Gonink - Design & Print

The graphic design industry is in a constant fight to separate itself from other industries that are strictly commodities. For instance, you can’t walk into a firm and pick a website or brochure package off the shelf and have the cashier ring you up – it just doesn’t work that way. That’s not to say that per project fees may be applied to certain projects, but even those prices are going to have their limitations.

There is a misconception that graphic design is a commodity based industry and we (designers) just make things “pretty” to sell. Trust me, if that were even close to the truth, Wal-Mart would be selling our designs on their shelves.

But it truly takes time to develop a nice looking piece of material that meets the expectations of the client and puts them right where they need to be – in front of their audience.

I have a 3-4 step process when developing a project for a client and each step has numerous sub categories I follow.

1.) Discover: This phase is crucial to the success of any project. The meeting stage begins with the basic research and analysis of your company, the products and/or services you provide, your communication goals and the overall history of your company.

We then analyze the industry competition by reviewing either their websites or printed materials or both.

After we have a clear understanding of your product/services and your competition, we want to understand your target audience. Who are they? Where are they?

We now have a clear profile and want to set forth the proposal for your project. Once we have agreed upon the profile and the proposal, an acceptance agreement is all that is left before we begin the defining stage.

2.) Design: The design phase is probably one of the most exciting elements for our clients and for us as well. Typically, we’ll start with some thumbnail sketches of what we feel best suits the needs of your project. From those, we work our way to just a few selections that are the most appropriate and applicable. This usually means we find three that provide a strategic solution that reflects the overall goals and objectives from the define phase.

After the presentation, we work with you to decide on the best piece to develop even further. This piece usually is given at least one revision and then it is time to create the piece itself.

3.) Distribute: The final phase, distribution includes all the necessary elements that pertain to your project. Whether it be programming or proofreading, the distribute portion of your project is just as crucial as the very first step of the process.

If the project is a website, we test in several browsers to ensure compatibility towards the largest possible audience. If it is print, we review all elements to make sure a “pre-flight” list has been checked and validated.

We set a goal for ourselves to ensure that the entire process runs as smooth as possible and communicate to you what is being done, how it’s being done and any suggestions we might have to make the entire experience a pleasurable one.

So as you can see, developing any project is far more involved than just making things look good and does not allow us to make our industry a commodity.

What do you do? That’s a question you will probably hear someday when you start a business. I know we hear it all the time. It’s probably for a couple of reasons.

For starters, our name alone raises the curiosity in people.

Secondly, we’re a brand new business in a small town that lacks the services we offer. So, we always have people stopping by and asking us “What do you do here?” And just recently we discussed this in the graphic design community at About.com.

A generic response such as “We build widgets” is only going to get you an “Oh. That’s nice” response and that’s not the response we’re looking for. What we want is an open ended statement that states a benefit of your company over others. So let’s take the widgets scenario. Instead of the boring “We build widgets” response, what if we turned it into “We develop an engineered widget that helps our customers work faster”. Granted, that seems a bit too commercialized, but I think you probably get the idea. This answer will more than likely encourage the person to ask more questions. At which time, you go into more detail about your business and it’s products/services.

But what if you’re not a widget developer? If you’re hear reading this, you’re probably a graphic designer. When someone asks you what you do and you say “I’m a graphic designer”, what does that tell them? Not much really. Our industry is chocked full of people with a computer and some software calling themselves graphic designers. It might be better to differentiate yourself by saying “I’m a professional graphic designer focusing on (insert specialty here).” Or maybe you’re just a student. You could respond with “I’m a student in the graphic design industry with a focus on (insert specialty here).”

Whatever your response to the what do you do question might be, remember that your elevator pitch is that short moment in time to begin the marketing of your business.

And also remember to include the benefits of your service and how you help people. That’s the emotional connection that even the coldest person can relate to.

There is not a single business in this world that doesn’t have some sort of competition. As business owners, we all have to find a way to compete both professionally and ethically.

For our business, we are constantly trying to compete with the “big box” office supply stores. They rely on large volumes of work, so they can offer lower prices to their customers. You might find yourself in the same situation at one point or another. So how do small businesses compete?

First of all, you do need to try and stay as competitive as possible when it comes to pricing, but you also need to set yourself apart from the others. An advantage we push to our customers and clients is personal service. Being as small as we are, we can offer a client a better one-on-one experience than some of our competitors.

We also make it known that we are offering a more local solution to their printing needs. You see, we’re located in a part of the country where driving 20-30 minutes for products and/or service is not uncommon. In the past, people in our area had to make this drive to just get color copies. But now they can save on time and money by coming to us.

With these two advantages in our favor, we have set our self apart from the competition.