if you are serious about being a graphic designer or making it in this industry with your creative
skills you are going to find this video incredibly insightful it might just be the most important
video that i've ever made on this channel so far so you probably want to take some notes
and listen carefully so i'm going to give you three key pieces of advice that was given to me
throughout my career and that i wish i knew from the very start so there are three key pieces of
advice in today's video and we can think of them kind of like a pyramid the base of the pyramid is
going to be the most essential the most important thing to understand and that's the thing we tackle
first and then the next level up will be the second most crucial and at the very top the third
most crucial aspect of today's video understanding and making use of all three components will truly
set you apart from other designers but let's take a look at the base of the pyramid and here we have
understanding the end user of your design if you are working on a design project for a client then
you're not designing for yourself you're designing it for a very specific group of people but do you
even know who these people are if a writer is commissioned to write an article for a female
fashion magazine then that person isn't going to start writing about sports cars or gardening tools
now why is that well the obvious answer is because it's likely not going to appeal to the end user
and won't fit with that group of people that it's targeting the written word of the article is
presented as a language and the designs that you present are also a language it's more of a visual
kind of form of communication and if you don't know who you're trying to communicate with then
sorry to say but your designs are going to fail to properly be understood and acknowledged by your
target audience you must do the research to find out what kind of people are going to be absorbing
your designs are they male female are they old or young are they wealthy do they like sports and
so on when you can visualize the person you are designing for then everything else can begin to
fall into place a lot easier now i understand that some of you work on very quick and kind of small
projects such as a sign or a poster and i've done those as well but even on such projects you still
want to know who you're designing for because if you don't what's the point of the design so once
you know who you're designing for it's time to look at the second level in that pyramid
and this level actually takes up the most space but we have the message always understand the
message you are trying to deliver through your design as designers we often get carried away
with small details and aesthetics but those things are useless if you have lost sight of the message
you are trying to deliver let's take a look at an example that's going to kind of clear things
up here so maybe you have a client who has a clothing store and are thinking of having a 50
sale on all of their products they will need to market the idea so people know
there's a sale and that's where you come in you're commissioned to design a poster for the occasion
now what is the message behind this whole thing you might say something like the message is oh
there's a 50 discount at the store and yes that is sort of correct but let's go deeper than just that
what really is the message here i can suggest the message might read something like this
you never guess what there is a limited time sale over at zash so you'd better hurry up if you want
to grab some really great deals on sleek designer clothing and do so before your chance has gone
so this second message is more detailed and it gives us many clues on how we can make our design
notice words such as hurry designer sleek and chance has gone these words can influence the
style of our design so we can express this message properly the use of bold thick typography and
bright colors might suggest the hurry part and also maybe using a minimal star layout
with specific imagery and models can evoke the sense of a sleek designer clothing appearance
and that might be what some people want to buy into your message will also
depend on the end user the kind of person that you're targeting and so you might want to tailor
that message for that specific group of people the third part of the pyramid is the smaller section
yet all three sections are crucial and they do need to coexist together but what do you think the
third part of the pyramid could be it's something i've spoken about on this channel a lot and that
is the graphic design principles things like alignment contrast balance proximity and so on
these are the little tools that finish a design and ensure that it's structured
properly and can help the end user become interested and engaged with the design itself
of course i cannot possibly talk about each of the principles in today's video because that would
take too long and you don't have to use loads of principles on a single design but they are a tried
and tested method for creating functional and effective artwork and they shouldn't be ignored
so to reiterate at the very base of the pyramid we have the need to understand who the end user of
the design is the second step is to understand the message that you want to send out via your design
and then the third step is to implement graphic design principles to pull the design together
so if you do follow this process you're probably going to find it almost impossible to make a bad
design so to speak and also your clients will be pleased as well that being said over the last 13
years that i've been in this industry i've met some clients that probably cannot be pleased
whatever you do that's just how it is sometimes but yeah i hope you enjoyed today's video and if
you did let me know with a comment down below and of course click a video on screen if you
want to see something else from satori graphics and until next time design your future today
peace
you