17 June 2011

Why Design Matters

Statistics show that only 15% of small to medium businesses recognise the role that design plays in their company; a statistic that make us just want to educate, educate, and you've guessed it, educate.

While everyone knows how tough it is when you are first starting up with a mini budget, getting a strong brand should be a priority, for two main reasons among many:

To effectively communicate who you are
To stand out against competition

Let me give you an example of why these are important. Lets say, ladies, you decide to treat yourselves to a bit of a pamper, and as you take off down the street, you come across two beauty salons. This is what they look like:


Which one would you go to? If it isn't the right one then you clearly need to go to Specsavers (got to love their adverts!). Now, this does not by any means, mean that the right salon is better than the left in any way, but we make judgements that it is going to be more reliable, warmer and more luxurious, and with much more experienced staff - all based on it's appearance.

Let us try again, but this time for the men. So men, you decide to treat yourselves to a hair cut. You take off down the street and you come across these two Barbers:


Which one are you going to trust with your hair?

Again, for all we know, the Barbers on the left could be far more experienced than those on the right, but that is not what they communicate with their image, and is not how we see it, as the audience.

A lot of businesses make the mistake of thinking that a brand is just about a logo, but in reality, it is the whole look of your business and who it is. It is the character, the voice, the personality. A brand enables you to communicate your business consistently on many levels.

As you can see from the above right pictures, it is not just about the signage, but the entire look and feel of the salon as a whole. It is the details like the plants, the curtains, the soft lighting. It is the colour palette and the interior decor.

We hope that this has given some food for thought anyway. We would also like to end with the fact that these images were all randomly grabbed off google, and we are by no means indicating that any one of these businesses is better than the other; we are merely stating what their image says to us. Perhaps this will be good market research if one of these is your business.

2 comments:

  1. Just popped over to see if your wedding post is up yet & hadn't read this one before. It's really good. I want to go to that salon on the right. Preferably right now (working-from-home-hair-a-mess etc). Had to smile at the man's salons though - have a horrible feeling my other half would go for the one on the left - he is a bit wary of anything approaching male grooming and so on. He goes to a bloke named Harry in Hereford. Ah, men....
    xx

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  2. Hello Charlotte - thank you for your thoughts! I could do with some pampering too - too much work and not enough play I think! Yes I think there would be a touch of the old chest banging with a lot of men, when it comes to grooming! xx

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