5 Design Tips to Make You Stand Out

May 27, 2015

Your customers are buried under an avalanche of conventional and uninteresting print materials every day. How can you elevate your marketing collateral, direct mail, and displays with simple design changes, no matter what your budget? By creating a unique visual identity.

Being unique doesn’t mean throwing out the basic tenets of marketing and design. But with a little creativity, you can incorporate out-of-the-box typography, an unexpected use of color, or a dash of purposeful discontinuity that will build an engaging and memorable experience.

Here are some tips for creating a lasting impression:

• Communicate with clarity, humility and brevity. Try some light humor, if appropriate.
• Use typography as a design element. Experiment with different fonts and selective kerning to convey a specific image and tone, from classic to playful to edgy.
• Pick unique imagery.
• While stock imagery is readily available and affordable, stock images can make your marketing look like everyone else’s. Custom photography is worth the investment.
• Use placement and color of images as part of the design. An image that is tightly cropped or bleeds off the page in an unexpected way will capture the reader’s interest. Try black-and-white, selectively colored, or sepia-toned photos for something a little different.
• Select papers and finishes to further set your piece apart, taking into consideration textures, coatings, varnishes and unusual shapes and sizes.

Be creative, but don’t skip on the basics, such as including all special fonts in the files you send to your printer. Skipping this step can lead to printing delays. Also, in your enthusiasm to be different, avoid using techniques that make copy difficult to read, such as over-hyphenating, using too many windows, and filling every space with text.

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