Designing Services in the Experience Economy: 4 Tips for Brands

Designing services in the experience economy is all about staging moments people want to talk about.

After all, that’s the core of the experience economy – making an experience personal, immersive, and memorable. Coined by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore in 1998, the concept suggests that brands don’t only compete on price or quality, but more importantly, on how they make customers feel.

A recent survey reveals that 45.9% of brands said customer experience is their top priority in the next five years, highlighting just how central emotional connection has become to long-term business growth.

So, how do you make graphic design services – particularly those that offer psychology-backed design creatives– resonate, scale, and stay flexible enough to evolve with your audience? Start with these four tips.

Tip 1: Map the Customer Journey First

Every strong service design starts with understanding how people interact with your brand, from the first scroll to post-purchase loyalty.

The customer journey typically includes five key stages: 

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision
• Retention
• Advocacy

Since the customer journey isn’t a straight line, mapping helps you spot opportunities for personalized services. It also ensures that your graphic design services work where they matter most.

For instance, this social media graphic targets customers in the awareness stage: 

By offering a clear solution to a common pain point: not having time to manage social media. The messaging is direct, the offer is visible, and the visual hierarchy is clean.

As the customer moves into the consideration stage, they want details. Here’s an example of social media graphics that guide prospects at this stage:

Each frame highlights a unique selling point, using crisp visuals and minimal text. 

If you want to provide a stellar customer experience, don’t use generic graphic design. This is where design unlimited services like Penji shine, from unlimited logo revisions to unlimited revisions, a brand can ensure visual consistency across all product touchpoints.

Tip 2: Prioritize Emotional Engagement

People remember how you made them feel long after they’ve forgotten what you sold. When you tap into emotion, you’re building loyalty, trust, and brand affinity.

Here’s an example of marketing assets that connect emotionally:

The dental campaign from Cosmos Dentistry uses soft colors, smiling faces, and reassuring language to reduce anxiety and build comfort. This is a perfect example of how professional graphic design services can be used to support empathy-driven messaging. 

Whether you’re listing treatments or creating a warm visual identity, the graphic designing services list should always include assets aimed at emotional resonance.

Here’s another example of visuals that go beyond service offering and provide an emotional promise:

These creatives feature pets, comforting environments, and protective scenarios. As a result, they trigger feelings of love, trust, and safety. 

This kind of campaign can be built quickly and consistently with outsourcing web design and tapping into professional graphic design services that understand emotional storytelling.

Tip 3: Invest in Visual Storytelling

Visual storytelling doesn’t require a big budget, but it does require intentional design. ​​Stories told through design cut through the noise, stir emotion, and stick with your audience. This is where design thinking and service design intersect.

For instance, let’s take a look at this multi-frame campaign, where the design highlights the vehicle line-up using a consistent and professional layout:

The use of sleek car imagery, bold typography, and trust-boosting callouts delivers a seamless user experience. This is a perfect example of effective graphic design services description in action — combining clarity, hierarchy, and persuasive visuals.

It’s also a reminder that when you use an unlimited design service, you can test and refresh campaigns without blowing your budget.

On the other end of the visual spectrum, this packaging design for slime products embraces playful, over-the-top visuals that scream fun:

Using bright colors, bold fonts, and interactive packaging (with recipes and QR codes) shows how affordable graphic design services can still create standout branding. It’s not just a label but a micro-experience that invites the buyer to play, explore, and share. 

Tip 4: Make Service Design Scalable and Adaptable

To stay competitive, your service design must be built for change. That means thinking beyond aesthetics and into designing services examples that can grow, shift, and pivot with your market. Whether it’s launching a new product line or updating a campaign across platforms, adaptability is how you maintain a strong brand experience.

For example, this campaign shows scalable design in action:

Each square graphic promotes a unique app feature while maintaining cohesive colors, layout, and tone. It meets users at multiple stages of the journey and allows for easy updates as features evolve. 

This is where graphic design services for small business ventures work well. When you get graphic designs on demand, you can keep every asset aligned, no matter how fast your service changes.

Now, here’s an example of adaptability in packaging design:

Despite offering different flavors with distinct visual vibes, the cans all feel part of one brand family. 

For brands with multiple SKUs or seasonal offerings, this is proof that great outsourced design can deliver cohesion. 

It goes without saying that your visual identity can’t afford to be static. When you switch to unlimited graphic design, you ensure your brand has the flexibility to adapt fast.

Final Thoughts

Designing services that thrive in the experience economy is all about crafting moments that matter. From the first click to the post-purchase smile, every interaction is a chance to deliver value, build connection, and reinforce what your brand stands for.

That said, the right graphic design services make all the difference.

That’s where Penji comes in. With a flat-rate unlimited design service model, you get access to a professional design team that’s ready to turn your ideas into scroll-stopping visuals.

Explore our portfolio or watch a short demo to see how we help brands tell better stories, faster.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the meaning of design services?

Design services refer to professional solutions that involve planning and creating visual, digital, or physical experiences to meet specific business or user needs.

What is design as a service?

Design as a service is a subscription-based or on-demand model where businesses outsource creative tasks like graphics, UI/UX, or branding to external providers.

What are examples of service design?

Examples of service design include mobile app user flows, in-store customer experience mapping, self-checkout systems, and branded packaging that enhances the customer journey.