Perception and Graphic Design, Part 1
Aka, how you perceive a design can make or break the deal
Graphic design is a central part of digital marketing.
As a digital marketer you'll either be working with a graphic designer or you'll be the one designing.
Human psychology plays a fundamental role in how effective the design is for your product.
How your prospect perceives a design is crucial. So much so it can make or break a deal.
This is a big discussion with lots to explore.
And therefore we should break it up into a series.
Today we'll look at graphic design and perception.
Graphic Design
When people think of graphic design, they often think digital art.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Canva...
But graphic design is more than that.
Graphic designers create brand identity, UI design, print design, and motion graphics.
It's not just digital.
When I took Intro to Graphic Design, we weren’t even allowed to use computers at any point in class.
Our instructor gave each of us a single material to use for every assignment all semester.
The only device we could use was a camera to capture the essence of the single material.
I was assigned sandpaper.
A dry topic if you ask me.
Sorry for the dad joke 🤓
Graphic designers create visuals to communicate a particular message to a prospect.
These visuals include typography, imagery, color, logo, and layout.
Graphic design is a visual medium.
It's all about…
Perception
Psychologists study perception to understand how our brains process and interpret sensory information.
Sensory information travels to different parts of the brain through neural pathways.
Visual perception starts in the eyes and ends with the occipital lobe located in the back of the brain.
This is heavy stuff.
But it's the kind of information that puts you ahead of designers who don't understand how psychology helps or hurts your product.
Knowing it helps you create with intention a high converting design.
We’ll dig deeper next time when we talk about color psychology.
But for now, I'll give you a little taste.
To get that dopamine pumping
Blue has a calming effect on the mind.
It causes us to feel at ease.
We feel safe enough to let our guard down and trust the brand.
🐦🐟🌀
This is why healthcare facilities often use blue.
To instill a sense of calm and trust in patients who are in crisis and visitors who are concerned for their lives ones.
Blue helps to alleviate some anxiety from the moment.
Red on the other hand excites us. It can also be associated with danger.
As you can see picking the wrong design element would completely change the mood.
We'll dig deeper next time.