Let’s face it, it’s never going to be an easy task looking for a good designer. There are a lot of affordable graphic designers that are readily available but more often than not, they are out for good references. This market can be quite confusing. The question is – what is the correct graphic design?
Anyone can work with PhotoShop but does this make him or her a good designer? There are all sorts of graphic design qualifications that can be obtained – this, too, doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good designer. Design is being, an object, an organism……an entity.
Graphic design tells us a visionary story. It’s the way we react to it psychologically and the way we associate ourselves with designs by forms and colours. Designs need to communicate and reflect customer’s visions, needs and profile. At the same time, the design needs to separate the customer from their rivals. For example, a when printing onto a CD, the design should be easy to duplicate and reapply (Mass duplicating CD/DVD’s with the same image etc).
The customer will submit an outline of ideas of which, a good designer must be creative with. There’s no point in being over creative, designs also need to be put into context. While all this needs to be taken onboard, most importantly, a good designer will have to cope with financial and time constraints. A good designer would have mastered all of these areas.
Customers have control of how their own business works. The customer can always get caught up too much in the thought process, as they are heavily involved in the project. That’s why it’s always good to have someone with fresh eyes to see things that the customer may have over-looked.
“Innovation” is a word commonly used by a lot of companies – either in brochures, magazines or on websites. There’s a difference between being innovative and creative. Being creative means getting the best of the given outlines/constraints. Being innovative means thinking above and beyond the given limitations/boundaries.
A good designer will know what vital questions to ask customers. A bond and trust needs to develop between the designer and the customer. Once this has been establish, then together the boundaries can be broken.
A good designer of course needs inspiration, creativity and motivation is also the key. Most importantly a good designer needs to be in touch with what’s going on around. In-tune to what is evolving – this will need to be passed on to the customer who may not be aware. This happens a lot.
A good designer needs to take into account a customer’s strategy, and market position. The design needs to generate sales, revenue and get the point across to their target market. Choose wisely, choose carefully is my advice.
There are a few factors to consider if your design is for a CD/DVD label or, if it’s for paper-based materials. CD printing is a different process to paper or sheet printing. The print heads and inks are different. A CD or DVD usually has a plastic white-faced surface area. The design for a CD label or a DVD label has to account for the centre hole in the disc. Take for example, if a project involves a CD in a colour card wallet. Usually, the designs on both are the same. The designer should point out to the client that the colours will differ on the CD to that on the card wallet