Graphic design is still massively important for businesses in 2024. We would say that though, wouldn’t we? We’re a full-service design and digital agency, so it’s in our interest to keep the topic of graphic design alive.
But let’s be honest, because that’s what’s kept customers coming back to us for the past 17 years as Clever Marketing; graphic design is all around you…
Graphic Design is Everywhere
Are you reading this on your laptop? The make of your notebook is a brand – someone designed that logo and the brand identity that goes with it. Or maybe there’s a sticker on the case with another logo of the chip manufacturer, the cooling system, audio, visual, or memory?
Even if you’re reading this on your mobile device, that’ll be a particular brand where the logo was created by a graphic designer and the operating system too – every screen, every app, every icon, the colours, shape, the way it’s been designed to scale from small screens to larger ones, all the work of professional designers.
Look up – the coffee shop you’re at – the branding. Your office, the books on your desk, the posters on the wall, the equipment… or maybe you’re working from home; again, everything in your abode has been designed, whether it’s branded or not. Step outside – the car on your drive, the bike in your shed, the shopfronts, the bus stop… the built environment is full of graphic design.
Design and graphic design are everywhere you look and everywhere you go.
Graphic Design for Business
All these things you buy, these tools you use, the media you consume – design is behind it all and upfront is graphic design.
As with the lounge, the office, or the urban environment, in business, graphic design is everywhere too. Let’s have a look and make a list:
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Branding
You’ve got your logo design, brand identity, and all your company’s brand guidelines. These are all vital in maintaining a consistent message across your company and all its products and services. We’ve even helped our customers get their vehicles sign-written.
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Marketing Collateral
Then there are your marketing materials, everything from brochures, and flyers, to posters, and banners, even stickers, and badges. You need a graphic designer to ensure all your marketing materials are on brand too.
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Digital Marketing
Oh yes, then there’s your social media graphics, email marketing templates, PPC display ads, or those fantastic infographics that show off your workflow. Getting a designer in to create all these digital assets will generate new ideas and increase your brand awareness.
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Website Design
Someone designed this too, from the user interface (UI) to the website banners and graphics, the icons and the buttons, to the responsive design – you know the way the images change size, and even swap when you resize browser windows. They are all important aspects of your organisation and the graphic design world too.
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Product Packaging
Do you produce and sell physical products? Well, there’s the package design, label design, and product branding too, that’s all important.
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Printed Materials
Every business needs business cards, letterheads, invoice slips, and even branded envelopes – you need to ensure that your name truly gets out there, on every piece of printed ephemera.
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Advertising
Word of mouth and referrals are fantastic, thank you, but you also need graphic designers to draw up your print advertisements, outdoor advertising materials, like billboards, and posters, plus your digital ads too.
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Content Creation
Back to your website design, someone has to curate, design, and create all your blog post graphics, social media visuals, and all the optic elements for articles and reports. Our in-house creative design team can do all of that for you.
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Event Marketing
So, your organisation organises or attends big industry events and trade shows, does it? Well in that case, all your event posters and banners, the invitations you send out, and the program guides, floor plans, booth designs, and even the lanyards need a graphic designer’s hand to get right.
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Presentations
From your PowerPoint or keynote slides to presentation templates, they all need to be designed and in keeping with your brand, messaging, and the context within which you’ll be presenting. A clever designer knows what to do here too.
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Signage and Wayfinding
Whether it’s in your building, an event, or in the urban environment, there’s interior and exterior signage, even wayfinding graphics – you know, everything from floor graphics to wall graphics, symbols, and icons – they’re all cleverly crafted by graphic design professionals.
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Corporate Communications
Bigger businesses need everything from employee handbooks, and welcome packs, to internal newsletters, and graphics for internal comms. And what about…
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Annual Reports
The design and layout of annual reports, and infographics for financial data is vital in providing your stakeholders and shareholders with the information they need, in a consistent and informative style.
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Merchandise and Swag
Those giveaways at your next event, your corporate gifts – they can be anything from t-shirt designs, to branded merchandise. These fun things are all key to brand awareness and can even be useful for your fans and followers to amplify your messages for you.
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Digital and Print Publications
Oh yes, of course – You’ll be needing a talented designer to get together your magazines, and newsletters, eBooks, and even physical books – do you know a highly experience typesetter? That’s us. As well as creative design, we have many years’ experience in some incredible printed publications.
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User Experience (UX) Design
Back to your website, we do UX too. That includes website design and even app interface design for versions of your site or tool that you need in a desktop or mobile version. We do all that.
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Social Media Presence
We’ve mentioned that you need a designer for your social media, but specifically, have you thought about your social media profile and cover images on top of the usual design for your social media posts and stories?
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Environmental Graphics
Our designers are experienced in creating office and retail space graphics, meaning your brand as a dimensional logo on your reception wall, or even vast wall murals. We design those and have craftsmen who will come and professionally install wall murals too.
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Motion Graphics and Animation
Animated logos, video graphics and intros for presentations, banners on your website, or YouTube videos, our in-house graphic designers can help you get those visual assets together.
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Educational Materials
Training manuals, educational posters, we have experience of creating clear and concise visual materials for the education sector.
You get the idea. Graphic design is huge. Much of what is around you that has been manufactured and is used for business and pleasure, has some sort of graphic design.
End Note
Now that we’ve reminded you of the continuing importance of graphic design in 2024, how can we help you? If you’re a small or medium-sized business, ready to make an impact ad punch well above your weight, then you’ll need our expertise to help you imagine your full brand identity.
Have a look through our graphic design services, and see what we can do for you. From brand design, and digital design, to print design, and typesetting – we do it all.
Oh, and you do know that we do digital brochures too, right?
Even if you’ve heard that artificial intelligence (AI) is now capable of generating amazing images, it’s well worth remembering that those all-important prompts are key to creating the right designs. Who better to be at the helm of any tool producing AI-generated images than one of our seasoned designers! Their experience and expertise means that they will continue to produce professional graphic design for all your needs.
For any graphic design project, from brand guidelines to rebrands and website design, let’s have a chat about your requirements.
Call Clever Marketing now on 01276 402 381, or fill in the easy contact form.