Many students graduate and enter an incredibly competitive workforce filled with ambitious entrepreneurs, eager to make their goods and services stand out in a crowd. In tough economic times, often the first thing in any business to get thrown out the window is the need to be aesthetically pleasing. What many in the business world fail to recognize, however, is that competitive markets can only be tamed through an exceptional visual presence. Owing to this, it would be wise for entrepreneurial souls without formal training in design to hang up the keyboard and mouse and leave the design work to a professional.
With the rise of user-friendly programs like Microsoft Word, it seems that these days anyone thinks he or she is qualified to be a graphic designer. When these same individuals go into business, they are later startled to discover that potential customers remain unimpressed by a business card fashioned from a five-year old PowerPoint presentation. While something like a business card might not seem overly critical on the surface, having a visual presence as a company is.
This means achieving continuity through any number of media, from websites to brochures. Even vehicle graphics and textiles should fit into the system. Without any sort of a visual identity, new companies are likely to fall into the entrepreneurial abyss like so many before them–all because of a refusal to pay a professional designer or firm a reasonable wage to create a unique system capable of differentiating an otherwise similar product or service.
If one day you find yourself working for a company in need of the services of a professional designer or firm, it is important to step back and leave it to the person you hired to invent visual solutions you seek. That is, after all, the reason you hired them. This does not mean one should simply disappear and remove oneself from the equation completely. Instead, communicate with your designer and ask him why he’s making the decisions he’s making. At the end of the day, you should expect to see something that is visually impressive that gives your company the look and feel you desire. Only you, as the entrepreneur or manager, know what that “feel” is.
Whether you know it or not, if you intend on one day being part of the business world, you will likely have to learn to make peace with professional design. Even if you go to the trouble of purchasing the entire Adobe Creative Suite and learning the software yourself, chances are what you produce will still lack that professional flavor needed for clients and customers to take your company seriously.
If your goal is to manage or own a business and one day prosper in the entrepreneurial world, it would be better to just focus your efforts on that rather than font choices for a website. Call a professional and ask for his business card. You will probably hold on to it because you thought it looked nice.
