Whether you serve the best sandwiches in town, sell top-notch health insurance or manufacture high-quality auto parts, your business has something to say and your message deserves to be heard. But in such a competitive marketplace, it can be hard to make your company stand out. Good graphic design may be the edge you need to distinguish your business from the rest. Pairing a strong message with compelling images, graphic design is a powerful tool for effective advertising, branding and more.
What Is Graphic Design?
Graphic design is the process of combining images and words to create striking visual concepts or displays. Many different elements make up graphic design, including color, line, typography, shape, image, texture, size and scale. Skilled graphic designers select and organize these visual elements to create designs for signs, advertisements, websites, magazines and much more.
Graphic designs can be found just about everywhere — if you look around, you’ll see them on billboards, storefront signs, magazine covers and even products in your home, like a jar of peanut butter or a tube of toothpaste. At SpeedPro, we specialize in graphic design for signage, large-format graphics and other printed media. Our experienced designers incorporate text and pictures to create striking graphic designs for events, stores and companies across a range of industries.
Why Does Graphic Design Matter?
While a business could certainly state their message in plain text on a plain background, that wouldn’t be very exciting — or effective. Signs that lack interesting design elements or eye-catching images are easily overlooked. Customers will notice the bright and bold advertisements of your competitors, and your business will be left in the dust.
With good graphic design, your company’s signs and advertisements can stand out from the rest. Creative and aesthetically appealing graphic designs naturally attract attention and encourage viewers to engage with a message. Effective graphic designs educate, inspire and captivate customers. If you aren’t already convinced, here are few more reasons that graphic design matters. It:
- Engages: Graphic design makes signs, decals and logos more interesting and engaging.
- Persuades: Advertisements with good graphic design are more persuasive and effective.
- Influences: The colors and shapes in graphic designs evoke different moods and influence customer responses.
- Connects: Memorable graphic designs connect with customers and create a lasting impression.
- Expresses: Graphic designs featuring branded colors and images can express your business’s unique personality.
- Impresses: The best graphic designs are truly works of art that will impress and wow your customers.
These advantages of good graphic designs only skim the surface of why graphic design is so important. Having a strong message matters, but how you present such a message matters even more. That’s where graphic design comes in. These designs will capture the essence of your brand or message and present it in the most effective way to reach your customers.
By leveraging the power of graphic design, your business can attract new customers and create an appealing brand personality. Great graphic designs will give your company an edge against your competition and get your message heard.
Let’s dive into the elements that distinguish the best graphic designs from the rest of the pack.
Essential Elements of Good Graphic Design
Graphic designs come in a variety of formats, from traditional signs to decals on vehicles to massive banners hanging in convention centers. While each medium requires a unique approach, all good graphic designs possess several elements. Keep these essential elements in mind to create clear, informative and attractive graphic designs for your business or event.
1. Quality Content
The central part of graphic design is the content itself. Viewers receive this content as text, pictures, symbols, logos and other details that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the design. Selecting the right content for your graphic design is crucial to its success — whether that means crafting the perfect marketing slogan or finding fun images that capture the spirit of your brand. The content you choose to promote also impacts other features of the design, including its size, colors and layout.
2. The Right Amount of Content
The best graphic designs include all the necessary information, but nothing else. Effective designs include only crucial information and just the right number of visual elements to support that information. If a graphic design includes superfluous details or excessive images, the main message can easily be lost. When viewers are overloaded with content, they may miss the most important elements, like the name of your business or the date of your event.
When you’re determining how much content is enough, ask yourself if the sign includes all the details customers need. If the answer is yes, ask yourself if it includes any additional information that does not support those critical details. Remove excess content to produce a clear, effective and easy-to-understand graphic design. When you work with a graphic designer at SpeedPro, they can help you find the perfect balance of content that informs and delights without overwhelming the viewer.
3. Good Readability
Readability is another critical component of an effective graphic design. If your graphic design is not legible, you’ll miss the opportunity to connect with customers in a meaningful way. Good readability is determined in part by the two previous elements of good graphic design — your content itself must be clearly communicated with the right language, and your design must include the right amount of information to be read easily by those passing by.
Many other factors also impact the readability of graphic designs, however, including:
- Bright colors: Bold and vibrant colors stand out more than pale and subtle hues. Brighter colors are also easier to read from far away and will help your images look crisp even from a distance.
- High contrast: High contrast between the text and the background significantly improves readability. Whether you choose a light background with dark writing or a dark background with light text, look for colors that aren’t too similar in their brightness.
- Appropriate sizing: The size of your font is one of the most important factors influencing readability. When you’re designing a graphic on a small computer screen, it can be easy to underestimate how big the text should be. Make sure the text on your final product is large enough to read clearly by someone walking or driving by.
- Intuitive organization: If your design includes multiple phrases, sentences or words, organize them in a way that allows the eye to flow naturally from element to element. Intuitive organization of information will prevent your message from becoming jumbled or misunderstood by customers.
By incorporating these elements, you can create graphic designs your customers can easily read. Good readability lets your message be seen and understood by more customers so that your graphic design has the greatest reach and impact.
4. Aesthetic Appeal
An obvious yet important element of good graphic design is pleasing aesthetics. Simply put, your graphic design needs to look good. Signs or graphic designs that are not visually appealing will not attract customers to your business. Even worse, an unattractive design may give potential customers a bad first impression of your brand.
Graphic designs featuring appealing colors and beautiful images will impress your customers and win their attention. Viewers will engage with your content in a more meaningful way when they’re attracted by your aesthetically appealing graphic design. By utilizing colors that customers enjoy, you can even evoke positive emotions to connect with your audience on a deeper level.
5. Cohesiveness
This final essential element ties it all together. Even if a graphic design is aesthetically appealing and presents the right information, it can still miss the mark if it’s not cohesive and relevant. Cohesiveness means that the images, words and style of the design make sense as a whole — and that they’re appropriate for your business and your message. In a cohesive graphic design, every visual feature works together to convey a single message and a unified impression.
For example, a promotional sign for a summer music festival may use vibrant colors, fun graphics and cheerful text. Bright images of palm trees and pineapples can be paired with bold typography listing the concert line-up and festival dates. Viewers will feel the warmth and upbeat energy just by looking at the cohesive graphic design. When each element supports and enhances the overall purpose, the graphic design is more powerful, impactful and effective.
Graphic Design Services From SpeedPro
SpeedPro offers graphic design services for a range of large-format print products, including signage, vehicles, banners and office graphics. Each medium requires a unique approach to create the most effective and attractive graphic designs. When you choose SpeedPro for your graphic designs, our skilled designers will work closely with you to make your visions come to life while also optimizing each piece for its intended final format.
Learn more below about the professional graphic design services offered by SpeedPro.
1. State Your Point With Signage Graphic Design
Signage is a broad category of graphic design that includes everything from large outdoor signs to small indoor signs. Signage graphic design also includes digital signage, such as electronic mall directories, rotating window displays and digital displays at trade shows. Signs can have simple and straightforward designs that feature your business name or provide directions for customers exploring your store. They can also be complex, with creative design features, eye-catching images and interesting typography.
Because signs have a flat surface and are available in various sizes and shapes, graphic design for signs offers a lot of flexibility. Your store signage designs can span an entire wall with a bold message promoting a special deal on laptops or advertising the release of a new model of car. Smaller signs can be placed near products in your store to educate customers about their unique features. Outdoor signage designs may feature large text for enhanced readability and clarity, while indoor signs can incorporate more intricate shapes and designs.
As an experienced signage design company, SpeedPro offers a range of signage solutions for any application. Whether you want to advertise an upcoming event or increase awareness of your business, our graphic designers can help create the perfect signs and graphics to state your point boldly and memorably.
2. Promote Your Business With Custom Vehicle Graphics
Vehicle graphic designs are vinyl stickers, decals or wraps that can be applied directly to the surface of a car, truck, bus or another vehicle. Vehicle wraps cover the entire vehicle from bumper-to-bumper, while decals and stickers can be any size, from small logos to large, bold graphics. Vinyl decals are often applied on the side or rear of the vehicle to grab the attention of other drivers on the road.
Custom vehicle graphics allow local businesses to spread their message to a wider area and audience. With vehicle graphic designs, you can reach potential customers in your region who may not normally drive by your business. Here are a few effective uses of custom car and truck graphic designs:
- Advertise online brands: Businesses that do not have a physical store, such as online retailers and e-commerce sites, can advertise their brand with custom auto designs and graphics. Vehicle graphic designs serve as a mobile billboard that increases awareness of a brand and encourages potential customers to visit a business online.
- Show off mobile businesses: If you run a mobile business, like a cleaning service, landscaping company or mobile car wash, use custom vehicle graphics to mark your fleet. Your vehicles will stand out on the road with bright, attention-grabbing vehicle wraps featuring your company name, logo and contact information. You can even win new customers that see your branded vehicles parked outside your clients’ homes.
- Promote special events: Build excitement for special events by promoting them with custom vehicle graphics. Vinyl stickers can be applied temporarily to advertise your upcoming event, then easily removed and updated for the next occasion.
In designing custom vehicle graphics, readability is of the utmost importance. Your text must be clear and legible as your fleet cruises down the highway. Big and bold vehicle graphic designs with a simple message will get your point across effectively.
Vehicle graphic designs must also account for the shape of the vehicle — a design that looks great on the flat side of a van may appear distorted or stretched on a curvy sports car. Skilled graphic designers can create custom vehicle wraps to match the specific model of your car or truck. Starting with a template of your vehicle, these professionals will select and organize visual elements to best complement the size and shape of your car, truck, van or other vehicle.
SpeedPro offers vehicle wrap design services for construction firm fleets, cosmetics company vehicles, food transportation businesses and everything in between. Our extensive experience in designing and printing custom truck and car graphics means we can design a custom wrap or decal that looks great on your individual vehicle.
3. Express Your Message With Custom Banner Designs
Banners are the perfect medium for bold messages and bright images. Fun and dynamic custom banners are popular for events and trade shows to attract visitors to your booth and help them learn more about what your brand has to offer. Retailers also use flashy outdoor banners to advertise sales or specials at brick-and-mortar stores. Graphic designs for banners must be eye-catching, easy-to-read and aesthetically appealing. Here are a few tips for creating the best custom banner designs:
- Consider your audience: What does your target audience value most? Is it a trustworthy company, affordable products or brand values they can stand behind? Use insights into the interests and values of your ideal customers to choose the best content for your custom banner designs.
- Keep it branded: Effective trade show banner design can capture the essence of your brand so that customers know what you stand for before you even say hello. Incorporating branded colors and company slogans into your custom banner design will create a cohesive and powerful brand personality.
- Make text clear and visible: Use simple language and crisp images to make your banners legible and impactful. State your point in as few words as possible so that customers exploring a trade show or driving past your business can comprehend your message quickly.
- Keep content at eye-level: Potential customers may skip over your banners if they’re positioned too high or too low. Effective trade show banner design places the most important information right at eye-level where viewers can’t miss it.
- Use vivid images: Graphic design for banners shouldn’t be boring — choose bold designs and memorable messages to make the most of this fun and creative advertising format.
- Maintain negative space: Resist the urge to fill every inch of your 8-foot banner with pictures and information. Leave some white space so that your words and images stand out. Your negative does not have to be boring, however — choose a fun background color or pattern to keep your banner interesting while making it a little easier on the eyes.
As experts in high-quality large-format printing, SpeedPro offers a wide range of banner types for every application. Our retractable banners offer fast and effective temporary advertising for events and businesses. For a more permanent solution, step-and-repeat banners from SpeedPro can be hung outside your office or store for long-term use. No matter what style of banner you choose, our high-resolution custom banner designs are sure to catch your customer’s eye and express your message clearly.
4. Brand Your Space With Office Graphic Design
Office graphic design will express the personality and style of your brand. If you run a youthful and upbeat marketing company, your office branding design may feature funny pictures of your staff or Instagram-worthy slogans. A professional real estate company may choose office signage designs that are more reserved, with sleek lines and direct messages. By incorporating branded colors and text, office graphic design can effectively capture the essence of your business.
Office branding design serves two primary purposes — to connect with customers and to inspire employees. Strong office graphic design will give customers a clear idea of what your company is all about the minute they step through your doors. Office graphics featuring inspirational messages or your company mission statement can remind employees of why their work is so important. Office branding design can also create a stronger company culture and more positive work environment that promotes creativity, innovation and productivity.
SpeedPro offers office graphics in a variety of formats to fit your business and office space. Here are a few elements to consider for your office branding design:
- Window graphics: Designed for use on any glass surface, window graphics will brand your office space while also adding privacy when they’re placed on glass walls or windows in your office.
- Wall murals: Fill empty wall space with aesthetically pleasing wall graphics that capture your brand personality or inspire employees with motivational messages. Wall murals are an affordable way to upgrade your office space without remodeling or repainting.
- Floor graphics: Unexpected and bold, floor graphics will grab visitors’ attention and help them find their way around your office.
- Environmental graphics: To truly upgrade your entire office space, use full-size environmental graphics on your walls, floor or ceiling. These daring graphics will transform your office and create a lasting impression on your clients.
The best office graphics will present a cohesive image of your company inside and out. From your outdoor entrance signs to the creative wall graphics in your lobby to the clever floor graphics in your office bathroom, visitors and employees alike will feel connected to your brand.
Choose SpeedPro for Your Graphic Design Needs
As a leading full-service print and design studio, SpeedPro offers comprehensive solutions for all of your graphic design needs. When you work with SpeedPro, our experienced designers will guide you through every step of the process — from initial design creation to perfecting the final product. We’re committed to designing beautiful and bold graphics that capture the spirit of your company and get your message heard.
SpeedPro is your one-stop-shop for professional graphic design services. Find a SpeedPro studio near you to get started with your next graphic design project.
