To most businesses, design is viewed as a luxury and not a necessity. Design budgets are the first to be cut in a recession and the last to be restored.
To many who term themselves designers, design is an art mastered by many–not an invaluable, strategic business tool understood by few. It is obvious why there are so many misconceptions regarding design: what it is, the purpose of it, and especially why it matters. Really, who cares what your website looks like, or if your promotional materials came from a template and look exactly like your competitors? Your customers do.
Influencing Perception
Aristotle once said “perception starts with the eye”. How your company, product, or service is perceived begins with the visual presentation of these things.
“More than half the brain is dedicated to the visual system.”
If this is true, and our target audiences are compiled only of humans who rely almost completely on visuals, why do we only dedicate a fraction of a percentage of our efforts to communicating to them effectively through visual means? And why is effective visual communication the last priority of any business?
Just as only you can control your future, only you can control how your company is perceived. If you do not control the quality of your visual communications, the general perception of your company will land in left field. A “brand” is governed by the perceptions of individuals, but by using design to strategically influence those perceptions, your company will be well understood and perceived in good light by your customers. You will be perceived as being “professional” if consistency is held, and you will out-perform your competitors due to the trust that your customers will have in your consistency.
Communication Breakdown
To most, “design” and “business” are polar opposites that need not relate or interact at all. To most business people, “design” is a four-letter word that almost always has a resentful undertone associated with it. Why? Because somewhere along the line, a designer has failed to communicate with the left-brained crowd. Someone once said to me “of all the designers I’ve ever known, they have either been great at design and poor at business, or great at business but terrible at design”. I can certainly see the truth in that. However, if there is never a bridge to close the gap between the analytical and creative, most businesses will fail to ever reach their intended target audience.
Ignoring the fact that people respond to visual communication, you are ignoring the needs of your customers. But ignoring them, your customers will automatically feel that you do not value them and thus infer that they cannot trust you. By ignoring how much your customers rely on visual communication, you are creating barriers between you and your target audience that will not be removed until you start tending to their needs.