Graphic arts content is a powerful way to communicate your brand message and identity to your audience. But how can you make sure that your visuals are consistent, relevant, and engaging across different platforms and channels? Here are some tips to help you align your graphic arts content with your brand messaging.
Before you create any graphic arts content, you need to have a clear and coherent set of brand guidelines that define your vision, values, voice, and style. Your brand guidelines should include elements such as your logo, color palette, typography, imagery, icons, and tone of voice. These elements should reflect your brand personality and differentiate you from your competitors. Having a well-defined brand identity will help you create graphic arts content that is recognizable, memorable, and trustworthy.
In my opinion this all filters down from the brand strategy. What does the business stand for, what is their mission. This should be where the work is spent. The colour palette and graphic tool kit should align with the purpose of each piece of marketing material. A brand which wants to see a real return on their investment should have the business/brand strategy sorted before they start on the brand identity and guidelines.
Unifying visuals with brand positioning takes thoughtful art direction - like a movie producer guiding set designs to convey key themes. Provide brand style guides and explain messaging pillars. Brainstorm directional concepts together. Review drafts to ensure alignment while allowing creative license. With collaboration, graphics will reinforce narratives powerfully. Let's set the stage! Now grab your creative vision - it's time to tell our visual story. ??
Absolutely necessary from a context setting standpoint. But it's unfortunate that no one beyond the creative design and marketing team considers this in their endeavours. One has to resort to constant education before people actually consider adherence to brand guidelines. I wonder why? It's like a routine in life, that you follow to bring discipline and empower one's self.
Another key factor to align your graphic arts content with your brand messaging is to understand your target audience and your content goals. You need to know who you are talking to, what they need, what they want, and how they consume content. You also need to know what you want to achieve with your content, whether it is to inform, educate, entertain, persuade, or inspire. By knowing your audience and goals, you can tailor your graphic arts content to match their preferences, needs, and expectations.
This is a time-consuming endeavor and hence needs time to grow into the system of the content and visual design team. An easy way to put this into practice is for both teams to collate 5 top representations that they would like to see the brand at. This helps in rationalizing and putting everything into perspective, before getting a sign-off by the CMO.
Depending on your audience and goals, you may need to create different types of graphic arts content, such as infographics, illustrations, animations, videos, or web design. You also need to consider the best platform and channel to distribute your content, such as your website, blog, social media, email, or print. Each format and platform has its own advantages, limitations, and best practices. You need to choose the ones that suit your brand message and your content purpose. For example, if you want to explain a complex concept, you may use an infographic on your blog. If you want to showcase your product features, you may use a video on your website.
One of the most important aspects of aligning your graphic arts content with your brand messaging is to maintain consistency and quality across all your content pieces and platforms. Consistency means that your content follows your brand guidelines and has a unified look and feel. Quality means that your content is well-designed, well-written, well-edited, and well-optimized. Consistency and quality will help you build trust, credibility, and loyalty with your audience. They will also help you avoid confusion, distraction, and frustration.
Finally, you should always seek feedback and improvement for your graphic arts content. Feedback can help you identify what works and what doesn't, what resonates and what falls flat, what engages and what bores. You can get feedback from different sources, such as your colleagues, your clients, your audience, or your analytics. You should use feedback to refine, revise, and improve your content. You should also keep up with the latest trends, best practices, and innovations in graphic arts and content development. By seeking feedback and improvement, you can ensure that your graphic arts content stays relevant, fresh, and effective.
Constructive feedback is essential for growth and improvement. It provides valuable insights into areas that can be enhanced, helping you refine your graphic design skills. Embrace feedback as a learning opportunity, and use it to iteratively develop your designs.