The visual aspect of how your brand presents itself really is crucial; we are certainly well-placed to appreciate that here at PENNInk Productions, with our own background in visual communications.
However, whether you’re trying to rustle up compelling graphics for your company website, social media pages, or even leaflets or flyers, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with your firm’s graphics – especially if you’re trying to create them despite not being a skilled designer yourself.
Let’s pick out just some of the common graphic design errors that can occur, so that you are in a better position to avoid them.
1. Overusing text in your visual communications
If you’re trying to create something that is meant to be primarily visual, but with some elements of text – such as an infographic – one of the classic mistakes is to include too much text.
Such text might be informative, but blocks of text in what’s supposed to be a mainly visual piece of communication can hinder its effectiveness in capturing the reader’s interest in the first place. That might mean your target customers don’t really read the text anyway.
2. Using too many fonts
It’s one of the things that can make amateur graphic design instantly distinguishable from professional graphic design: the former often has a tendency to use so many fonts that the overall effect is distracting.
Yes, using different fonts next to each other can be great for conveying different messages and feelings. However, there needs to be a sense of coordination and order, too, which is why professional designers tend to restrict themselves to two or three different fonts in each piece of design.
3. Using overly familiar stock images
Some local business digital marketing professionals would tell you to never use stock photography at all in graphic design; as we have previously written about on the PENNInk Productions blog, we aren’t necessarily of that view. A certain stock image may work excellently for one given piece of graphic design, but not so much for another.
One thing to be wary of if you’re doing your own graphic design, though, is the risk of using certain stock photos that are already very common across the Internet – and that a lot of members of your target audience will probably instantly recognise.
Generic images of smiling contact centre workers can be particularly notorious for this effect. If you use the web often enough, you might have seen the same woman depicted as apparently working for about three or four different companies by now – and every time you did, it probably slightly cheapened your perception of the brand using that image.
4. Making poor colour choices
This is a not-dissimilar offence to using too many fonts, in the sense that getting your decisions wrong in this regard can leave you with a graphic design piece that is more distracting than captivating.
Typical examples of colour-related mistakes in graphic design include using too many bold colours in one piece, and using colour combinations that harm the legibility of text.
Our online colour chart could give you a useful starting point for assessing what colours are likely to work well together in your next graphic design project.
5. Not allowing sufficient negative space
You probably haven’t walked into very many art galleries where the pictures fill every single inch of the walls, and there are good reasons for that. Allowing a certain amount of “unused” space gives your design room to “breathe”, and helps draw the eye to the parts of the design where you will want the beholder’s eye to be focused.
Whether you know this kind of space as “white space” or “negative space” (after all, the space isn’t always literally white), it can undoubtedly be important for bolstering the power of your designs.
Hopefully, the above has helped make you feel more informed about what makes for effective (and indeed, less effective) graphic design.
But why try to handle it yourself, if you have the option of our own professionals creating some great designs for you? Get in touch with PENNInk Productions today and together we’ll explore how we can work to best effect with you on the visual aspects of your brand.
Lisa Penn is a Visual Communications Specialist with a background in user experience and psychology. She has held a variety of roles encompassing user experience creative strategist, architect and manager, where she has successfully bridged the gap between design, technology and development.
