Last year, Nichole from Sweet Things Sweet Shop asked if I would like to help her out with some new rack cards for her business. She’s from a small town and these cards are placed all over, from the town welcome center to hotels in surrounding areas. Lots of people were going to see these babies! It was such a fun project to work on since I’d already had the pleasure of working with her on her brand and we’d become friends. Yesterday, Nichole emailed me because she’d found one of the old rack cards laying around and sent it to me to tell me how much she still loved her new cards (and how much prettier/fun/exciting they were from the previous owner’s work). The old card had been done using a template from good ole’ Vista Print. I’m not a fan of Vista Print, I think they’re too low quality (plus charge you for silly things, like uploading your own design) and always refer my clients to better vendors, such as Overnight Prints or Moo.com. But Vista Print isn’t the only reason the old cards didn’t quite make the cut. Let’s take a further look:

On first glance you can tell the difference between these. The new one is bright and colorful and completely matches their brand. It shows pictures of the sort of thing customers can expect should they decide to visit the shop (yummy candy, duh!). We kept it simple, but still informative, splitting up the text to give a clean and easy to read look. It’s fun, it’s sweet (pun intended, of course), and if I saw it sitting among a bunch of rack cards the looked like the old version you know which one I’m picking up.

So, how can you avoid creating version 1? The biggest secret is being intentional about what you’re putting out to people. And this goes for all graphics- rack cards, web graphics, advertisements, business cards, pdfs…anything at all!

What To Consider Before Creating Perfect Graphics For Your Business

1. What do you really want to say?

Unless you’re writing a book (and if you are, that’s AWESOME!) you don’t have unlimited space to say what you will. For this girl who has a hard time editing herself to the 140 character posts on Twitter, sometimes that’s a big bummer to me. But, you’ve gotta work with what you’ve got. Take note of what you REALLY want to say, what you want your ideal client or customer to read and start there. You don’t need paragraphs of text to get your point across…and honestly, if you do have paragraphs of text there probably aren’t many people that are going to read that much (it’s Twitter’s world, we’re all just living in it. Actually, I like Instagram a lot more. Take that Twitter!). Be clear, concise, and to the point.

2. How do you want your graphics to look and feel? Clean & Simple? Bright & Happy? Muted, but Elegant?

You have your copy, now what do you want the overall look to be for your graphic? Sweet Things is all about candy and candy is FUN, so obviously we wanted it to look happy and exciting (which is completely on brand of course). That feeling you’ve chosen will give enormous direction to how the finished product will look. And it won’t just be a boring green card with no flavor at all. (Yay!)

3. Where do you want to direct them to? What’s your call to action?

As with anything in your business (your website, your facebook page, your advertisements), you want to make sure there’s some sort of call to action. What do you want potential clients/customers to do once they’ve seen your graphic? Go to your website, visit your store, follow you on social media? Pick a Call to Action, then make sure it stands out!

4. Should you hire a designer?

Last week I talked about how, sometimes, templates can work for you in certain stages of business and there’s certainly truth in that. But consider if this is something that you might want to invest in professional help for. For a one day sign poster that will be irrelevant after a few days, maybe not, but for something like business cards (or rack cards in this case) or website graphics that so many people will see it may be worth it to you. For some, this will be the first impression they get of you and your business. You want to share the best possible image with them, not just an okay flier using the same template 100’s of others have used. Consider what your return on that investment could be if having a professional design your graphics gets you even more paying clients!

Then, make sure: your graphic is on brand, you’ve include eye-catching photos and there’s enough white space.

Of course, a good designer will know how to do this, but if you’re DIYing it take special note to double check!

Your turn: Do you consider these things before starting a project (DIY or with a designer?) and do you often take the DIY approach or hire out?

In the market for new graphics? Wanting to go from Vista-NO to OH, Hello? I’ve just updated my a la carte design services page. Let’s Chat!