In my early days as a designer, I learned a lesson in a not-so-appealing way. I was working on an ad campaign with a more senior colleague, a digital marketer with about nine years of experience as of 2021.

The task was simple: design ad posters for social media and websites. I got the copies for the posters, and straight away, I went ahead to design them following the brand style guide, which is expected to keep brand consistency, but I got bounced. Guess how many times—did you say once? No, I got bounced thrice😒.

This experience made me curious. I wanted to know what I did wrong and what I could have done better. This led me to ask questions, do some research, and make observations.

Here are some of the lessons I learned from this experience:

Collaborate with everyone on the marketing team:

Marketing is not a craft that thrives in isolation; the success of a marketing team depends on the input of different stakeholders in the team; hence, regular communication among every team member ensures alignment between strategy and execution. As a graphic designer, this team is a cheat for you to succeed on any project and marketing campaign. Oga, don't be mystical; share your ideas with them; let them share theirs also, and you all conclude what works and what is obtainable for the campaign.

Understand the target audience:

If you notice the heading does not read define the target audience, it says understand the target audience, because the target audience has been defined from the conversation you had with the entire marketing team, which leaves you with one assignment: understand them!

This is the time for you to wear your researcher hat, learn more about the audience, how they have previously related with similar product campaigns, their visual appeal, and competitors visual analysis, to mention a few. The goal for this is to create well-informed and data-driven designs.

Develop a comprehensive style guide: 

The goal is to ensure consistency in the designs churned out on all platforms, as design consistency builds brand trust. And the use of the same graphic design elements across campaigns to reinforce your brand identity. Here is a list of what you should have covered in your style guide:

1. Logo Use
2. Color 
3. Typography
4. Imagery
5. Background
6. Elements
7. Element & Brand Asset Placement
   

This is not exhaustive, as each campaign may have different requirements. 
A question to ask is, can design be traced back to our brand if we take out the logo from the design? If your designs passes this test, then you are a don when it comes to consistency.

Consistent use of brand colors can improve brand recognition by up to 80%.Pyschology research

Focus on Storytelling:

One of the things that makes a great ad is telling compelling stories through the use of graphic elements (illustrations, vectors, images) to tell compelling stories. Whether it’s through an infographic, a social media post, or a print ad, the design should guide the viewer’s journey.

One hack to storytelling is to understand the audience, because that is when you can tell a relatable story.

Visual storytelling should make complex ideas simple and not make them more complex.

Key Takeaways

Marketing is not really about how good the product is but how well you communicate the product to its end users, and you as a designer play an important role in communicating the ideas to the user in a simple yet interesting way.