My three top tips for better design in communications

Many marketers and graphic designers pride themselves on their ability to capture the genuine essence of a product or service.

Often they’re right, but more often than not I see a design that communicates what the designer (or the boss!) wants to say, but doesn’t do an effective job of marketing that product or service.

The old mantra of ‘sell the sizzle, not the sausage’, or communicating benefits not features, is as true now as when it was first stated. But it’s sad to see how often it is ignored.

So what are you looking for in a great design? Why does one design succeed while another fails?

Here are my three top tips to make your graphic design work harder for you:

1. Plan the hierarchy of messages to be communicated.

Too often designers are not really clear on what they have to communicate, so it’s important to ensure they know which is the primary message, which is the secondary and so on. It’s essential that they understand this as their job is not so much to create an aesthetic design, rather to lead the eye down a visual hierarchy of messages that have been determined by the marketer. The designer’s job is to serve up the messages in an order that is logical and persuasive, in order not to let the viewer’s eye wander over the communication in a random way.

2. Use white space – or rather, ‘blank’ space – to good effect.

Don’t ignore it. It’s one of the key tools a designer has. The viewers’ eyes slide over white or blank space unhindered by messages and ‘stuff’. So if the designer’s done their job correctly, the viewers’ eyes can be led straight to the next message on the hierarchy – and not be hijacked by too much ‘noise’.

3. Choose pictures which engage people.

As the viewers see the picture first, and they only progress to reading the headline if the picture is sufficiently interesting to lead them on, it stands to reason to have a good picture. But all too often I see images that are of no interest at all – so how can you expect people to read your website/advertisement/brochure/exhibition stand etc if the picture does nothing for them? They have to be relevant to what people are looking for, or beautiful, or exciting, or engaging etc etc in other words, NOT what you think is important, but what you know your viewers will find important.

These top tips may seem obvious to you, but every day I come across examples of where they’ve been ignored, compromising the effectiveness of the communication. So every time you design something, or sign-off someone else’s design, check them against these three things and if anything’s missing – start again!