CAT | Graphic Design Sheffield

Businesses are consumed by the prospect of saving money by outsourcing their graphic design. As a result, they don’t recognise the other potentials of graphic design outsourcing. To be able to optimise your returns from graphic design outsourcing, you should:
-     Identify your goals: The purpose of your project and the goals you want to achieve with your design will help you get the best out of the graphic design outsourcing decision. If you know the purpose of your project, you can ensure that the design helps achieve your objectives.
-     Cost to Quality Aspect: You need to find a company that is not only affordable but gives importance to the quality of graphic designing. A focus on quality helps you ensure that the project will be well-planned, well managed and more importantly well designed.
-     Company credentials: It’s all about hiring the right company for your needs and requirements. Make sure that the credentials of the company that you are doing business with are rock solid. It must have a proven track record of successfully delivering graphic design projects.
-     Tracking Development: Before the start of the project, ask for a phased time line and make sure that the company sticks to that time line. Any delay must be explained to your satisfaction.

·

As a part of web design, Graphic design is meant to provide a visual message to the visitors of the website. An important factor to consider while designing graphics is to grab the attention of user for a long time, while, simultaneously ensuring that the graphics do not use too much memory space and impede the loading of the webpage. This factor is most important for Ecommerce websites where longer stays result in improved probability of purchase, while reduced loading speed may result in the user getting put off and leaving the website.

Sheffield graphic designers use various methods and techniques to create a visual display of concepts, ideas and messages. Graphic design consists of words, symbols, pictures, colours, lines, shapes, backgrounds, etc. Sheffield graphic designs ensure optimum organization of these elements and various visual arts and layout design techniques to produce the most effective result for the client. A graphic designer’s task involves arranging and using elements on various types of media such as a poster, a package or a website. Sheffield graphic designers make extensive use of special graphics software, especially from Adobe, such as Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Flash and Acrobat.

There are many companies offering graphic design services, but only some of them offer specialised services in all aspects of graphic design and have a proficient team of graphic designers. They can do various type of work for you depending on your business such as logo design, brochure design, stationary design, flyers, posters, etc. As graphic design plays a significant role in promoting your business, Sheffield graphic design also offers advertising assistance.

· ·

Graphic images play a vital role in graphic design. It is necessary for a graphic designer to make effective use of graphic images. Sometimes while trying to make a good looking web design, a graphic designer makes overuse of graphic images in web pages and they don’t give much attention on creating functionality. This impairs the website performance and also adversely affects its functionality. A graphic designer should understand that increased usage of graphic images results in slow speed and more downloading time for web pages. Therefore, graphic images should be used judiciously in the website.

The different types of graphic images which are normally used in graphic design are as follows.
-    Navigation buttons:  They assist the website visitors navigate within the web site
-    Image maps: These too are used to help visitors navigate within the web site
-    Logos: They create business identity and enhance brand name recognition through use of visual stimulus
-    Bullet points: They are used to draw visitors’ attention to the key points of any document
-    Mastheads: These are also called as a title graphic. Their main function is to let visitors know which web page they are on

A clever graphic designer should plan the use of graphic images so that it looks good and also downloads quickly. For this, one of the methods is to reduce their size without losing the integrity of the image. Graphic images are primarily used to improve web page functionality.  If graphic images result in a very large increase in download time, then the options are to either reduce the size of the images or to replace them with smaller images or other types of graphic images.

· ·

Jan/12

16

Use of a Logo

Graphic design companies take on the entire gamut of work for creating an Ecommerce website and its offline support mechanism. The work which is usually outsourced to graphic design companies includes logo design, brochure design, flyers and posters, stationary design etc. Since graphic design is one of the major components of business promotion, some graphic design companies also offer advertising support.

Why is a logo used?  One of the reasons is that a logo is an image and images are placed easily in a person’s memory and are also remembered faster than words alone. A logo makes a better and long term impact than words. It is a simpler way to promote a business or brand presence. It can also communicate what the business is about.  Logos present brand name identification and put in visual appeal to web pages. As a logo is a unique graphic image, it draws the visitor’s attention. It is very important for any business to have an attractive, unique and easily recallable logo design to project the business. Graphic design companies can help design a logo for your business as a part of their overall service activities package.

· ·

It is advantageous to contract out graphic design work to a local graphic design company. The main benefits of contracting with a local company include customisation of services, matching working hours, geographical proximity, convenience of approaching and contacting, similarity in value systems and approaches, common understanding of legal issues such as copyright, etc. Proficiency in Graphic Design is a combination of general skills and technical skills. General skills include project management, creativity, leadership skills, networking, communication, etc. Technical skills include ability to handle the relevant software like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXPress, Dreamweaver Flash, etc. and languages like XML, HTML, etc.
A Graphic Designer should appreciate the difficulties in designing for an Ecommerce website vis-à-vis other types of websites. An Ecommerce web design consists of designing catalogs, product pages, templates, shopping carts, payment gateways and many more. An easy-to-operate Ecommerce website is a union of good planning and competent execution. An effective Ecommerce design is clean, concise, comprehensive, reliable and easy to use. The inputs of an adept Graphic Designer with knowledge of the local target market are indispensable in creating such a website.

· ·

Graphic design for an Ecommerce website plays a key role in promoting online business. Therefore, when outsourcing the graphic design of your Ecommerce website, you should give special attention and look for certain things in the graphic designing company, like their prior experience, proficiency and skills of the team of graphic designers and the quality of their work portfolio. One of the most important things to check out is whether the graphic design company offers custom-built services to its clients.
With more and more people opting to take their business online, it is essential for graphic designers to make a website attractive and eyeball-catching so that it stands out in the midst of competition. This makes graphic designing an amalgamation of the graphic designer’s skills not just in creative design but also in project management, networking, photography and calligraphy. It is essential for graphic designers to communicate with their client effectively in order to have a better understanding of the clients’ requirements in any project. This helps them in designing graphics to meet the client’s specifications.

·

Lots of companies offer graphic design services, but very few offer specialised services in all aspects of graphic design and have proficient team of graphic designers. These companies can do different kinds of work such as logo design, brochure design, flyers and posters, stationary design etc. Since graphic design is one of the major components of business promotion, some companies also offer advertising support. Graphic design is the most critical part of web designing as it helps create the first impression on visitors. Hence, it is imperative for companies offering graphic designing services to have skilled and experienced manpower delivering high quality services to clients.

If you are looking to outsource your graphic design, then you should choose companies which offer customised services. The main advantage of having customised service is that you can get consistency in every aspect of the graphic design from brochures and logos to stationary and website design. In case of web design, graphic design is meant to establish visual communication between the website and its users to create a meaningful website experience. An essential thing to consider while designing graphics is to capture the attention of user. This aspect is most important for Ecommerce web sites since visits may translate into sales.

· ·

A graphic designer’s task involves arranging and using elements on various types of media such as a poster, a package or a website. This is done through the use of specialised graphics softwares such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign. One of the essential requirements for a graphic design is project management skills. He should be able to understand the client’s project.  An effective graphic designer should be able to handle different projects and should be creative and innovative. (S)he should design graphics in such a manner that they would form an active communication between the client’s website and the target audience.
A graphic designer has an entire set of graphic images, including logos, bullet points, divider lines (horizontal rules), background images, headings (or text graphics) and photos, any of which can be used to capture the visitor’s attention. The graphic designer should ensure that the images on a web site match in colour, typeface and special effects. The navigation buttons, mastheads, bullet points, and divider lines look best if they are designed using one among the colours present in the logo. While using these, the designer should take care that the download time of the web page is not increased substantially. In case of delay in downloading, the graphic images should be sized down (in KB terms) without losing the integrity of the graphic image.

· ·

Graphics are found among reading matter all around us, including newspapers, books, magazines, etc.  As a part of web design, graphic design is meant to provide a visual message to the website’s visitors. It enhances their website user experience. An important factor to consider while designing graphics is to grab the attention of user while he is going through the site and attempt to make him/her retain the message. This factor is most important for Ecommerce web sites since the length of stay by a visitor on their website increases the possibility of generating an online sale to the visitor. Hence, special care should be given to graphic design during Ecommerce web design.

The graphic designer should communicate with the client and understand the message the client wants to impart to his visitors. This message can then be translated to images and transferred to the website though graphic design. Graphic designers use various methods and techniques to create a visual display of concepts, ideas and messages. Graphic design consists of various elements such as words, symbols, pictures, colours, lines, shapes, backgrounds etc. It is imperative for a successful graphic designer to know how to organise these elements and maintain a balance in their use. Visual arts and layout design techniques can also be used to produce the desired result. Graphic designers should be able to establish an active communication between the client’s website and the targeted audience through effective graphic design.

· ·

Graphic images are a very attractive part of websites and easily capture the visitor’s attention. It is very important for graphic designers to make balanced and proper use of graphic images.  Sometimes, graphic designers, in an effort to improve the attractiveness of web pages, tend to focus on the looks and forget about functionality. This should be voided because even if the web pages are very attractive to look at, but lack in functionality, or take a very long time to download, they lose their worth.
Graphics in web pages have to serve a function. The number of graphic images in your website is directly proportional to the time required to download your web pages.  More graphic images in your website means more download time.  Prospective customers may be lost if they find the website to be very slow. Some types of graphic images that are suitable on a web page like navigation buttons and image maps should be used and designed with functionality in mind:
Navigation buttons – These are used to assist your visitors navigate through your web site.  These navigation buttons must be pleasing to the eye and easy to read.
Image maps – These are used to facilitate visitors navigate your web site and add to the visual appeal.  But if improperly designed, they may increase download time of your web pages.

·

Older posts >>