Angela Jenkins asked:

‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ goes the old adage, and no one can question either the truth or the pertinence of the remark. Anyone is naturally more attracted to an image than he or she is to a lot of written words. Keeping all this in mind, advertising for products and services using images and graphics makes a lot of sense.

Symbols have been a part and parcel of the story of human history. All the ancient civilisations and cultures had their own set of symbols and signs that defined their belief system and their way of life. In fact, the alphabets that form the basis of our spoken and written languages have evolved from the pictorial representation of objects around us.

Coming into modern civilised society, these symbols, while changing the role they played, did not lose their pre-eminence in shaping the society. Just think about the **** swastika and the Holy Cross. Symbols have evoked in us all the possible emotions; faith, hatred and love to name just a few.

Keeping the historical and psychological significance of symbols in mind, graphic designers try to create designs that can convey the major features or discerning characteristics of the product or service they are making the designs for.

mdsDESIGN, which was formed in 2002 by Marie deFontenay Coles, is a graphic designing firm providing innovative design solutions to customers all over Australia. The areas covered by mdsDESIGN include high-end graphic design, web design and advertising. Marie deFontenay Coles, the founder of the company also works as the (hold your breath) Director, Client Manager, Art Director, Designer, Print Production, Producer and Receptionist. This is someone who believes in multi-tasking. mdsDESIGN is also a member of the Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA).

The business model adopted by mdsDESIGN is unique in the field of graphic designing. The boutique style business allows this personalised service, building client relationships and providing complete attention to detail from the initial concept to the final production. With a grand total of 25 years of experience behind her, Marie is sure to provide you with the exact solution for your designing needs. The company provides designs and solutions for: logos, brand or corporate identity, brand naming and identity, brand revitalisation, brochures, leaflets and catalogues, corporate literature, environments/signage, displays, website design, point of sale, packaging, print and press advertising. So for all your design and advertising needs, just visit www.mdsdesign.com.au. On the site you can know more about Marie and mdsDESIGN and also have a look at examples of various creative solutions provided by the company over the years.

Website Design Weston asked:

If you run a business and you have any form of corporate identity then you should care very much. How you present your company to your chosen market is fundamental to its success.

The graphic design process is crucial to any business, making it stand out head and shoulders from the competition. Whether it is the design of an entire corporate campaign or the creation of a simple company logo it still has to work effectively for you. There are four critical elements that should be seen in every logo design:

• It must be describable

• It must be memorable

• It must be effective without colour

• It must be scalable

Fairly obvious really but how does your logo stand up to these criteria? How does your company identity stand out from the competition?

Ask yourself why something is designed in a certain way. Consider why a particular colour is chosen instead of its opposite. Why use this font? Why include this particular graphic here? A good designer will think through every detail of a design and only include elements that will add to the design and re-enforce the brand.

Once your business is up and running you may think that any form of corporate identity will act to represent the company, visually creating a brand by default. Think again. If you look at the large corporations you will notice that their brand strategy stands the test of time for many years.

Many companies never change their logo design dramatically but only make the smallest of changes to keep the design looking modern and refreshed.

Benefits:

• Professional image

• Considered and long-lasting design strategy

• Make your company look bigger

• Stand out from your competition

• More effective

By Ben Smith

- Website design somerset- Professional Website Design Weston-Super-Mare

anton ardjanggi asked:

Few years ago, I had an opportunity to discuss with one of Indonesian well-known ‘branding expert’ about “how we can survive as a graphic designer, specially a freelance graphic designer. Does style affect?” He said, “What is style?! Go to hell with it. Style is killing designer!”

His answer really shocked me, because I am a graphic designer who likes certain style of design, and without I realized people recognized my work by that style.

What he said might be true for graphic designers who work at advertising agency or some creative boutiques, because they have to be able to fulfill what clients need and obey their boss.

It made me think. Do I have to change my style?

Then I tried to trace all the way back. I have been 10 years working on graphic design field, during that time I always design with a certain style which more oriented to German style that has a certain characteristic such as ‘neat, compact, well alignment with strong square or rectangle geometrical shape’. In fact, in my early years I broke the design style one of the biggest local bank which already known as a very conservative bank with ‘minimalism, modern and geometrical’ kind of design.

That makes me sure that graphic design style is not always about era, just like many people think. Style is more related to like or dislike. In other word, a certain style won’t kill designers’ life.

On the other way around, a freelance graphic designer will be able to survive with his/her own style.

A freelance graphic designer, who has his/her own style, unconsciously would create his/her own target market. With their portfolios, prospect clients would see the characteristic of their artworks.

So, to those (future clients) who like our design style will fall in love automatically when they see our artworks without wasting more time to brief us what they want. The only information we need is about product they sell or message they want to deliver. They already trust us on how we will visualize it.

We don’t need to deal with hard to please kind of clients.

But still, it doesn’t mean that we are stuck and stop digging our creativity. Explore and strengthen the style in order to get the personal touch, that way our style will be our identity in graphic design industry.

Design style that becomes identity is very important for freelancers, because it is not easy for freelancers to get new clients. That is how to attract new clients.