30 Jul Designing with the end in mind can transform great design into a brilliant result that actually works for you
As designers our days are spent in WordPress and Adobe, in the office Microsoft Word and Powerpoint are somewhat considered swear words.
However, to you they probably form the foundation of your business day.
Doing things, whatever it is, is always the most straightforward when you are using the right tools or system. But, the right tools for me – may not be the right tools for you.
Let me give you an example.
A business coach client is working on a new product to launch, she knows what she wants to say, how she wants to say it, but has no idea on how to make it look good.
In the brief there was talk of a letter – however when digging deeper what was needed was more of a digital presentation.
If we didn’t think of the end in mind she may have got a PDF that:
- She can’t edit and tweak
- Is portrait orientation
- Is costly to amend as she needs to pay us
- But it would be a great looking document
Now, what she actually has is:
- A beautiful looking Word document
- Is 100% editable by her so she doesn’t have to pay another penny when she does the campaign again or wants to use the resource for another project
- Designed in a way that one small tweak won’t throw the whole flow out – bringing out many a swear word
- Is landscape orientation so it can be viewed nicely on a screen
- Has click throughs to the booking calendar and website
It’s so easy to make things look nice…
How often have you looked at new builds on Rightmove and thought: ‘great but how to I see the TV, where do I store my hoover, where do the kids’ clothes go?’
The interior design is beautiful – but who is the homeowner that wants to live in a home with no possessions?
Check this home out – currently on sale for £209,000, how on earth do you sit down for a cosy Saturday night with the one you love and watch a film? But, if your happy place on a Saturday evening is sitting with friends in a Covid-safe environment it absolutely ticks the boxes.
Graphic design and web design can be the same, sometimes the designed item looks amazing at first glance but on closer inspection you see that the headlines are rubbish, the content is all me me me and not talking to you, the call to actions are missing and it just doesn’t actually reflect your message and who you are. And, like mentioned, the designed item may not actually be the right end product that you need to solve the marketing challenge your business has.
It’s all part of the design challenge
While spending time with the lovely Microsoft is not where any designer wants to be 100% of their day – personally I relish the challenge of seeing how amazing I can make a letter given the restraints of a word processor.
Designing in Microsoft is like a carpenter being stripped of their powertools.
It puts you right back of the foundation of your craft,
- Using the best fonts,
- Using different weights and sizes to emphasise certain messages,
- Not relying on beautiful graphics and illustrations to do the hard work.
It doesn’t stop with the desktop publishing apps
At TukTuk we have helped happy clients with easy to use PowerPoint presentations, websites, email templates and even Canva social media graphics.
What have you bought for your business that has been rendered useless because you can’t now use it?