Design quality refers to the value of a design to your customers. While beauty is in the eye of the beholder and design preferences can be subjective, good design is quantifiable based on a few shared attributes. Being able to determine the quality of a design is a fundamental skill for designers.
If you know anything about design systems and why they work so well, it’s because of the building blocks and guidelines you can follow. These are the building blocks for good design:
Keep It Simple
When graphic design is part of the package of messaging that you want to deliver for your customers, you must keep in mind that the work is not really about you. It’s part of the package of communication you want to deliver for your customers.
Quality design should follow the principles of visual hierarchy. Keeping it simple ensures that message is easily understood. By taking away distractions, the focus can be on the most important parts of the message.
While modern art can be an expression that can be interpreted by the viewer, the design of your brand or business shouldn’t follow the same rules. It should be easy to decipher and capture attention quickly. With all the competition you have, it’s hardly the right decision to confuse your customers with elaborately unnecessary design.
Outline Your Goals
Like any successful business, your designs should also come with their own set of goals. What are your design goals? Each piece of design collateral or marketing material should achieve something for the business. Whether it’s brand awareness or a visual way to communicate your proposition, having that in mind would ensure that those goals are met successfully.
Quality design is a visual solution that communicates your brand and tells a story to anyone who wants to listen.
Your design should speak to your target audience and attract them. It should communicate your brand effectively. Are you serious or playful? Professional or casual? The theme needs to be consistent across the board to ensure a unified customer experience.
Consistency is Key
While there are many choices when it comes to good design, a brand owner should realize that consistency is key to quality design. Keeping your design cohesive across channels and different marketing collateral will make a brand stand out and be easily identifiable.
The best designers understand this and will stick with design systems and brand guidelines to ensure the work that has been produced is aligned with the right aesthetics. Good design should reinforce branding, not fragment it further with confusing and sometimes contradicting styles.
With repetition, your designs can help improve brand recall. That’s what matters the most because you’ll want to stay on top of mind with your customers.
Make it Accessible
Accessibility means that a design can be used by a wide audience, including people with disabilities. Your designs should be practical.
Keeping aspects like colors and element sizes in mind can help people with color blindness better interpret the designs you’ve created. The goal should be clarity. Whether it’s in font choices and contrast between text and background colors, you’d want to consider making them easily distinguishable with clear labelling.
To Sum it Up
Quality design is by extension how you communicate your brand visually. By building an inclusive, accessible and easy to understand brand, you’ll be appealing to a wider audience that can feel good about working with you. The design you use should convey your brand story in an authentic and approachable manner. Need help with your designs? Let Mad Creative Beanstalk be your partner to give you designs your brand deserves. We can show you what quality design looks like.
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