Good graphic design causes the viewer to take notice, be informed, and buy a product or service. That means knowing the target audience and designing for their needs. What would work for a young audience might not work as well for an older audience. A primarily female audience might not be attracted to design for a male audience. What would be effective in one culture might be a bad idea in another.
Graphic Design, from Back in the Day
After over 45 years of experience in graphic design (literally since junior high — I had my first client, a junior’s clothing shop, in high school, for which I did ads and fashion illustrations), I’ve learned one core concept — graphic design is a means to a marketing end. It’s not always about having the prettiest design. The important thing is effective design and meeting or even exceeding marketing objectives. The most important thing is your target audience.
I was doing design and production before we did it all on computers. I did newspaper production. Logo designs were hand-inked and photographed with a “stat” camera. I even did a stint as a typesetter, so I love typography. I have experience in book formatting, book indexing, proofreading, and copy editing, and my pre-press skills are excellent.
Strong Design and Production Skills
All of this helped me establish strong design and production skills. Local ad agencies will outsource their overflow production work to me.
I’m also able to recreate just about any logo image I’m given, and in a variety of formats. So often, clients only have a low-resolution version of their logo, like something off a website, which isn’t suitable for print materials. The designer is in the wind, and they need something professional looking. After I recreate their logo in several formats, including RGB, CMYK, and grayscale (all color formats), and vector and raster formats (file formats), I provide the electronic files to the client, so they always have a version a designer needs.
Talk to me about your graphic design needs.