Graphic Design: A Game Changer

Graphic Design: A Game Changer

Graphic design can play a major role in building your company’s identity: what separates you from your competitors, and what makes you the next sensation. Being fancy is not always good. You customize your own designs in accordance with your target market, corporate identity, your vision and mission. Graphic design can truly be a great asset. Among corporate giants, Coca-Cola still has their longstanding logo and bottle shape that have become their trademark. Apple has, well, an apple—a simple logo yet powerful in its own right. Apple’s user interface has also given them their own identity among other operating systems. Jollibee’s face is easily identifiable kilometers away as you traverse NLEX.
 
With the market now reaching younger consumers, businesses must learn how to adapt and capture this massive market. These customers are more sensitive to the quality of graphics. Also, with the rise of social networking sites, strategies have now become visual as more people rely on their mobile gadgets. Poor design can make even corporate giants look like a scam, just like how great designs can boost small-time companies and blow their competition off the map. Competition often lingers within pricing battles, discounts, niches, employee piracies, and who has the better system of operation. But from the consumer’s point of view, our choices depend not just on how much is in our wallet, but also on which product suits our taste, which store captures our attention as we windowshop, and what looks appealing over the Internet. Graphic design, indeed, influences our behavior.
 
Today, a lot of companies use infographics—those colorful charts with neatly designed vectors—to disseminate factual information. Small businesses now use professional looking photographs of their own products and models to look sophisticated. Graphic design is at an all-time high, and for all the good reasons and with perfect timing.
 
Ever heard of the term “peacocking”? It means to show yourself as being more stylish and extravagant than you really are. With strategic and professional looking designs implemented, even street vendors can look like a part of the established headquarters in Makati. This is a great strategy for newly formed businesses.
 
The importance of design is also evident in viral marketing—a marketing strategy where you let your viewers do all the work promoting your business while you sit back and watch your traffic shoot up. How? Take a look at your Facebook timeline. Do you see anyone sharing a page or photo that they like? That is how viral marketing works. If your content can capture the interest of your viewers, they will most likely share it with their friends who may then become interested as well; and then they would eventually share it with their other friends.
 
The question that you must now answer is: what looks interesting? How do you make that annual sales report convincing once you post it online for potential investors to see? How about a witty new slogan? Since some teens like to read, maybe they do not have a problem with pure text-based posts. No one is complaining anyway—but no one is “liking” them as well, and that is a very big problem.
 
Design works two ways: it can either make you look like a fly-by-night, or make you look outstanding and reliable.

 
*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. C-4, Sunday, July 27, 2014. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.