By Minh Ho
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Branding and packaging TV events with years of experience
Before briefing a designer have a think about what you want to achieve. What is your overall goal? Is it to increase awareness for your brand? Are you trying to drive sales for a new service or product?
Then define your audience. Who are you communicating to? This will help determine the best media or format for the job. Will a mailbox drop of brochures be more effective in delivering your message than staff members wearing t-shirts with your message in-store? Your graphic designer will be able to advise you on the best format and medium to deliver your message based on your objectives, audience and budget.
You should have a budget in mind when you brief a designer. Be up-front about you budget. A good designer will be able to advise you on the best way to get the best value for your budget.
Do you know your competition? What do they look like visually? What messages and communications have they put out in the marketplace? This research can be conducted by you or the designer. If you are engaging the designer to work on a branding identity or logo design, then it is imperative that research is done on your competitor's brands. This will help you differentiate your brand, which needs to occupy a unique position in the market; this uniqueness needs to be reflected in your visual brand identity. Think about what makes your business unique - what can you offer the market that differentiates you from your competitors? That difference needs to be communicated visually and that message needs to resonate with you audience.
Every designer works differently so make sure you are comfortable with the way your chosen designer works as well as his or her terms, which can be negotiated. Some designers will charge an hourly rate and others will quote an overall amount based on a defined process. A common process is for the designer to present three concepts from which the client must pick one; this chosen concept then gets refined with the client permitted to make three rounds of amendments.
An important thing to be clear about is the final deliverables and ownership of copyright. Is the designer handing all digital artwork files to you at the end of the transaction? And are they transferring all copyright to you? Alternatively, the copyright to the designs as well as the digital files could remain as the property of the designer. For example, you might agree to have a brochure designed and the rights to print a certain quantity but after that, no further rights to the design; or you might want to have full ownership of the digital files so that you can re-use the brochure design in the future.
Being clear about what you want to achieve when you engage a designer is the first step to getting great design results for your business.
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