There are few things in life more subjective
than graphic design and color. You like blue, but the client
likes green. You want to use illustration, but the client
prefers photography. You like a serif typeface, the client
doesn’t. As the designer, you believe the choice should
be yours because that’s why you went to college and
have spent years working on design and branding projects for
other clients. The client feels because it’s their money,
it’s their call. However, the truth lies somewhere in
between. In spite of client/vendor differences, you are both
trying to achieve the same goal: to create design and branding
elements that make the strongest, most memorable impression
to generate maximum visibility and produce the most sales
possible.
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Companies often want to continuously alter design
and branding elements, because unlike marketing, the effects
of branding are difficult to measure. If the phone is not constantly
ringing or people are not knocking on the door, companies often
think the design and brand is to blame. Clients are looking
for the quick fix. However, they fail to realize that design
and branding elements only gain optimum visibility and effectiveness
over time. Branding should be viewed as a slow moving glacier
instead of a fast-melting ice cube. 
While it’s virtually impossible to ignore a glacier,
it's easy to overlook ice cubes, so let’s talk about
building a better glacier.
What’s the Best Color for Your Ice?
In design and branding, most people respond to color first.
Colors generate certain responses in people, both positive
and negative. As a result, before beginning to select a color
palette, it is important to first define and answer some basic
questions.
- What marketing problem are you trying to solve?
- Who is your primary audience?
- What are the key messages and impressions you want to
convey?
- What are the key selling points?
- What feelings and emotions are you trying to evoke?
- Who are your competitors and what are they doing?
- What’s the hierarchy of importance for these answers—what
do you want the target audience to see and comprehend first?
Once these questions are answered, the designer’s color
selection is nearly half done. It is important to take it
one step further and continually prod your client for more
descriptive adjectives. This is where the intellectual meets
the tactile. If you can describe your project as if it were
something tangible, like a person, it becomes easier to design
and select colors based on personal or physical characteristics.
As a result, much of the subjectivity that comes with color
selection and design style will be removed. Your particular
choice can be defended based on the strategic direction you
devise when answering those key questions. With your answers,
you will know if the design and colors should be warm or cool,
bright or subtle, flashy or quiet, jarring or calming, elegant
or rude, feminine or masculine. Additionally, the answers
will help establish the importance of the chosen graphic elements
and colors in order to generate the desired overall effect.
Graphic design and color are all about communication. If
the client feels that you truly understand their company and
grasp their messaging, they will be more open to your ideas,
concepts and designs.
Will Your Ice Float?
Congratulations! After presenting a few options and providing
edits, adjustments and tweaks, you and your client agree on
the design and color palette. As long as the design and branding
elements implemented are in line with the company's messaging
and goals, they will work. Once you have assured your client
of this, proceed with the confidence that comes with experience.
 However,
you cannot simply execute and wait for the cash register to
ring. What if it doesn’t ring right away and the client
is getting the itch to abort and start over? Remember the
quick-fix mindset discussed earlier? It’s important
to remind your client that not only is effectiveness realized
over time, but that there are also many other marketing and
consumer behavior factors that you cannot control.
For example, a downturn in the economy, a saturated market,
a product or service on the tail end of its lifecycle, an
insufficient initial promotion budget, can all factor into
a brand’s success. These variables are unrelated to
the typeface, logo treatment, design and color palette you
have developed. But how do you convince your client of that?
Try these two words: focus groups. Even though most designers
consider testing creativity as anathema to the process, it
can become a designer’s best friend. There is no better
way to prove to the client that what you proposed really works.
A well-executed focus group provides a sampling of the reactions
you are likely to receive from your target audience, and regardless
of the outcome, you win. You win if what you have designed
works the way it should. If it doesn’t, you win because
then you will understand what is not working and why, which
will better inform your next design.
The next time your client is thinking about changing their
branding for no other reason than to simply change it, ask
them how they prefer to impact their customers, with a glacier
or an ice cube.
Richard DeVeau is Creative Copy Director at Brickmill
Marketing Services (www.brickmill.com),
one of the largest full-service marketing and fundraising
agencies in New England. He has spent the last 23 years building
award-winning glaciers and can be reached at 800-535-3863.
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