘no’ vote.
6. Medium
This design will be designed for print, the web, email, or a mobile application. Each media has its own set of regulations. The designer is instantly aware of the size of their canvas and how to format colour and typefaces upon determining the desired channel.
7. Style
Once the audience and function of a design have been defined, choosing the style is pretty simple. Should the composition be formal and refined or artistic and whimsical? Should the final design be sleek and shiny, or should it be simple? It is essential that the appearance and feel of the design correspond with the overall message.
8. Graphics
Your budget will decide whether you should employ a photographer or purchase stock photographs. Limited budget? It is time to get imaginative with colour, forms, and easily accessible photographs.
9. Shades
Colour impacts mood and tone, hence it is essential to understand colour psychology studies. There are also Pantone colours and web-safe or HEX colours to add to the mix. Aside on colour for print vs the web: CMYK and RGB are the colour modes used by designers. Everything created for the web, as well as everything with a screen, is in RGB (red, green, blue) mode. Everything related to printing is in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) mode. Read our blog on this for more information: How does colour work?
10. Fonts
Finding the appropriate typeface is difficult, but it is often the finishing touch that pulls a project together. When picking a font for small children or those with visual impairments, sans serifs are preferred. Its streamlined letterforms are simpler to identify. In addition, not all typefaces perform well on the web or in email. Each machine has a unique operating system and font installation. There are several web-safe or “universal” fonts that should be on every computer, so your audience will see it exactly as it appears on the screen.
These ten questions should be asked before any design job to guarantee an efficient and cost-effective result. By considering logistics (printing, paper, distribution) and intended outcomes, it is possible to prevent expensive changes or a failed campaign. The last thing anybody wants is to spend weeks refining a wonderfully designed item, only to discover that printing it is financially impossible.
Need help with your next design project? Drop us a line on paul@reformcreative.co.uk