Business branding is a specialist area in the graphic design field and not every web designer is able to fully expand into graphic design for business branding purposes.
If you’re considering developing your small business into a recognisable ‘brand’, you’ll need to invest in the services of an expert graphic designer with branding experience to help you convey your business in the right way.
You’re not a graphic designer:
That may come as a bit of a shock to you, particularly if you’ve been doing squiggly drawings of your new logo on cerise coloured paper for the past two weeks.
Even though you are not a designer, you may have a reasonably clear idea of how you want your small business branding to look. Maybe you have a colour theme in mind, or perhaps an abstract concept, those squiggly drawings, for a logo?
If so, then you can outline those to your designer and he/she should be able to translate your idea, colour theme and concept into the finished design choices.
The clearer the idea you have for your branding, and how well you communicate your idea and concept to your graphic designer, the closer they will arrive at the perfect design for you and your business branding.
You’ve got homework:
If you really don’t have a clear idea for your branding, your expert graphic designer will likely (should) ask you a lot of questions and probably have you doing a bit of ‘homework’, more than they would if you do already have ideas. And you thought you’d left school!
Why? Well they have to get to know you, what you like, what you don’t like, what your business is all about, how other people do, or will, perceive your business in that particular market place, and a whole range of other elements that are important to you and your business.
Armed with this information they can happily get their creative thinking processes and design skills into gear to start designing branding concepts that they know will be relevant, primarily, for your business.
Who has the final branding decision?
I bet you’re thinking that you should have the final decision!
Well technically, as you are the client, you can pull rank and put your ‘foot down with a firm hand’ or even demand that your designer changes that subtle green to bright pea green, and instruct them to put orange and pink polka dots on the background… because you can.
Because you’re paying them!
Ahhh, but didn’t we establish earlier that you’re not a graphic designer?
So, if you’re paying an expert graphic designer, a fair chunk of your start up budget, for their logo and branding design creativity and skills, why on earth would you want to override their expertise?
It may come as a surprise, if not a shock, to learn that some small business people do try to, if not actually, override their designers creative efforts even at the final concept stage, then wonder why their designer is sounding slightly peeved, going ‘dotty’ with frustration or starts mentioning billable hours and additional service charges.
Getting over the shock:
You can easily avoid this happening to you by doing some homework yourself before you choose your branding specialist or expert graphic designer.
Top Tips:
- check out your competitors branding, what do you like/dislike
- prepare a list of your personal likes and dislikes, colours etc
- list a number of relevant symbolism’s for your market, if appropriate
- write a summary of your business goals, service benefits for clients/users, philosophy
- anything else that comes to mind during this process, this should raise several ideas
When you’re armed with all your research information, you should feel more confident about choosing the right designer for you.