Whether you’re already in design or you’re a business attempting to create the best design possible for your marketing activities, we’ve got the best tips in the business! You could be a small business who can’t yet afford to outsource design, or you could be an experienced graphic designer looking to find new ways to make their designs pop!

At Kaizen Print, we understand how important it is for both professionals already in the design industry, and people with businesses, in general, to stay on top of their design. We offer a wide range of design services from Logo Design and Brand Creation, to Menu Design to Window Graphics.

We’ve worked with a wide range of businesses, in many industries and we enjoy helping people with their own projects! That’s why we’ve gathered our top 7 graphic design hacks to help you along the way: 

Utilise the best apps 

Using apps can be a great way for designers, especially new ones, to experiment!

  • Preview app allows users to plan and design their Instagram feed for free – creating grids with themes, borders, and the same filter
  • Hatchful is a great app used to create professional looking logos in seconds – just click a few boxes to answer questions such as type of business, name of business and it will come up with ideas for you that you can then edit as you please
  • Canva is used by both new designers, and professionals to create a range of web and print media, design and graphics. This app features millions of free photographs, graphics and fonts!

The power in contrasting fonts 

This is an easy way to add dramatic effects to your designs.

For example if you’re creating a poster and you can’t decide which typography works, a good rule of thumb is to use 2 types of font. The header could be a powerful bold font. And the other text could be simplistic and small. The fonts will balance each other out whilst creating a high contrast appearance.

Canva (stated above) includes a text match feature!

Matching colours

Have you ever seen a poster with just too much colour? A background colour, a different text colour and each element contrasting? This can look mismatched and like you haven’t thought about creating a meaningful design.

By matching elements, fonts, and font holders with your main element you can create a harmony in the overall design. Tip – you can find the exact colour from an image by using a colour picker tool (you will receive a hex colour which can provide you with a colour palette).

Simple shapes and icons 

These simple elements can be an innovative method to use in any design in order to share information in a simple, yet creative way. It can minimise the wording in a design e.g. using icons to illustrate percentages, using graphs to showcase data.

Let customers know it’s you 

Creating a coherent brand enables your business to be recognisable without them even thinking about it. You can do this by using the same layouts, text placements, colours and typefaces in each of your designs. This creates an overall effect of sophistication and purposeful branding.

Keeping it simple

Creating design can be overwhelming. You may be drawn to many different elements, and want to include them all. In-fact, this can harm your designs and leave them looking unprofessional. Effective design is clear cut and balanced. You can space out elements and benefit from not losing the audience due to an overcrowded design technique. 

  • Every element should have its own space to breathe!
  • You can use simple, yet effective backgrounds to make messages stand out
  • Create weight and proportion by sticking to symmetrical elements

Utilise the power of colours

It’s no secret that some colours are associated with emotions and how they make people feel according to psychology. Everybody creating design should have some idea of what colour would work best for their industry.

Examples of colour to evoke emotion in design:

  • Red can be related to passion, importance, excitement and boldness
  • Yellow is happy and bright and stands for optimism
  • Green can be associated with health, growth and peace
  • Blue shows trust and strength

At Kaizenprint, we not only offer high quality digital, litho and large format printing that are perfect for any business … we care about you! We welcome anybody to contact us with any queries about their own design project – one of our extremely talented and friendly design team members will be able to help you!

We are passionate about design, and with a wealth of industry knowledge, we will be able to assist. Fancy a look at our designs? Click here