Graphic Design: bigger isn’t always better – know your client!

March 29, 2012

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When it comes to design, the ninetyblack team love to push the creative boundary. Whether it’s web design, graphic design or marketing material, we love to be bold – design big, print big, create something new. We’re on a mission to improve the world of graphic design, to produce something unique, custom, stand-out and memorable for our clients. If our graphic design team could do that every day we stepped into the office, we’d be an office full of very happy, creative campers. But we can’t.

The reality is that (whether businesses are in tough economic times or not), your client is not always after *design bling*; the reality is that businesses can’t always afford *design bling*. At the end of the day, every business works to various budgets and marketing budgets for web design, advertising and branding are often the toughest to crack – they’ll never grow. If anything they are usually the first to shrink in tough economic times – a critical error if you ask us. Any graphic design guru hates the word ‘budget’. It’s a dirty word that forces these creative beings to live within a designated box – they need the box, they just don’t like to admit it.

So what if you’re forced into one of these boxes; what if it’s just you, your grand ideas and your web design, advertising or branding task in a very tight space? If you ask us, it’s time to shake it off and re-focus. Know your client and take it from there, developing your graphic design based on their needs, not yours. Sometimes the most effective piece of graphic design, branding or marketing material is produced by a creative team that achieves effectiveness through simplicity. It’s not about what the graphic designer wants, it’s about what the client needs.

As a graphic designer or web designer you have a responsibility to yourself (improve, improve, improve!), but your biggest responsibility is to the client. At ninetyblack this is paramount. Of course, our graphic design team always jump in to deliver a good, hearty, honest opinion, but we always endeavour to look beyond what looks good – we make sure it’s going to work!

ninetyblack’s graphic design team work to a checklist with an approach that mixes common sense with proven marketing principles to make sure our graphic design is going to capture the target market, communicate the right message, look brilliant in print, and all come within budget.

You may not have produced a masterpiece worthy of winning an award but you’ve won your client because you delivered for them. When budgets are tight and times somewhat uncertain, clients are looking for businesses they can trust and rely on. Being that business puts you in good stead for the future.