Getting started – tips for preparing for your graphic design project

Have you registered your business name, ABN and registered your website domain? Sometimes theses are the things that you do when deciding upon your business nam, when making sure your business name is available across a range of mediums. There are a range of Australian Government services that can help you, including ASIC, IP Australia and many others.  Making sure you have all of these things ticked off your list early in the picture, will make everything a breeze further down the track.

Market research and business planning

It’s always a good idea to undertake some market research before establishing your business, just to ensure your market viability and knowledge of the market place you intend to operate within.  Make sure you consider the characteristics of your industry, research your competitors and establish an idea of who your ideal customers will be.  The details you collate and analyse in a market research exercise, will feed into a useful business plan that will assist you in more ways than one as you progress your business set up.

Preparing your design brief

Perhaps you have been inspired by a visual brand you admire or you have a style in mind for your own brand design. Your graphic designer will be so grateful for your ideas and inspiration before getting started on your design project.  Try not to simply supply images and say “I like this”.  Your graphic designer will want to know why and what you like about each image or idea. Is it the colour palette you like, the unique use of type or a particular style used?  You may like to bring all of the imagery and ideas together in the one document as a ‘mood board’ that may be provided to your graphic designer for inspiration.

Brand imagery

Will your visual brand be supported by photography, illustrations or artwork elements that help tell your brand story and bring your designs to life? It is very easy to bring purchased stock photography into your brand asset library, but ask yourself if this presents an authentic perception of your business to your audience? Often the imagery available on stock photography websites have been used multiple times by other businesses and can dilute the impact and trustworthiness of your visual brand. (Read more about brand photography here) Consider having your own brand illustrations created by an illustrator (like Martlette!) to ensure that your overall brand is presented using your own unique and custom illustration artwork.

Written copy for your brand

Whether its a logo or a website that your graphic designer is creating for you – there may be some written copy that you will need to think about and prepare.

If it is a logo design you are having designed, you may like to consider whether you will be using a tagline? If it’s your website or printed collateral being designed, you will want to have the written copy prepared (either by yourself or by a professional copy writer) for each page of your website or printed materials.

Mandatory requirements

There are a large array of requirements that are placed on some industry sectors, product types and packaging – to name a few. Consider whether your design project requires certain aspects included:

• Ingredients / Nutrition details
• QR Codes and Barcodes
• Warnings or age limitations
• Disclaimers or policy references
• Origin of product ie. ‘Made in Australia’
• Accessibility requirements

And now you’re ready

A little time preparing your information will save you and your graphic designer time throughout your design project and will allow you to focus on your business, instead of racing around to gather information during the process.

Providing your graphic designer with a clear direction and information about your business will ensure that the design will hit the target and speak volumes to your target audience.