If you work in Marketing, or if you’re working on your own marketing for your business, you would have come into contact with a graphic designer.
I’ve worked with graphic designers for 14 years. From in-house, freelancers, full time and part-time across web, print and digital. So I think I know a thing or two about how to brief and manage a designer. I also use designers every day for MY business as well as those for my clients. So i thought I’d compile my top tips.
If you’d like to know more – watch my Kate’s Crew Facebook Live video from Monday 19th August where I go into lots of detail and specifics about what to do and what not-to-do.
Tip 1:
Share your context – let the designer know where you are right now, either in terms of your existing brand, or if you don’t have anything, where your thinking is at. Screen grabs of your existing website, imagery, and branding, as well as your own sketches of what you like and don’t like – they’re really useful for the designer to get into your headspace.
Tip 2:
Know your target customer – your designer needs to know who they are designing for – who you are looking to appeal/sell too. The better you know this audience, the easier it is for them to design something suitable. Whether this is a whole brand or simply a leaflet. Join my Free 5 day marketing challenge and we’ll address this on day 1.
Tip 3:
Know your competitors – whether you’re looking to align to them, or clearly differentiate from them – grab images of their branding, campaign or ‘tactical’ leaflets – get your head around what they’re doing!
Tip 4:
Keep to time – Be straight forward with your deadlines, timings and expectations – if you don’t need something creating until 1 month time, tell the designer, the more time and info they have, the better the output will be.
And finally… (there’ loads more but you’ll need to join in and watch the live in Kate’s Crew to see it) – work with someone you trust (not friends and family) – go into partnership with someone, let them get to know you, your style, brand and what you like and love. This relationship makes working together so much easier, quicker and you’ll get so much more out of it!
Enjoy and good luck!!