Design Hacks for Non-Designers.
Hey Friends,
As a brand and marketing consultant, I’m often helping marketers and entrepreneurs understand how to use design to move their brand and business ahead.
While I’m not a designer by trade, my experience in working with designers and creatives over the past 20 years has given me the opportunity to find hacks and tricks to push out assets that resonate.
I’m passing it along to you because I understand a lot of businesses don’t have the resources (or budget) to leverage a professional design firm or have a large internal team to rely on.
Sound familiar?
With so much of branding being considered “back of the house”, (as evident from my previous posts) I thought we could all benefit from a post focusing on “front of the house” — the visual aspect of the brand. And cheers to my fellow F&B service workers who understand the front/back of house reference. 🥂
Diving in, let’s talk more specifically about design hacks to help you today with your design whether your leveraging Canva, Photoshop or a design service like Design Pickle.
Simplify Your Font Choice
It’s easy to complicate your design system by leveraging the wrong fonts. Going to Google Fonts allows you to choose from hundreds, if not thousands of fonts, and having too many choices can often be a hindrance. In a sense, it’s the jam theory.
My advice… keep it simple, keep it free (don’t pay for custom fonts), and keep away from taboo fonts like Papyrus or Comic Sans. Your audience will thank me.
Whitespace
Whitespace in design is your friend and I encourage you to use it. Not every inch of the asset or marketing piece you’re creating needs to have a color or a design.
I had a designer friend beat me up on this when he was looking at a presentation of mine. I remember him saying, “Steven, let it breathe. Give it room to communicate properly.”
I still think about that moment often.
Content Minimalism
Marcus Aurelius would constantly ask himself “is it necessary?” That’s a great quote to think of when putting designs together and one I fall back on.
Focus on the main point or two and realize everything else is just clutter. With so many messages being thrown at your customers on a daily basis, don’t be part of the noise.
Less Colors
In the same vein as your content, your colors should take a similar stance. We don’t need to kill our audience’s eyes with color, nor do we need to always use such bold colors.
Color theory is real and should always be applied. A good exercise is to start with two colors and add more as you see fit.
If you’re sending an email loaded with colors or have a social post that looks like a Picasso, chances are, you’re overdoing it and overthinking the goal of the piece.
Soft Background
I think the background is often overlooked. White is standard but can be boring. Black is usually too harsh and can quickly lead to your audience abandoning whatever piece you’re putting out.
Think about leveraging softer backgrounds that aren’t white to give variation to your design while also making it inviting.
This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but these guidelines should (in theory) help you hack your way to creating designs that resonate with your audience.
Hope this week’s post was insightful and full of value. Do you have any questions or curiosities you want to explore with me? Reply to this email or TWEET me.
As always, I’m all 👂’s.
- Steven
My Current Reading List
👉 Strategy is your Words by Mark Pollard (I’ve been following Mark and his Sweathead Strategy Community for a while and his newest book is so far a great read)
👉 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene (More of a coffee-table book that should be looked at often as it’s brilliantly written and 100% applicable to today’s culture)