Why Professional Design Delivers More Than DIY

You may have a hammer and nails, but you wouldn’t build your own house. The same applies for graphic design. Although DIY design tools exist as an alternative to hiring a designer, your company’s image isn’t where you want to pinch your pennies. Professional designers are trained to convey your message and being credibility to your designs.

A Designers Knowledge

Educated and experienced graphic designers have mastered the basics of design — they’ve learned how to show emphasis where needed, understand the meaning and symbolism behind colors, and can strategically place calls-to-action and key text. They are able to draw upon their education and innate design talent to help your pieces achieve the desired effect among audiences.

The Benefits of Designers

Professional designers understand a company’s business goals and how to translate them into quality work. They leverage their education and creativity to design graphics that convey the organization’s message in a way audiences enjoy and remember. They have knowledge of current marketing trends and apply them to your company’s graphics. Professional graphic designers explore how to creatively communicate your message incorporating fonts, colors and images.

DIY design tools give you the ability to do these things, but not the knowledge on how to use them effectively. Professional designers understand the full capabilities and limitations of the industry’s top programs. If you’re sending something to print, you should know how to properly prep the file (crop marks, etc.) and be able to create it in the necessary file format, such as EPS or PSD. Using a DIY design tool, like Canva, doesn’t give you that capability.

Designers Focus on Detail

A professional designer can also push your graphics over the top with their attention to detail. For example, when working with typography, they make their choice of font, color, line spacing and kerning based on the company’s overall brand and readability of the content. You want your message to be clear for the audience to understand. A professional designer curates and organizes several design elements in a reader-friendly way across several platforms. For example, projects that are digital call for different design techniques and knowledge than those in print. Knowing those differences can be the key to designing well for the platform you’re using.

Designers Save You Time and Stress

Designing is not an easy task. It’s thoughtful, meticulous and time-consuming. Coming up with a quality design takes hours, which you do not have if you’re running a business. Hiring professional designers minimizes the stress brought on by creating your own designs. DIY design tools take time to fully understand and use efficiently. Professional designers work with programs daily and are familiar with the capabilities of each one, allowing for a quicker turnaround than having to design the graphics yourself.

Using DIY design tools can confuse and unnecessarily complicate your branding efforts. Professional designers can deliver a quality product without the guesswork of what graphics will be the most visually appealing and connect with your audience.

Professional designers are trained to make your business look its best—find out what ours can do for you. Appleton Creative is an award-winning, full-service Orlando marketing and advertising agency that specializes in brand messaging, websites and digital marketing. Appleton works with local, national and international clients to deliver inbound marketing strategies and custom online ads to put your business ahead of the competition. At Appleton, we want to learn about your business, empower your marketing team and be your creative resource. Your SEO and social media goals are worth a conversation: contact us at 407-246-0092.