How advertising graphic design boosts sales

It should come as no surprise that we view graphic design as a vital aspect of advertising.

Graphic design is a key tool for capturing the attention of potential customers and helping you create and maintain a consistent brand identity. It allows you to build up a visual identity that's in line with your brand’s messaging, products, and personality.

As we’ll explain later in this article, maintaining a consistent brand image is vital for creating a base of loyal customers, improving brand reputation, and ensuring the long-term growth of your business.

We’ll show you how to use clever graphic design techniques, developed with a helping hand from consumer psychology principles, so that the resources you invest in your brand’s graphic design strategy can concretely boost your sales rates.

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What’s advertising graphic design?

Advertising graphic design is essentially the art of using visual components to create commercials. It's a blend of marketing and graphic design, aiming to influence viewers to buy a product or service.

In our fast-paced and visually-driven world, effective advertising requires more than just well-crafted content. You might only have a few seconds to grab your audience’s attention, and eye-catching design is your best bet to do just that.

Key components of advertising graphic design:

• Focus on advertising: While graphic design covers a wide range of visual communication, advertising graphic design is specifically for commercials. This includes things like print ads, social media ads, and billboards.
• Visual appeal: The main purpose is to grab attention and be memorable. Eye-catching visuals are key to grabbing a potential customer's interest for a split second.
• Persuasive message: There's more to it than just looking nice. The design on the ad you’re creating should also communicate a message that convinces the viewer to take action, such as buying something or learning more.

How good graphic design improves advertising performance

1. Memorable first impressions

Humans are visual creatures, and first impressions matter.

High-quality and visually appealing designs will captivate your audience's attention, and will be the first signal they get to keep paying attention to your brand.

Engaging ad visuals will create positive associations with your brand from the start, increasing the likelihood of interactions and conversions from prospective customers into actual sales.

2. Better communication

When it comes to convincing your audience of your brand’s value, words are not your only communicator.

Graphic design is a powerful tool for effective communication, and visuals can often convey complex information even more concisely and effectively than language alone. With well-designed graphics, you can simplify your brand's message, easily highlight your key points, and guide your audience toward a desired CTA (call to action) like signing up.

3. Widespread brand awareness

Graphic design plays a vital role in shaping your brand's identity.

Consistent use of logos, color schemes, and other visual elements helps to create a recognizable and memorable brand. Cohesive design elements across all your adverts instill trust, reinforce brand recall, and foster a sense of loyalty among customers.

Not to mention that your visual design is essentially an extension of your brand's personality. Let’s take typography as an example: your copy only communicates a fraction of the message your audience receives.

Your font choices massively affect the tone of voice viewers read your copy in, forming a huge part of your brand’s identity. A cursive font might give your brand a more down-to-earth, authentic feel, while serif lettering can communicate a modern and professional tone. And the possibilities become endless when you start playing around with bold fonts, italics, and lettering on the page.

See what other brands are doing to get inspired and test out different variations to find what fits your brand identity. And if nothing is quite hitting the spot, you can design your own fonts from scratch with our Fontinator tool.

4. Persuade action

Ultimately, the goal of advertising is to get people to take action, whether it's buying a product, visiting a website, or signing up for a service. Effective graphic design can nudge viewers toward that desired action.

A well-designed ad uses visuals to clearly showcase the product or service and its benefits. This eliminates confusion and focuses the viewer's attention on what matters most - why they should care. Plus, design elements like bold colors, limited-time offers, or countdown timers can create a sense of urgency or scarcity. This motivates viewers to act quickly before they miss out on a great deal.

How to use graphic design effectively in advertising

Graphic design is crucial for effective advertising. This section will show you how to use visuals to create ads that grab attention, communicate clearly, and leave a lasting impression. We'll cover topics like color, imagery, typography, and layout and explain how to use them to achieve your advertising goals.

Add mood and emotion

Graphic design is a powerful tool for manipulating emotions and driving consumer behavior. By carefully selecting colors, imagery, and layout, advertisers can create ads that resonate deeply with their target audience.

Colors are more than just visual elements; they're psychological triggers. A red can induce a sense of urgency, making it ideal for sale and promotion banners on your website. Conversely, blues evoke feelings of trust and serenity, making them suitable for healthcare or financial services.

Images can tell stories and evoke emotional responses. A heartwarming family portrait can foster a sense of belonging, while a breathtaking landscape can inspire wanderlust. By carefully selecting imagery, advertisers can create a strong emotional connection with their audience, making their message more memorable.

Create visual hierarchy

Effective advertising is more than just creating visually appealing designs; it's about controlling the viewer's gaze. By employing visual hierarchy, designers can ensure that key elements, such as the product or call to action, receive maximum attention.

A well-defined focal point is the cornerstone of any successful ad. Whether it's the product itself or a compelling headline, this element should immediately capture the viewer's attention. Designers achieve this through careful consideration of size, placement, and color contrast.

Lines and shapes are often overlooked but play a crucial role in directing the viewer's eye.

By strategically incorporating these elements, designers can create a clear path through the ad, guiding viewers toward important information.

Contrary to popular belief, empty space is not a design flaw; it's a powerful tool. White space, or negative space, creates balance and prevents ads from feeling cluttered. It also gives the viewer's eye a resting point, enhancing the overall impact of the design.

Improve readability

Typography is more than just about aesthetics; it's your brand's voice. The right font can evoke specific emotions and reinforce your brand's personality. Playful scripts might be perfect for children's products, while bold serifs can exude luxury and prestige. You can create a harmonious visual and textual experience by carefully selecting fonts.

Headings should be larger, bolder, and distinct from the body text. This structure makes information easy to absorb and prevents the ad from appearing cluttered. By establishing a clear visual hierarchy, you ensure that your message is delivered effectively.

Attract attention

Images possess the unique ability to tell stories. A series of product photos can showcase its versatility and benefits, while a captivating landscape can transport viewers to an idyllic world. By creating strong visual narratives, you can evoke emotions, build desire, and create a lasting impression.

Visuals are great tools for showcasing product features and benefits. Diagrams can reveal intricate details, while close-up shots can draw attention to unique qualities. By showing users how a product works through compelling visuals, you increase consumer understanding and confidence.

Images have the power to evoke strong emotions, creating a deep connection between the viewer and the brand.

A strong brand identity is built on visual consistency. By using the same color palettes, fonts, and imagery across all marketing materials, you create a recognizable brand image. This visual language reinforces brand awareness and fosters trust among consumers.

Animation is eye-catching and attracts attention. The human brain is naturally drawn to movement, making animated ads more likely to stand out in a crowded digital landscape. Whether it's a simple character animation, a logo that moves, or a complex visual effect, motion can significantly increase ad visibility and engagement.

By breaking down information into easily digestible visual sequences, Animation can explain intricate concepts in a clear and engaging manner. This is particularly useful for products or services with technical features that can be challenging to convey through static images.

Animation is also a versatile medium that can be adapted to suit various advertising goals. From creating humorous characters to showcasing product features in action, the possibilities are endless. Animators can bring ads to life through engaging, emotional storytelling and visually stunning visuals.

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A few bonus tips

Just because we like you so much, here are a few extra tips on how to create the most effective visual content for your brand.

Create contrast

"My favorite thing in design is the power of contrast: 1 tiny dot in color can make a design extremely powerful and attract the eye. Once the eye is attracted - the chances that your message will be delivered are increased."—Nastassia Rybak, Graphic Designer

Use online tools

There’s a whole world of online design tools out there to help you create high-quality designs, even with minimal graphic design experience. Aside from our very own graphic design tools (which we must say are pretty hard to beat), here’s a list of some of our favorite design software tools to get you started.

"To create impactful designs, you don’t need expensive tools. I would look for a budget-friendly and agile tool that I can use to develop my skills and express my creativity freely."—Maddy Zoli, Senior Designer at Linearity

A/B testing

The best way to assess how effective your visual materials are is to experiment with test audiences. Conduct A/B tests by creating variations of your designs and measuring their performance. This data-driven approach helps you refine and improve your visual designs based on actual audience preferences and behaviors.

Hire external talent

If your budget allows, consider collaborating with an external design team or freelance designer to help you improve your visual branding or marketing campaigns.

Remember the psychology of design

Advertising design goes beyond aesthetics by incorporating psychology to influence customer behavior. The psychology of colors, for instance, talks about how colors evoke specific emotions.

Red can create urgency, while green promotes feelings of calmness. Visual hierarchy uses elements like size and contrast to guide the viewer's attention towards the most important message. 

The Gestalt principles leverage how humans perceive visual information to create clear and persuasive designs. By understanding these principles, designers can craft graphics that are not only beautiful but also psychologically effective.

Your next steps in advertising graphic design

So there’s your overview of the huge role graphic design plays in encouraging your audience to engage with your brand and make purchases. Using Linearity, you should now be able to incorporate some of these ingenious consumer psychology principles when designing your brand identity and advertising materials.

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