Reaching your target audience through effective marketing campaigns is not an easy process. You need to devise strategies that will make you stand out. Content creation is the first step but not the only thing. There are different ways you can use content strategy to build your brand. One of them is through the graphic.
Using it the right way will create a visual appeal, which is vital for audience engagement. In case you are asking what is a graphic, F, and how does it affect your content strategy as a brand? This article will help you see the connection between them. Before we discuss how to choose the right content for your graphic design, let’s understand the concept of the graphic.
What is a graphic?
A graphic is a visual representation of an object. It could be a paper on the wall, a drawing on paper, or an image on the computer screen. When it is displayed via the computer, it is mostly referred to as computer-generated graphics or graphics design. It is produced through hardware or a software program. Graphic design can be part of the decor for a home when used as wall art, and it could also serve as a medium for marketing a brand. The latter will be the focus of this article.
Types of graphic design
There are several types of graphic design according to the purpose for which it was created. Whether you are a graphic designer searching for the best content for your project or a business owner trying to determine the right content strategy for your business, knowing these graphic design types will give you a great start.
Visual Identity
Visual identity is all about branding. A brand is a relationship between a business and its audience. While a brand identity explains the way an organization maintains this relationship. This is the basis of visual identity. It is that type of graphic that promotes the brand through images, color, and shapes. It’s seen as the face of the brand. Graphic designers that specialize in this aspect of graphic often collaborate with stakeholders and business owners to create logos, images, color palette, and other elements of brand representation.
Advertising and Marketing
These are all kinds of designs created for marketing and audience engagement purposes. Majority of graphic designers belong to this category. Hence, they search for content that relates to their design purpose. Businesses depend on successful marketing strategies to influence their audience’s decision-making process. Images have a visual appeal, and many people find it more convincing than text ads. Therefore, organizations hire marketing designers to help them promote and communicate more effectively to their target audience. In other words, these experts speak the language the audience understands and can easily relate with.
Also, they can be hired remotely or as a part of the in-house team of designers to create a variety of digital assets that are useful for brand promotion. Examples are magazine ads, posters, billboards, banners, infographics, social media ads, powerpoint presentation, vehicle wraps, and several others created for marketing purposes.
User Interface
A user interface (UI) is the program that allows a user to interact with the application or device. A UI graphic designer is responsible for designing the interface that the user interacts with. It focuses on on-screen user graphic elements and another visual user experience. UI designers work closely with UI developers who write the code and UX (User Experience) designers who determine how the program works. They all specialize in creating designs for mobile applications, desktop or web apps, and gaming.
Packaging Design
Some products need to be packaged to provide a means of protection, storage, and prepare them for distribution. But when it comes to designing, many brands invest in packaging design for marketing purposes. They use it to communicate with their customers, which makes it an effective marketing strategy. Examples are the labels on beverage cans, electronics, and other household items.
Motion Graphic Design
These are just graphics in motion. Good examples are imagery, video, animation, and typography. Motion graphic is highly utilized in the media and gained popularity in recent years. This is because digital marketing experts realized the power of video content in marketing. Motion graphics designing is a relatively new aspect of designing because it was formally reserved for firms in the media industry. Now, brands across all sectors are utilizing it in their design strategy.
As you read through this piece, you must have noticed that one thing is common among them, which is “content.” Yes, it is the “king,” and without it, a graphic will be an irrelevant tool in the brand marketing space. But using the term “content” might sound too vague. Hence, we need to specify that we are describing not just any content but original content.
Choosing the right content
It is an open secret that it is against the law and an offense to steal content directly from a competitor’s site or any other site and use it for designing brochures, flyer, images and other forms of graphic for a marketing campaign. If you check the gun control essays at Edusson, you will find several examples that relate to this fact. Also, you stand the risk of going to jail for using obscure or any offensive content as part of your graphic. The essay on gun control will help you understand this fact easily.
Laws are guiding the use of content in marketing, especially in the United States. Just as gun laws are meant to protect the citizens and oversee the purchase and use of firearms. The fact is that many organizations invested so much in content marketing. Such laws (look here for more) will protect their investment from unauthorized use.
Doing it right
You can do it right, without going against the law. All you need is to engage your creative mind as you will read below.
Think about the subject
What is the subject of your design? This should determine the type of content you should choose. Remember, you are trying to pass a message visually. Your subject is your target audience. Once you establish your audience, you can then tailor your message to them. For instance, when creating a cool graphic design for a T-shirt brand, the kind of content you will use for designing the kids shirt will be different from an adult shirt. The key is knowing your audience.
Color
This is an essential aspect of graphic, and it can determine the type of content you use for your design. Colors can ignite a mood, evoke a memory, and even create a relaxed atmosphere in the minds of the audience you are targeting. If you are a designer or aspiring to become one, you should find the best color scheme that relates to your audience. And conveys the emotion you want them to associate with.
Text
This is a sequence of words used in a design. When developing your content strategy, you will want to show off and describe how great your brand is in the industry. In a bid to do this, you can easily use text to overcrowd an image. Too many contents in an image can make it look messy and fail to entice your audience. If you are creating content for social media, endeavor to limit it to one or two lines. That is the best way to get the message across.
Platform
Where do you plan to send your design after its creation? This will determine the kind of content to use for it as well. For example, social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram require less content, but catchy headlines, titles, and tags. Each platform is different with regards to the kind of content they allow for marketing purposes. This has nothing to do with the subject of your design. Knowing this ahead of time will help you in the long run as you create impressive designs on any subject.
Be creative
Have you heard of the famous saying that “creativity lives alone.” Whether you agree or not, it is one of the crucial ways to know the right content to use for any graphic design. So get creative and find a way to tie your brand to its audience using the right content strategy.
The significance of using the original content in graphic design
Graphic design helps brand promoters to communicate with a specific audience through content imbibed in images, designs, and other forms of visual art. By now, you should know that bluffly content with an impressive image for brand promotion will be a waste of time. Since it won’t engage the audience for whom it was designed.
Choosing the right content for your graphic design entails a lot. This guide has enlisted what it takes easily. It explains the various types of design and how they affect content creation. Whether you need content for designing a flyer, brochure, mobile apps, social media posts, logo, or images, you will find these tips useful. Go ahead and explore them, write them down, and make the most of them in your next design project.
Photo Editing Tutorials
We have a couple of posts that might give you more inspiration on creating your content. If you’re interested, head over to our posts on how to Enlarge Pixel Art Without Blurring In Photoshop, and how to Create Color Swatches From An Image In Photoshop.