Have you noticed a sudden decrease in your website traffic? Or is customer engagement becoming slow? Many entrepreneurs don’t readily realize that, in cases like these, design is often the primary culprit. You may not know it, but weak visuals may already be quietly sabotaging your brand. Don’t delay – here’s how to determine if your business needs a graphic design service.
Your Branding is Becoming Inconsistent Across Platforms
As you slowly build your business, you’re becoming unaware that your branding is getting inconsistent across your platforms. It may be due to the following reasons:
Different People Creating Your Content
Businesses that grew from the ground up will mostly encounter this issue. The graphic designer you hired to craft visuals at the beginning of your journey may not always be with you today. Additionally, developing a brand guideline may not have crossed your mind; thus, the lack of clear branding guides.
These will likely result in a fragmented brand identity, a graphic design emergency, if you will.
No Clear Brand Guidelines
When you don’t have a centralized folder or toolkit of your brand materials, including your logos, typography, colors, and templates, people will often improvise. When this happens, inconsistency occurs, resulting in a brand identity that looks and feels unprofessional.
Creating Platform-Specific Edits
It’s possible that you’re tweaking your content to “fit Instagram” or “this is purely for print purposes.” Adaptation is truly necessary, but you may not know you’re already overdoing it.
The Fix:
A graphic designer can do more than just prettify your brand visuals. They can also offer the following:
- Craft and reinforce brand guidelines
- Audit your current visuals to check for inconsistencies
- Create scalable design assets across all your platforms (web, social media, and print)
- Unify your visual branding to convey trustworthiness and authority
Extend Your Creative Team the Affordable Way
Outsource all your design needs to the pros
Your Visuals are Becoming Outdated
It may be that at the start of your business, you had fresh and professional visuals. Sadly, these don’t last forever. This is due to the following reasons:
Design Trends Come and Go
Graphic design also goes through trends, much like fashion or technology. What looked dashing a couple of years ago may not always look great. Outdated graphics (think heavy gradients, ornate logos, or drop shadows) are sure to make your aesthetics old and stale.
Evolving Technology
It can be that your visuals are no longer optimized for:
- Retina and 4K screens (causing pixelation)
- Mobile devices (usability failures)
- Dark mode (clashes with specific color palettes)
- These, and more, can make your graphics age poorly.
Updated Competitor Visuals
Let’s say your visuals still look phenomenal, but your fierce competitor has leveled up theirs. Their branding, which looks fresh, will make you look twice instead of away. This can dampen your style even if your services or products are better.
The Fix:
Have a graphic design service breathe new life into your brand visuals. Have them audit your designs, then do the necessary facelift.
You’re No Longer Standing Out from Your Competitors
Did you know that one of the worst things that can happen to your brand, aside from falling behind, is blending in? If you see your brand looking like everyone else’s, it’s a clear sign that your business needs a graphic design service. That said, you are at the risk of losing valuable opportunities to attract prospects and retain customers. Look out for these:
Your Visuals Look Generic
This is what happens when you use online logo templates, stock images, or DIY graphics. And if consumers can’t tell the difference between your brand and the next, they’ll most likely move on.
You’re Sending Out the Wrong Message
Weak or unclear graphics can send the wrong message. Your brand may come off as cheap, even if you are the better option.
Your Brand Has No Strong Visual Identity
When your business lacks a distinctive look, style, or tone, getting remembered can be a challenge. Unique design builds familiarity, which, in turn, builds trust.
The Fix:
Working with a graphic design firm or branding specialist can help you define your unique selling proposition. They can craft tailor-made logos, typography, or color palettes that look good AND make your brand unmistakably YOU.
Your Visuals are No Longer Attracting Prospects
For graphic design that no longer attracts attention or drives clicks, you don’t have to look far to find the root cause. It’s your design, and now is the best time for your business to use a graphic design service.
Your Visuals Lack Hierarchy
Cluttered and confusing content can be difficult to scan. If this happens, people won’t stay long. Potential customers would want to know what to look at first, why it’s essential, and what they’ll do next.
Your Graphics are Low Quality
Low-resolution images, inconsistent fonts, or off-brand colors can give your brand an unpolished and unprofessional appearance.
Your Designs aren’t Customer-Centric
It’s possible that when you first created visuals for your brand, your only intention was to get them right. In the process, you forgot to keep your ideal customer in mind. Thus, your graphics don’t resonate with them.
The Fix:
To help you correct this, you need to design with a purpose, not just aesthetics. In this instance, only a professional graphic designer can craft eye-catching visuals. They have the expertise in layout and typography and develop on-brand graphics that templates can’t.
Your Visuals are DIYed
DIYing design is perfect for startups and small businesses. This enables them to have visuals that can get them the attention they need. However, relying solely on Canva, templates, and other DIY design tools after your business has grown can result in adverse effects.
DIY is Still DIY: Amateurish
Unless you’re a graphic designer, designs made with DIY tools can result in amateurish work. It’s that simple.
Waste of Time
DIYing your designs instead of focusing on your business can be a colossal waste of your time. Your concentration is divided, resulting in a half-baked outcome, both in design and business management.
Not Good for Scalability
As your business grows and expands into new platforms, content types, or campaigns, your DIY may not be able to keep up. Sure, you can DIY that Facebook post, but a website redesign or brand campaign is out of the question.
The Fix:
A graphic design service can turn your vision into a cohesive visual identity. They can create reusable assets that scale with your business.
Final Thoughts
Knowing when your business needs a graphic design service can mean the difference between getting killer visuals or sinking with everyone else. Your business deserves great design, not just copy-paste elements. This is where Penji comes in.
Take a look at what our talented designers can do or watch a quick video to learn more. Or you can click here to get your first design.
