Visual designs or graphic designs are one of the most valuable investments your business can make to get more customers, yet we see so many design fails everyday.
If you take a look at this study, consumers today are heavily influenced by a brand’s image (e.g. name of the brand, the product packaging & label design and materials used, etc.) when it comes to making their purchase decision, especially during the first time.
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| Bar chart shows the #1 factor that influences a purchase decision is brand image. Sourced from Impact of A Brand on Consumer Decision Making Process. |
It’s no secret that big brands and businesses spend heavily in graphic designs for branding and advertising. In 2021, Facebook generated a whopping 114.93 billion US dollars in ad revenues. However, only 9% of online ads are effective and get viewed by people for more than 1 second according to this study that analyzed at least 15,000 online ads. That’s a loooot of money that went down the drain.
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| Bar chart shows that only 9% of digital ads get more-than-1-second views. Image sourced from Marketing Week. |
5 Reasons Why We See So Many Design Fails
#1: Cutting Costs
There are 2 types of business people in the world: (1) people who DIY designs on Canva, (2) people who hire freelance designers.
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| Image generated from imgfilp.com |
First, to business people who DIY designs on Canva – I’m sorry but most of your designs turn out really bad…
Let’s face it. Entrepreneurs are busy and they often have multiple responsibilities to attend to. And for some, having 24 hours in a day is not enough! They simply don’t have the luxury to sit down and learn graphic design from YouTube.
On the other hand, qualified graphic designers spend up to 4 years learning about the fundamental principles of graphic design. And they dedicate their time everyday studying what other designers are doing, trying their hands on different design styles, mastering graphic design tools and software, and perfecting their knowledge about graphic design.
And the second type of people are the ones who go to Fiverr to look for the cheapest freelance graphic designer.
So we asked our friends and clients about their experience working with freelancers. Some of them are happy clients. But most of them went like this: “What the designer gave us was far from what we had in mind earlier. It was a total waste of time and money.” What you get often is something low quality and unattractive. Or something generic that looks like they’re made from a worn out Canva template.
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| Image sourced from imgflip.com |
And there are hidden costs to hiring cheap designers. Because the ‘final’ designs that you get are often low quality, you’d have to make extra revisions, one after another. Revision charges can add up quickly and would sometimes cost you a fortune.
Experienced freelance graphic designs are also hard to come by on these websites. There is a sea of under qualified designers out there. You’d have to spend a lot of time (psst, opportunity cost) to go through each of them and hope for the best that you find the right one.
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| Good design or cheap design? You can only choose one. Image generated from imgflip.com |
#2: Lack of knowledge and experience
Hiring freelancers on Fiverr is like going to a pasar malam. Every other stall is selling the same thing. And the next stall is always cheaper. But not every Ali, Ah Chong and Mutu on Fiverr is a qualified graphic designer. And because there are so many designers on Fiverr, it’s possible that the designer you hire is going to lack formal training.
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| Even with the latest Photoshop and Illustrator, without the understanding of basic graphic design principles, you don’t get high-quality designs. Image sourced from freelance graphic design group. |
Another thing about entrusting your design project to an under qualified designer is that they lack the experience to decide if the design is appropriate, outstanding enough or looks professional enough in your industry.
They also lack the creativity (accumulated from years of doing, seeing and experiencing many designs) to think outside the box. Sometimes, clients want to work with someone who can bounce ideas off each other. Not just someone who sticks to the brief or instruction.
#3: Bad communication
As Malaysians, we are masters of 3 languages (sometimes more). And we enjoy the fun of that. But it’s different if you’re working with an overseas graphic designer. Some can speak good English, while others might not.
Due to language barrier, clients sometimes find it difficult to explain their ideas to the designer. And often, they have to do it multiple times, which can be very time-consuming and frustrating.
Typeface? Hierarchy?? Kerning??? Miscommunication can also happen due to our gap in terminology. But that’s not your fault. Non-designers and clients don’t understand industry jargon (and that’s okay). However, beginner graphic designers often fail to empathize with them (which isn’t okay).
Something that we find effective at avoiding miscommunication is using visuals to communicate with our clients. When we receive a new project, the first thing that we do is to come up with 2-3 design styles for our clients to choose from. Design styles are visual representations of your brand and it usually includes:
- A rough logo
- The design language
- Colour palettes
- Fonts used
- Prototypes (or mockups) of business essentials such as business cards, letterhead, apparel, signboards, etc.
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| 3 design styles we presented to our client. |
By making sure that we and our clients are all on the same page, we avoid further misunderstandings down the road. While it’s important to make things clear, this first step is also necessary to help us plan our project timeline and deliver everything our client asked for in a timely manner.
#4: Poor management
Managing a startup or a small to medium business is very demanding. And often business owners find themselves struggling in a sea of tasks and projects. They don’t have the time and energy to lead a graphic design team and perform quality check on everyone’s work. Or, to manage and keep track of everyone’s progress so that the project can be delivered before the deadline.
That’s why more often than not we get to see funny designs fail, like this one.
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| Anal… Malaysia??? OHHH ANAK! Don’t forget to check text readability gaissss… Image from mothership.sg |
Or in most cases, business owners end up having to just go with low-quality designs. Like this one.
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| Eh, ad apa ini? Doctor ke, carpet cleaning service? Image from an extremely confusing domain name, carpetrxofluoisville.com. |
#5: Lack of Design System
Big brands and businesses consistently produce high-quality designs. In fact, they spend a fortune hiring the most capable Senior Designers, Creative Directors, or agencies to lead their design projects. If you don’t believe me – in 2019, Pepsi spent a whopping 1 million US dollars in their rebranding project.
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| Take a look at the breathtaking Pepsi rebranding document here. |
What’s worth 1 million dollars is not just the final logo, but how the logo came to be (logo philosophy), the entire brand design system (aka branding guideline), and how they are all implemented to the entire the company’s visual production.
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| Starbucks is well-known for their comprehensive brand design system. |
Having a brand design system helps you get consistent design results, reduces the time needed for back-and-forth revisions, and it keeps your visual production team in the same design direction.
Successful Brands Have A Brand Design System
Smart business owners who understand the value of graphic design invest in a brand design system that makes your design operations run smoother, faster and unifies every visual production under a single brand identity.
And here’s the best part!
You don’t have to spend 1 million dollars to get a brand design system. With only RM800 RM600, you can get a complete Brand Design System with guidelines about:
- Your brand design philosophy
- Your brand design language
- How to and how not-to use your brand logo
- The correct fonts to use and how to use them
- Your brand colour palette and how to use them correctly
- The right kind of design assets for your brand i.e. shapes, patterns, images, photos etc.