The power of graphic design as a communication tool can’t be underrated. Wherever you look, you’ll find it everywhere – from product packaging to political rallies. Graphic design is also a crucial element of marketing and branding strategies. In today’s post, we’re going to dig deeper into types of graphic design and explain when you need each of them.
What is graphic design?
Graphic design is a craft when designers create visuals to communicate certain messages. Combining the visual hierarchy and page layout techniques, designers use typography and pictures to satisfy user’s needs. Also, their priority is to logically display the elements in interactive designs to create a better user experience.
Any type of design is the message to the consumer. With this type of communication, it needs to be read correctly while also having an aesthetic look. Using graphic designs for your organization is an important part of its activity. People, in general, tend to perceive information easier if it’s in the form of infographics or pictures.
“Any type of design is the message to the consumer. With this type of communication, it needs to be read correctly while also having an aesthetic look.” — Lesia Loik, Pixetic Graphic Designer.
Graphic design and its social influence
Graphic design influences the decisions we make as consumers. It builds our perception of the environment and shapes the way we engage with our environment and therefore has an impact on how we experience our world.
Moreover, graphic design influences our brand loyalty. The visual language, images, colors are picked in such a way to reach a specific demographic and achieve a certain goal. The graphic design assets are always carefully crafted and placed in the strategic plaices and have both conscious and subconscious effects on us.
Role of graphic design in international development
With the evolution of graphic design and with it becoming one of the omnipresent types of visual communication it was inevitable that it will fall under an unrestrained storm of globalization and will take its place in the international arena. International organizations started to use graphic design to become recognizable worldwide. Take as an example the classic UN logo created in 1945. It is still as recognizable as it was 80 years ago.
The lesson we can take from international organization branding is their ability to appeal to a wide variety of cultures and demographics. If you have a company that operates internationally, creating a brand image that is well perceived globally can be a challenge. The user-centered approach here is key as well. You must put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and include these factors when it comes to creating international graphic design assets:
- Cultural identities
- Language differences
- Social structures
- Different economic development
Types of graphic design based on your purpose
1.To create captivating corporate/ brand identity
Brand identity is a company’s personality: it conveys its values, ideas, and its essence in general. Graphic design is the basis for corporate or brand identity’s visual representation. Every element of it is crucial and will stick with people’s perception of your organization. Therefore, great graphic design equals a memorable brand identity. There are several essential elements of brand graphic design:
- Typography
- Font size
- Color Palette
- Form/shape
- Logo
Discover how we do branding at Pixetic.
2. To fill your website with great visual content
A website is part of your organization’s brand identity and serves the same purpose. A graphic designer pulls your website elements and puts together all the elements such as text, images, layout together. Great graphic design can help to fill your website with captivating visuals. For example, infographics, blog design, website banners are the types of visual content to infuse your website with creativity.
3. To enhance your digital product’s UI
According to Interaction Design Foundation, “UI design refers to graphical user interfaces and other forms—e.g., voice-controlled interfaces”. The “graphical” ones are what graphic design is concerned about. From a graphic design perspective, UI is about graphic elements of design like buttons, menus, micro-interactions, and more. The aim is to give users the best experience while delivering captivating visuals.
Designers who create graphics for UI focus on a variety of interface visual elements like size, color, placement of CTA, etc. The goal is to ensure a better user experience and ease the navigation. They are usually concerned about app design, web design, and game interface design.
4. To boost your marketing strategy
The visual identification with your brand might not always be enough to make your product appealing to people. Effective graphic design is what makes your marketing campaign go to another level. It helps to make your selected audience identify themselves with your product and connect your business goals and your brand’s visual identity.
Marketing graphic design is focused on communicating and promoting your company’s services or products with the help of visual communication that can take the form of:
- Digital marketing ad’s design
- Billboard’s design
- Brochures
- Packaging design
Marketing graphic design is created in close cooperation with decision-makers and marketing professionals. Strategically planned graphic design for your marketing campaign is a great advantage when it comes to customer attraction and retention.
Discover Pixetic contribution to our client’s marketing strategy.
5. To develop your gaming business
Graphic design is also well-established in the gaming industry. It is mainly involved in the development of the game and is consulted on how design elements (both visual and textual) are placed. Also, graphic design is integral for creating the visual identity of the game, its logo, and marketing assets. Moreover, it can help to add gamification elements to your ad and make them engaging for users.
6. Improve your products with graphic illustration
Graphic illustration is the merge of graphic design and illustrations. While graphic design focuses more on communication, illustration lies more in the field of art, together they apply the fundamental design principles to create and organize artwork.
Graphic illustrations will help you to express ideas visually and can be used for marketing, educational purposes, etc. Graphic illustrations are ideal if you want to create more stylish attention-grabbing visuals. The usage field is broad:
- Marketing attributes
- Website design
- Packaging
- Publishing
7. To add storytelling elements to your website
It can be difficult to differ motion graphics from conventional animation but there are some obvious differences. To put it simply, it’s a graphic design in the form of animation but with more focus on the text.
Motion graphics are perfect if you want to add story-telling elements to your visual communication. Combined with music and amazing illustrations, motion graphics can help you upgrade your graphic design communication strategy. They are used to:
- Create ads;
- Create title sequences for videos;
- Share information.
8.To improve navigation in your business space
Environmental graphic design is an intersection between graphic design, architecture, and art. It is used to improve user experience through implementing your visual concepts into the environment. This helps to make spaces not only easier to navigate through but also more memorable and informative.
Environmental graphic design elements can be supportive to the architecture or space where they serve as means of identification and direction. Designers in that field have a great knowledge of both graphic design and architecture. Also, they have expertise in industrial design concepts and can read architectural plans.
Usually, environmental graphic design is used for:
- Office branding
- Retail store interiors navigation and interior
- Signage
- Event and conference spaces
- Public transportation navigation
Graphic design as art
There is an ongoing debate on whether graphic design should be considered art. According to Ozan Karakoc, interdisciplinary designer, “graphic designers are artists too, but most of the time, what they do cannot be considered as ‘art’ since their job is all about thinking strategically.” And if you give some time to reflect on this topic, you might see the truth in these words.
Graphic designers usually have only little artistic freedom when it comes to doing their job. Their artistic choices are limited by the strategic essence of their tasks. Their main goal is to solve certain problems with their design. While art is all about expressing your vision and self-guidance, graphic design is more functional and used for pragmatic, usually commercial, purposes.
However, who says that these spheres can’t be married together to create a strategic but at the same time artistic design. For example:
- Web design. Website design creation can become a ground for designers where they can express themselves artistically to a certain extent. A dash of creativity is always a great idea if you want to create truly eye-catching visuals.
- Branding. Another great way to stand out among numerous similar companies is to create a brand identity that has an aesthetic with an artistic touch.
- Marketing. By allowing your graphic designer a sense of artistic freedom you can create truly unconventional marketing assets.
Bottom line
To sum up, graphic design is an integral part of our perception of the world around us. As it is an indispensable part of any business strategy, we come across it daily. Therefore, we can call it one of the basics of visual communication. There are numerous types of graphic design to choose from. Each depends on your purpose and sphere of use. Regardless of which type you choose, you can always add an artistic touch to it to make your ideas look fresh and original.