Blog.

Article topics

Graphic design with function and purpose – Westwood vs. The Pizza

Mark Tomkins

There are some designers that are pure graphic designers – they produce pieces that are utterly stunning in their approach, layout and overall imagery. Consider these guys like the haut couture end of the graphic design world. In line with this, we ooh and ahh at the strangeness, quirkiness and sometimes completely bizarre designs that come out of the top fashion houses. We look at it and think – wow, but there’s no way I am ever going to wear that walking down the high street.

However, what happens is that these pure design pieces get watered down by more practical designers working for the high street brands and make them more practical to wear, whilst still retaining that design element that made you go ‘ooh and ahh’ on the catwalk.

Graphic designers are the same. Bringing the conversation back around to the type of designers that I mentioned at the start, consider these guys to be like the fashion designers at Gucci or Vivienne Westwood. We look at their work with admiration and awe and then we take those concepts and apply them to something that is a bit moreĀ palatableĀ in modern business.

Whilst we are lucky enough to work with some fantastic people who allow our creativity to flow untethered, we also need to make sure that the design work we produce is useful, practical and has a purpose. With the best will in the world, making a brochure about hydraulic components or local skip hire services as sexy as a Vivienne Westwood cocktail dress is going to be a tough gig, so we at Aubergine like to make sure that the design work we produce is useful and functional. By that, I mean that it works – it advertises your business in a way to encourage more business through your door.

We all see the hundreds of pizza joint leaflets pour through our door each week with the free papers and whilst in terms of quality of design they are, err, at the poundshop end of business, they work. They work for the simple reason that they pass that perfect litmus test – also known as they ‘Ronseal’ test and that is they do exactly what it says on the tin. Selling pizzas requires a couple of things – pictures of juicy pizzas with their names, their size, the price and above all the phone number or web address to buy it.

The same principle applies with almost all other forms of printed, and to a degree web-based, marketing. It’s a common trap for small to medium sized businesses to fall in and that is they assume that their potential customers know who they are and what they do.

Anyway, I deviate and this is a topic for another week’s blog.

My point in summary is that, if you want to sell your products and services, hiring a graphic designer (in particular, us!) is vital if you want to produce good marketing material that has a well-designed approach and encourages your customers to buy more from you.

Good graphic design is essential in your business communications.