[Calibre Designs]

Having been in the design industry for over 10 years, I have seen a decline in the value that most businesses are placing for design.

Working on an article atm.

Would you agree with my original statement?

What if I told you that Sales can be increased by more than 50% if you used good design techniques by building a brand for your products or services.

Looking forward to receiving your thoughts on this.

Thanks

Kay

[Indizine]

Design of the marketing materials is only a part of it but still the core and very important start of creating a brand and I agree, people looking for a £50 logo for exampe, are only thinking small (but maybe wanting big!).

Brand itself is only acquired after a period of time that the product or service has established itself and becomes known for what it sells.

[Calibre Designs]

Yes - a logo is a logo. A brand is a brand. It's worth nothing at the beginning. It needs time a mature.

Without the ethos behind the representation - you'll never get started.


To build an effective brand, we have to delve deep into the company, to almost project the future and what changes they may go through for years to come. The company may/will change but the brand should not change (until rebrand takes place but thats another story) have consistency and longevity confirmed at the very beginning

That is the brand development process in short but most small businesses just doesn't see it that way. Is design being undervalued then?

People's decision to buy is based on emotion, trust, reliability, reputation etc of the product or service. If the brand is developed correctly to compass all these things then sales would be much easier in the long run. Building a better future for the business.

[profitxchange]

Design is a multidimensional element of a business, it becomes more critical the higher the product/service is up the value chain and the less essential it is to survive.

Good design will always give a payback - but it needs the client and the designer to really understand each other and the client to make a realistic financial investment. Good design is not cheap!

[Lasting Designs]

All the points above are correct. I'm of the opinion that in getting great branding you need to invest more than £50 on a logo. This logo (to a point) serves a purpose, but it is such a waste in building a brand, to realise that all the time you've had the wrong image for your business all along. You then double up on printing costs, in getting your customers back (they often don't read press releases about your changing image) and all the rest, website, adverts etc.

People really need to consider marketing and design as an investment. A car has wheels in each corner, everybody understands that, but some cars sell better than others, some sell to a particular type of customer and some are more reliable than others, to a point they all do the same job.

This is the same as shopping around for your marketing. If you pay Lada prices, your not going to get Aston Martin performance. The price is comparable to effort and research for your product. I could go on and on with stuff like this, but I think you've got the point. Price alone isn't a guarentee on quality, we all know that too. But a brand built from great marketing and design practice is worth every penny spent on it. The phrase - cheap and nasty, exists for a reason.

[Calibre Designs]

Originally Posted by profitxchange

Good design will always give a payback - but it needs the client and the designer to really understand each other and the client to make a realistic financial investment. Good design is not cheap!

Will cost you dearly if it's not done correctly.

Came across one example today - very detrimental if it is not corrected urgently.

[Inzvestor]

A lot of people get hung up on creating a brand that they forget about their product or service.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries (isbn 1-86197-605-4) is one of the best books you can read on the subject.

[Cracking Media]

Originally Posted by Calibre Designs

Having been in the design industry for over 10 years, I have seen a decline in the value that most businesses are placing for design.

Yes I agree, but why is that?

IMO I think it is because so much of the design side of starting a business is now accessible for the man/woman in the street to do themselves or perhaps get a friend to do it for them - often for free.

For graphic/print design, most people would have a copy of Microsoft Publisher on their PC - a terrible tool IMHO but it does make it easy for people to design a flyer etc.

For website design, WYSIWYG design tools can be bought cheaply or even downloaded for free. The source code generated by them may be bloated and not how they should be coded, but they do create a website without too much difficulty.

With photography, the new age of digital has transformed what people can do for themselves with a multi-megapixel camera, a built-in flash and a cheap photo editing package. The images these cameras produce may be noisy and the lighting may be flat, but they make it possible for people to DIY very cheaply.

Even with video, people can knock something together with a DVD camcorder and Windows Movie Maker that may look a bit home movieish, but these tools do a job.

With all of the above, I would think and hope that most people comparing their own design to that of a professional would be able to see a marked difference. Having said I am not meaning to be pompous as certainly some non-professionals do a good job. However, I wonder if when the cost of getting a professional to do the job is compared to the often next-to-nothing expense of DIY, whether most people consider the professional approach as a nice to have but not a must have.

People starting a business may have aspirations to have a brand but I doubt many would know what it is or how to get one if they did. And I am not sure building a brand is something a new business owner should be that concerned with anyway, unless they have a lot of money to throw at the task.

I am not trying to suggest I have all the answers as for sure this is a work in progress for me. I think that understanding the market you are in and being clear about how your products or services can benefit the people you are selling them to - and clearly communicating those benefits, is fundamental.

Most definitely, having good graphic design, website design, photography and video or anything else design-related will go a long way to communicating and promoting your company and what you do. The biggest challenge for designers I would say is finding ways to show potential customers the bottom line that money saved using DIY is money lost down the line.

Peter

[Indizine]

At the end of the day, those who do not invest in their branding design will stay feeding at the bottom in their sector, so their lack of aspiration will leave plenty of room, and less competition, for those that do.

On top of that, you can provide a customer with a good design for branding, but if they do not use it appropriately and follow it up with raising standards across the business for the whole brand itself, then it can still fail. Therefore giving a customer a great design will not necessarily improve their bottom line. It's back to re-educating the customer to become a responsible business owner as far as marketing their business is concerned.

[Lasting Designs]

Originally Posted by Indizine

At the end of the day, those who do not invest in their branding design will stay feeding at the bottom in their sector, so their lack of aspiration will leave plenty of room, and less competition, for those that do.

On top of that, you can provide a customer with a good design for branding, and if they do not use it appropriately and follow it up with raising the standards across the business for the whole brand itself, then it can still fail. Therefore giving a customer a great design will not necessarily improve their bottom line. It's back to re-educating the customer to become a responsible business owner as far as marketing their business is concerned.

And therefore designers get the reputation for being expensive, a waste of money and an expense that isn't required, afterall the customer knows best eh!

We perhaps are failing ourselves, by not investing the time, energy and creating the reality that puts great design and marketing into the minds of our clients/potential audience. It is an investment not something to dismiss as expensive. It, if done properly commands a higher price tag for a reason. Research, Research, Research. It takes time! It is the foundations that the work is built on. It isn't just about pretty pictures or a catchy bi line, these are arrived at by design, for a reason and are tailored to the clients need and useage of their design, product and business.

The post by Cracking Media is an excellent example of whats wrong with what the market has created, is it our fault? Perhaps. TV Programmes that encourage a easy money to had culture, ie property developing, means the something for a percieved little effort and risk culture has been created.

Look at the Sarah Beeney programme Property Ladder, how many projects stay on budget? How many expensive mistakes have been made? As with anything that is percieved as easy to do, the short cut comes with research neglect, the one thing that can and often does, make or break the project. The results of this are that dumbing down of craftmanship is now the norm. Its the difference between an apprenticeship and the guy who get Jack to show 'em what to do.

Ask any plumber how many DIY bodges have they seen? and why? Product development is one thing, the theory and science behind it is quite another! Its the investment made in the latter, that creates the impression of easy money, its the former that creates the impression that anybody can do it.