In summary
Graphic design creates and articulates visual signs allowing the appropriation of places, objects, services and data delivered to users, consumers or users. It communicates identity, meaning, functionality, information, but also stories, feelings, style, positioning or opinion. In the commercial ecosystem, it is found, for example, in the signature of the product, the user interface, the packaging, the presentation at the point of sale, the signage of the store or even the advertising promotion. Graphic design is inseparable from other forms of design that appeal to the visual sense. You can take the services of Graphic Designing Agency in London
Why use it?
Objective
Graphic design is used to guide, initiate a dialogue between a system and its user (logo, user interface), share a production, a point of view with a wide audience (publishing, website). It makes it possible to enhance an offer through its packaging or promotion (packaging, advertising), and to immerse the customer in recreational or narrative content, to trigger reflection and emotions.
Background
At each phase of the industrial development process, where a decision has to be made:
- during the development of the idea, the concept (identity, content, use);
- in the finalization phase (instructions, restrictions, packaging, packaging);
- in the marketing phase (presentation of assets, promotion).
Certain graphic elements of the system-user dialogue (graphic representation of a function) are subject to regulations. Compliance with standards (French such as AFNOR or international such as ISO) requires the use of a graphic language common to all competing companies for the same type of function, when a higher stake is involved, such as the safety of users. Thus, the International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC) imposed a universal graphic representation for X-ray tubes in the medical context.
How to use it?
Steps
Whether creating content, a hook, facilitating use, guiding, advising or even facilitating the act of purchase, graphic activity begins as soon as the essential functions and assets to communicate are known to the project team.
- Identify the signs or ideas to communicate visually. Based on the specifications, the marketing positioning and knowledge of the regulatory elements related to the context.
- Translate the signs clearly, simply, and in coherence with the graphic charter of the organization.
- Test their intuitive recognition through user tests. This phase makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the graphic design and to reduce the ambiguities of meaning or the occurrences of errors in use.
- Check the regulatory compatibility of the graphics with the industry concerned (legal notices, standardized symbols), through a review with the legal entity of the company.
Methodology and advice
- Adapt the graphics to the target: for example, children who cannot read or elderly people who cannot see well.
- Adapt the graphics to the reading distance to optimize the impact, especially on a store shelf.
- Think graphics for printing and duplicating.
Advantages
- Graphic design allows the hierarchy of visual information. Mastery of this field is a guarantee of efficiency in the intuitive recognition of identities, content and uses.
Precautions to take
- Take into account the cultural, geographical, historical or cognitive specificities of the target in the meaning given to the visual elements (meaning of colors in certain countries, collective unconscious linked to an event, ambiguities leaving room for interpretation, local habits and customs, connotations linked to gender, origin or opinion).
