Graphic design is the most crucial aspect of a brand’s marketing strategy & the most important reason for that is the visual identity of any given brand or business.
A good marketing strategy must include all the elements of the brand, elements like layout design, composition, Visual Hierarchy, images, colors, typography, and many more.
So, to answer the question-” How are graphic design and marketing related?” First, we must understand what graphic design is. Why it is essential for every business to have a recognizable brand identity and good layout design for future content.
Furthermore, we need to figure out what are the most important visual elements of a brand and how designers use them in marketing to maintain a consistent brand identity in the customer’s eyes, which inevitably leads to successful marketing and great sales.
Let’s begin
- Most important Visual elements of a brand
We have talked a little bit about the brand elements in the intro, now let’s understand it in depth.
What is a “visual element of a brand”?It can be anything, from typography, colors, shapes, or maybe the overall style of designs, anything that can make the viewers/customers think about the brand every time they see the designs.
Visual elements are chosen right from the very beginning, which we know as “brand identity” or “visual branding”.
Such as the logo, the typography, the shapes, the colors, and maybe some textures, which is also known as a “style guide”, anything that will help the viewers assimilate with the brand’s image, is considered as visual elements.
This takes us two our next point-
2. customer psychology and graphic design
Now that we have an overview of the brand’s visual elements and style guide, we need to ask another question. Why invest so much effort into all this?
To catch the viewer’s eye, to capture the customer’s attention with relatable and intriguing visuals to create a healthy impression in the viewer’s mind.
Throughout history and time, human emotions have been affected by various visuals. Human beings started communicating and expressing emotions with visual representations, shapes, and pictures, billions of years ago.
The majority of people do not consciously understand how their surroundings affect their thoughts and emotions, designers exploit this very human nature, with shapes, colors, and other visuals, that subconsciously trigger emotions in the back of people’s minds.
Now you’ve probably started to understand the concept a little bit, but this is not all, let’s move on to the next point-
3. why consistency is the most crucial thing when setting up a marketing campaign.
So, we now know that visual elements are created to develop a specific image of the brand in people’s minds, but how to actually make them remember it? Maintaining consistency, & this is where the marketing part comes in.
Advertising and marketing are essentially establishing the already created image of the brand in the customer’s head. Using similar elements creatively, over and over, integrating them in various different places to create new concepts, will help sell the brand’s image more and more, which is the main idea behind marketing, attracting new customers and keeping already acquired customers engaged to maintain brand loyalty.
4. why hire a professional
Why should any brand hire and employ a professional designer in its marketing team?
The answer should be pretty obvious by now.
Because they have been studying design and human psychology, they understand the connection between visual elements such as colors, shapes, and human emotions.
So they can produce highly creative designs that’ll be much better for any brand than using free photos and random royalty-free templates, generated logos which are floating around all over the internet.
5. Case studies from famous brands
If you research the biggest known brands in the world, you’ll find out one thing that is common in their advertisements. Consistent use of brand elements, especially in tech brands like Apple and Samsung.
Other big brands like Nike and Adidas, have explored various different styles in their advertisements over the past few years, but you will still see their overall brand stylization all over them.
This simply proves our point, that every brand needs consistent use of visuals and other brand elements in their marketing strategy to make it a big success.
6. Think 2 steps ahead
Brands are supposed to bring value to people’s lives, so whenever you are setting up your marketing strategy, think in terms of how the people perceive your brand, what they expect from the brand, what kind of value this provides to the customers, and use your brand elements accordingly.
If you want to show some new ideas to the world, don’t just show them flashily. Too much exaggeration is bad.
Take notes of the current trends, and what people are currently in love with, take that, and implement them with your brand elements and current styles to show both modernism and relevancy in the market.
CONCLUSION-
There you have it, a basic overview of how marketing and graphic design are so intertwined in these modern times. To market something to the masses, you need access to their minds, and with steady and relatable visuals and also audio you can do it very easily.
And with the help of a professional, you can achieve your marketing goals without breaking a sweat. Of course, you will need a team of marketing strategists, and SEO experts, but do hire a professional graphic designer who will eventually help you in putting your marketing plan into action very smoothly.