Sparks Will Fly: How to work with a graphic designer to make magic for your business.

By Simon Francis

Is it a coincidence that you’re reading these words now? Is it luck, probability, random chance? Perhaps the things you need to pay attention to find their way into your awareness at just the right time. Maybe, contained somewhere in this book is an idea that unlocks a thought that unlocks the next exciting chapter for your business.

When good ideas are communicated effectively, their magic is amplified. That’s what great design can do. And this book will help you to achieve great design.

If you already have a business or you’re thinking of starting one, this book was written for you. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about design for your business, using language you understand. I’ll tell you the secrets that designers don’t want you to know, as well as the things they wished you did know – the things that make working together better.

The simple advice contained within, is the kindling that will allow those creative sparks to fly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Oct 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662941788

Book preview

WHY YOU NEED THIS BOOK

I’ve worked with enough businesses from startups to big corporations to realise one simple thing. For most people, understanding what design is, how to talk about it and incorporate it into their business is a very difficult thing indeed.

It’s not like accounting, where 3+4 will always equal 7 (or 34). In design there is no right or wrong answer, but that isn’t to say it can’t be good or bad (effective or ineffective).

Graphic design is NOT like art. Art serves only as an expression of the creator. If you like it, you like it. If you don’t, so what? (See the documentary film Exit through the Gift Shop if you’d like to become even more confused about what art is.)

You could call graphic design ‘commercial art’ or ‘art for commerce’, though even that would be limiting. At its most fundamental, graphic design is art with a purpose. That purpose varies but the underlying function is to ‘sell’ something – a product, idea or movement.

From selling sustainable activewear made from bamboo fabric, to promoting a beach clean-up, the role of design is the same – to inspire action. In the case of a product, to spend money. For a movement, to donate time or change thinking and behaviour.

So why do YOU need this book?

Perhaps you’d like to learn how to contribute to a more effective design process? Or simply, that you’d like to know how to take the next steps to making your idea a reality – to put something into the world that others feel compelled to engage with.

Graphic design plays an essential role in this process, yet most people don’t know what it is or how to work with a designer. Why would you? You were working as a landscape gardener until inspiration hit with your self-watering plant pot idea. And whilst I don’t claim to be the world champion at graphic design, I know enough to help bridge the chasm that sometimes exists between client and designer.

If graphic design is art with a purpose, it stands to reason that we should start there. So, over to you. What is your purpose? Understanding the unique mix of motivates that drive you to want to build your business will give weight, power and direction to the design decisions you take moving forward.

We’ll unpack purpose in greater detail later. For now, keep this idea in your mind. Purpose has the power to supercharge your design, if you’re able to weave it into the execution.

WHY LISTEN TO ME?

That is a great question – glad you asked it. It’s important to question who’s telling us stuff.

I believe that you can trust me to speak about graphic design because firstly, I’ve been a professional graphic designer my entire adult life (and I’m in my early 40s now, so that’s a fairly long time). I worked as design director for one of the leading global brand agencies, Superunion. For eight years I designed brands in Africa and the Middle East, from banks to luxury resorts. In 2011 I founded a boutique creative studio in Cape Town, South Africa. Since then, my team and I have been working to create timeless, compelling brands for clients all over the world.

So those are my creds. The real motivation, however, for wanting to impart the knowledge in this book lies deeper. It’s a direct result of something I witnessed in the industry over all those years.

Working directly with the entrepreneurs, CEOs, marketing directors and brand teams looking to give their ideas the best chance of success through engaging design solutions, I noticed the gap that sometimes exists between client and designer.

I saw how misunderstandings and poor communication impacted the outcome of a project. And, conversely, how closer relationships and knowledge of a few simple things can dramatically improve the end result.

One of the things that has always enchanted me about graphic design is the process of distilling an idea down to its purest form — the essence or kernel of truth at the core — then communicating it visually. It’s amazingly powerful. This is the thing that separates a truly great design from a pretty picture.

Graphic designers are master communicators and so I found myself wondering if perhaps we weren’t missing an opportunity. Why, when we have such a refined ability to communicate do we so rarely apply it to our own process? We never thought to break down for our clients how graphic design works, why it works this way and what we expect from you.

I found myself naturally drawn to this space between; the no man’s land where neither party likes to tread. Because I really believe that somewhere in the middle lie the keys to success.

This book is my attempt to bridge that gap. I’ve distilled more than 20 years of experience into a few pages with the sole intention of helping you – the client – to achieve better design for your business. I hope what you read will be fun. I hope it will be useful. And I hope you manage to put something good into the world, made great through the power of graphic design.

You and I are Rüppell’s vultures.

Forget any negative associations you might have with the word ‘vulture’; these iconic African birds are the real deal. WE are the real deal, you and I, as we climb, climb, climb – circling forever higher as the air thins and the temperature drops.

At 11,000 meters we level off, scanning the ground from this unique vantage point – the highest achieved by any bird.

Rüppell’s vultures are all about working smart, not hard. Instead of flying long distances to find food, we fly higher and chill, the elevation expanding our field of vision.

In this chapter, we’ll be looking at the profession of graphic design in the same way, using our big-picture view for context. From this height we can address the ‘why’ before the ‘what’. Because understanding why you need design helps to clarify what you’ll need – and how to get it.

So float with me on this thermal. Let’s circle together, gaining perspective before we dive into the details.

WHY IS GOOD GRAPHIC DESIGN IMPORTANT?

You may be wondering why you can’t just skip all this hassle, open Paint or Canva and throw together a logo in your favourite colour.

You can do that, of course, but there’s a reason why the profession exists.

At its heart, graphic design is simply a very powerful way to communicate. It’s powerful because we use images to convey a message. You know the saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’? Communicating visually rather than verbally engages our dominant sense – sight.

Research estimates that up to eighty-five per cent of our perception, learning, cognition, and behaviour is mediated through vision. This means that we make unconscious judgements all the time, based on how things look – we make meaning from what we observe. And by employing the right visual cues, design can transcend language and cultural boundaries, too.

It is therefore vital that your business presents itself in the right way. When it does, you look like someone to take seriously, like someone who knows what they’re doing. This helps to overcome one of the biggest barriers you’ll face – the trust barrier.

Good design is the first step to developing trust.

Once your customers trust you, you stand a chance of developing a relationship with them. Without trust your great idea will be one of many, floating adrift in an ocean of information.

CURRY POWDER IN SWEDEN

Not so long ago I happened to find myself in a small supermarket in rural Sweden. It was late afternoon and had been dark for many hours, the sun a distant memory. With the temperature well below anything comfortable, the landscape blanketed in deep snow I felt a hearty, homemade curry would warm us up from the inside.

Disclaimer: Neither I nor my fiancée speak Swedish, which makes shopping there all the more fun. Sweden’s universe of products and brands is incredibly rich and varied, but surprisingly unfamiliar to us. Scouring this parallel brand universe for curry powder presented a plethora of options. So how did we choose?

We were drawn to a small, deep red and yellow-coloured tin with an ornate, Indian-style font. Why? Without the benefit of familiar brands and with language taken off the table, our decision came down to how the product packaging looked. We chose the design that communicated in an instant the correct cues. Or, to put it plainly, we chose the one that ‘looked good’.

The deep, fiery red was just the colour we’d want our curry to be as we devoured it later with a local beer. The little tin looked a bit retro, like something you’d find in a small spice shop in Mumbai and the yellow, traditional-looking font that curved across the front looked, well, authentic.

And that, right there, is an example of good design in action. The graphics on the tin helped me to hurdle the trust barrier faster than Dharun Ayyasamy, India’s 400-meter hurdles record holder.

Was the curry powder any good? Yes, it was, which, if I lived in Sweden might mean I’d buy it again. I’d instinctively reach for it as a brand I know I can trust.

LET’S TALK BRAND

You might be wondering why we’re diving straight into talk of brands. We’re barely getting warmed-up, I hear you thinking. I just need some brochures designed. Why the jargon?

Well, sometimes it pays to think ahead. It’s helpful when you’re starting your business to at least have a rudimentary grasp of what a brand is even if, for now, the concept of building a brand sits in the back of your mind.

Maybe you’ve heard the word ‘brand’ and thought it simply another word for ‘business’. Perhaps you’ve been told that you need to ‘build a brand’, but what does that even mean? What is a brand and do you really need one?

If this chapter is pitched too simply for you, skip it. But if you’d like to know why a product is not the same thing as a