Posted on November 3, 2022.

If you are a new business owner, I welcome you to the world of graphic design! Graphic design is more than just a pretty face; it effectively communicates with your audience and persuades them to take action. It’s quite the superhero!

We come across graphic design everyday through billboards, flyers, brochures, social media ads, packaging, websites and signage. Visual communication is an important and heavily-relied-upon component in marketing your business. Let’s explore 10 ways graphic design can benefit your small business.

1. Boosts brand awareness and name recognition

Nike, one of the most well known brands in the world, frequently demonstrates the power of well-executed graphic design.

By communicating effectively with your audience, graphic design boosts brand awareness and name recognition. Strong visuals grab the attention of your audience, are memorable and stand out against the competition. This article on Canva asks, “Have you ever discussed a product or brand and said something along the lines of “I can’t remember the name of it but I can picture it”? Often, we will remember some element of the material used in packaging or the colouring of the website, some sort of visual cue that we base our memories and experience off.”

Everything from logo design to flyers and brochures will reinforce your brand and entice your audience to take action. Read up on tips for hiring a graphic designer for your brand here.

2. Saves time and money in the long run

Bad graphic design cost your business money in the long run.

What good is an event flyer if it is so cluttered and poorly designed that the reader gives up before they can find the details they need, like the date, time and place? Save time and money by investing in a vetted and professional graphic designer from the start. Poorly designed visual pieces will not only steer customers away from your business, they will cost you money in the long run when you have to fix or redo them. Well-executed, timeless graphic design is a must for an ever-changing and evolving online world.

Apple is an example of a company with a very distinct and memorable graphic design style.

3. Builds your brand’s visual identity

A brand’s visual identity consists of colors, fonts, logos, graphic elements and styled photographs. Why does your brand need a visual identity? Your audience needs to be able to recognize your brand and see consistency. This translates into a memorable and trusted brand in the eyes of your audience.

4. Boosts employee morale, pride and productivity

Believe it or not, graphic design can boost employee morale, pride and productivity by creating a trusted and professional brand. Employees are more likely to invest themselves in something they can get behind and believe in, and the same goes for your customers. If your employees believe in your business, then customers will too.

5. Makes you stand out from the competition

A company with memorable and attractive graphic design will stand out from competitors with dull or poorly executed graphics.

Graphic designers are trained to research your competitors’ visual presence to see what is already out there. If your biggest competitor has a dull, bland color scheme, your graphic designer will opt for bright and eye-catching colors to make you stand out. If your entire industry utilizes blue logos due to color psychology, the designer may opt for a different tone, tint or shade, or another color altogether that can stand out and still align with that psychology.

Author Stephen Bradley states, “Human beings have an attractiveness bias; we perceive beautiful things as being better, regardless of whether they actually are better. All else being equal, we prefer beautiful things, and we believe beautiful things function better. As in nature, function can follow form.”

6. Reinforces professionalism

Investing in professional graphic design sends a message that you are a business to be taken seriously. Would you make a serious purchase from a business that had chaotic, pixelated or sloppy advertising? Probably not. Design Hill states, “A logo design that looks aesthetically great speaks volumes about its company’s ways of doing business. A strategically designed logo gives the impression that the company runs its daily affairs of business in a professional manner. That counts a lot for ensuring the growth of a business.”

7. Improves the readability, structuring and presentation of heavy content

By using easy to understand infographics, your business can impart information quickly and effectively.

Some businesses require delivering lots of information, and even educating an audience in a single post. Graphic design ensures that the information is easily digested and absorbed. Infographics are a proven and fantastic way to deliver large chunks of information. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter – visual communication is a solution.

Design Pickle explains, “If you’ve ever learned another language with Rosetta Stone, you’ve experienced the phenomenon of using visuals to deepen understanding and recollection. This language-learning software never offers explicit definitions to foreign words, but instead forces the student to infer the answer using visual context clues. The secret to success, according to the Rosetta Stone website, is discovering patterns instead of memorizing rules: “Rather than allowing you to rely on repetition and parroting, our sequence leads you to arrive at the right answers intuitively.”

8. Builds trust and credibility

Newly established small businesses need to build trust and credibility with their customer base. This often translates to the coveted and desired phase of ‘brand loyalty’. A strategic, aesthetically pleasing and well-done logo can fill customers with buyer’s confidence.

9. Has the power of persuasion

An advantage of professionally done graphic design is the power of persuasion. For example, making a split-second decision about which product to buy at the store comes down, a lot of time, to how the product is packaged. That packaging can convey an important message or speak to the consumer in a way that helps them decide to make a purchase.

The Uncle Sam “We Want You” poster is one of the best examples of the power of graphic design.

As said by Canva, “A famous call to action was the Uncle Sam “We Want You” poster, I’m sure you know the one. This poster was legendary as it provided a distinct mission and invitation to readers to step forward as a soldier and take action. A simple print poster, a 2D construct, convinced people to risk their lives for their country.”

10. Tells your story

Graphic design tells the story behind your brand more effectively. Color scheme and font style choices convey emotion or feeling, setting the stage for your message. Your story matters. Consumers care about the ‘why’ behind the products and services they choose to buy and frequently, those stories are the determining factor. Creating strong brand guidelines will ensure that while the message might differ from design to design, the brand story will be consistent.

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