many designers actually consider themselves Advanced designers but they fail to understand
and acknowledge what we're going to talk about in today's course the reality is that most graphic
designers are either beginner or intermediate and there's actually nothing wrong with that
but we want to level up and that's what we're going to look at right now being an advanced
level designer doesn't mean you become a pro with the pen tool illustrator or that you can
design 10 logos in a single day the advanced designer Dives deeply into visual communication
and design psychology and they really tap into the minds of the people they're designing for
the advanced designer can actually walk into any client pitch with confidence and that's because he
or she knows exactly why they may design choices and they know how the designs will evoke specific
responses within targeted audiences so let's look at how that and a lot more can be achieved
all projects start with a brief right everybody knows that and from there we move on to concept
creation and ideation but Advanced designers they want to expand on briefs and use them in
ways that other designers just simply don't know about the brief is important sure but
it should be a stepping stone to greater things and no I didn't simply mean mind
mapping yes that is a helpful tool but Advanced designers use briefs in slightly different ways
now there are many different ways how reverse thinking is beneficial in the early stages of
a design project you should of course identify goals in a design project and a brief but also
try this rather than focusing only on achieving the intended goal think about inverting that
goal this can obviously highlight some potential pitfalls in the project but importantly it can
also lead to different concepts and a different way of thinking let me explain say for example
you're designing a logo or a brand identity for a luxury fashion house you might determine then
that the goal should be to Target Elegance sophistication and exclusivity however if we
invert this we can think along the lines of boldness Simplicity and accessibility
of course you need to question whether or not the design will appeal to the target audience
in the brief but inverting their goal in your briefs or projects can lead to some
very out of the box kind of of creations and Concepts and this is often what separates an
intermediate designer from an advanced designer another huge part of reverse thinking is to
think from the audience's perspective now this involves that you think or imagine you are the
target audience of your project and then you need to kind of identify what would annoy you
and what would maybe not work for you here's a prime example let's say a designer is working
on creating a packaging for a new line of organic skin care products targeted towards
consumers who are environmentally conscious the designer might get carried away with the visual
appeal of the design which is fine but that's mainly intermediate stuff Advanced designers
will understand how strongly the audience is environmentally conscious and so they decide to
use eco-friendly materials for the packaging such as recyclable or biodegradable materials they also
incorporate minimalist design elements that convey a sense of Purity and naturalness additionally
they might add information about the product's organic ingredients and the Brand's commitment
to sustainability and they do this because they know this information will resonate
With Their audience and they will make that very apparent on the packaging this design will now
be elevated to an advanced level because of how well it targets A specific group of people this
is reverse thinking because most designers out there think about a design or project from the
designer's point of view they fail to recognize it from the target audience's perspective
when coming up with ideas and Concepts there is one thing Advanced designers simply just love
to utilize in the concept creation stages and that is metaphors metaphors provide connections between
seemingly non-connected objects or subjects and that can provide a novel way to make a design
concept so let's say an intermediate designer is tasked to design an awareness poster about the
spread of viruses the post that aims to emphasize how using soap and washing your hands is important
they might jump to the idea of showing someone simply just washing their hands the design is
just forgettable but moreover kind of boring the advanced designer might very well think in
terms of metaphors in the concept creation process they may take the word or concept of soap and then
bring that to memory or thinking about washing hands and that might result in a bold and a clean
design like this one of creating a brain out of bars of soap quite literally the minimal and clean
typography just below it is enough for people to get the message in a single glance metaphors
should be a great addition to your workflow and your processes when making Concepts and Designs
often in the world of design Advanced thinking does actually mean taking risks you should be
pushing yourself to step out of your comfort zone and explore new ideas even if they feel
unfamiliar at first and here's a great example say you're hired to design something for a local music
festival celebrating the diversity of different kinds of music you may start to think about
creating leaflets flyers and a website but that is an intermediate way of going about this sure
these materials are useful and likely probably necessary but we can take things further notice
how the brief mentions a local music festival emphasis on the word local an advanced designer
might pick up on this and desire to take the risk of proposing a concept that involves collaborating
with local graffiti artists to create a series of large-scale art installations inspired by
different music genres these installations would serve as both promotional visuals and interactive
elements at the festival and seeing as a festival is local the vast majority of people who are see
these installations will be relevant to the target audience Bingo the graffiti artist will be given
creative freedom to explore their style and their perspective on their project and that's
where some of the risk does come into play but it's a great concept as part of this campaign
another great way to come up with great ideas and Concepts is to focus on the emotions that
you know you need to actually convey to the audience this leads to designs and solutions
that don't only look good but they really resonate with a specific Target group of people and that's
part of what we're going to look at in the next module module two so the next module is
based around creating visual narratives within your design work and we're going to do that by
thinking about your audience's emotions and the personalities among other things now
it sounds pretty complicated I bet but don't worry about it it will be simple soon enough
before creating a visual narrative we need to define the message of the project it will pave
the way to our Concepts and design Solutions you need to ask yourself what is the core message of
your design it might be to create a positive change in the viewer or perhaps a new car that
takes a driver off-road to locations they've never seen before find the deep-hearted message that
your design aims to get across and this can often be put into one sentence something else a link to
the message is to define the tone of the message itself understand the tone of the message you know
it might be serious it might be playful it might be informative and knowing the tone will set the
foundation for your design so for example if the message of the design is to promote awareness of
the dangers of texting while driving the big No-No you'd probably want the tone of the message to be
serious Advanced designers know the message the core message and also the tone and this then
determines the visual language moving forward something we're going to build later foreign
look at which is hugely powerful is the ability to determine the emotional response you want to
elicit from your audience whether it's trust Nostalgia excitement whatever it is align it
with the archetype of your target audience so heading back to the design giving awareness to
the dangers of texting while driving we likely don't want to utilize curiosity or Nostalgia
you probably want to leverage the emotion of fear or maybe shock and that's because
this will align a lot better with the core message and also the tone importantly the tone
so as you can see we're building a visual narrative or a visual language and for the
narrative we want to First think about color color is so vastly important in
graphic design it should never be taken lightly not even by Advanced designers
thinking about the three things we've just spoken about the message the tone and the emotional goal
consider how to utilize color palettes in regards to those three things so if you decided the tone
of your design should be quiet then consider lowering the saturation of your color palettes
or even just going all out with pastels if your message is one that aims to sell insurance to
elderly people then reassuring color palettes that are calm likely would be a good idea when it comes
to emotion you can revert to color psychology for pretty good results but be careful here because
cultural context can play a big role in your design red in the Western World can suggest danger
and passion but in China it's a strong color of Fortune and luck so in summary about color think
about the message the tone and also the emotion and then work that into color palettes this is the
first step towards forming a visual language or narrative foreign ography is where things can go
really right or really really wrong but of course Advanced designers rarely get it wrong we want
to choose fonts that align with the audience's identity and the Design's message tone different
typefaces evoke different feelings for example a Sleek Sans serif font might convey modernity
and professionalism while handwritten script fonts could evoke more personal or artistic vibes being
able to match a typeface style to emotion is a huge part of making a visual language in graphic
design it's something Advanced designers do just so well so you should familiarize
yourself with the different styles or typefaces out there also consider limiting the number of
fonts to maintain consistency on your designs typically speaking using two or three fonts
within a single visual language provides a variety without overwhelming the design or the audience
using symbolism is a very creative way and an essential way to build a strong visual narrative
or language on your graphic design projects symbolism involves the use of visual elements
such as icons images and shapes and this conveys deeper meanings in the message a prime example
of a top class symbolism design is the Nike logo Nike's iconic symbol is the swoosh it's
just a typical like check mark shape the swoosh symbolizes movement speed and victory it's a
powerful and a versatile symbol that captures the essence of Athletics and the Brand's tagline just
do it each moving part of your visual narrative should work really well together kind of like a
team or the perfect Dream Team the Nike logo type is in italics and it's bold and this suggests
movement because of the shape Slants towards the front and it also commands Authority and
modernity the tagline itself is active and bold in tone and so is the visual imagery of
people moving in sporty-like situations that we see across their marketing every single element
of the visual language has been well thought out and tailored towards specific brief an audience
so here's a true weapon that you should be adding Into Your Arsenal of design tools chat GPT is so
awesome when it comes to helping you define and create your visual languages and your design
narratives if we're working on a design for a poster that is aimed at vegans we can type
in crucial information and ask chatgpt to suggest ways that we can use typography to psychologically
Target that sort of person and it's not just a simple prompt that we want to be using here we
want to utilize chat GPT to work for us as a co-designer or creative director if you will
and if you haven't done already do check out my list of 60 download prompts for chat GPT because
you won't be disappointed when using them in your projects there's even a mini tutorial
and a sneak peek at the sort of way I do use chat gbt myself in graphic design projects
to demonstrate how a finished visual language looks and operates in real life let's jump into
the world of the FedEx brand and the visual language used within the Brand's identity
of FedEx is a prime example of how simple Design Elements can convey powerful messaging
firstly the logo contains hidden symbolism in the way the arrow is hidden in the lettering
the arrow suggests a forward motion and fast delivery which is great for a delivery kind
of business of course their logo type is made up of future bold which is a forward-thinking
and modern sans-serif font the brand uses the same color scheme throughout its identity and
the materials they make that being orange purple and also a splash of white orange
is an energetic color that suggests action and this matches up with the motion aspect
of the arrow and the design in general purple is a complementary color to Orange and it can
suggest calmness this might give confidence in people who use their service the symbolism the
typeface use the color scheme and the style is consistent throughout the entire Brand's identity
the message and the tone we can take from the language is modern forward-thinking reliable
and fast they are professional and somewhat serious but at the same time approachable
every design Choice can be relayed back to these things the message the tone and the goal
now the next module is stepping into an area of design that almost nobody thinks about or uses
in this design industry it's just the very top of advanced designers who work this into their
projects to properly use multi-sensory design you need to First identify the target audience
and their sensory preferences you should know the target audience of your design early on
in the project and that's through research but once you've defined that think about how
to tailor the design to evoke the desired emotional responses and engagement level
through a number of five different senses which we're going to look at right now
and this is where the fun begins as you know the five senses are sight touch taste smell and sound
and the sixth sense being a classic Bruce Willis movie now if you can trigger these senses with
your design in accordance to the brief the message the tone and all that good stuff your design will
be heaps more effective at getting to that goal and here are some real examples of how that might
look you might be working on packaging for a fruit flavored Juice drink and to trigger the audience's
taste buds you can use color choices to create cross-sensory associations for instance using a
vibrant and refreshing shades of citrus colors like orange and yellow can visually evoke the
taste of Tangy and juicy fruits like oranges or lemons these are matched up with imagery of fruits
might be getting your taste buds going right now this works because colors have the power to evoke
specific emotions and associations within people by selecting colors that align with the flavor
profile of the product the designer creates a visual cue that prompts a viewer to anticipate
the taste experience pretty cool another good example is where a designer might be working
on some kind of design for a coffee shop the choice of typography can be used to create
a cross-sensory association with the aroma and flavor of freshly brewed coffee the designer might
choose a warm creative and inviting typeface that visually resembles his Swirls and steam of rising
coffee Vapor typography kind of work emotions and sensory experiences Beyond just visual elements in
this case The Chosen typefaces visual cues such as the curves and the flow mirror the sensory
experience of the aroma wafting up from a cup of coffee that will happen subconsciously within
audiences and when matched up with everything we spoke about in the visual narrative communication
part of this course the design just becomes Ultra effective you can also think about actual sound as
well though imagine you're working on a video or a website that's meant to suggest a blissful kind of
approach but is targeted at younger more kind of urban audiences the music you use matched with the
color palettes is going to be a crucial choice and it needs to be really well put out so yeah think
of ways that you can tap into your audience's sensory mindset and then consider if you can use
that to your advantage to enhance the experience and make a design message more effective
now here's a really important piece of information you want to keep in mind as you can see from the
modules in this course being an advanced designer isn't about mastering the tools
or making something quote unquote look good it involves understanding your audience in
a very specific way and coming up with the original ideas that make a whole bunch of
sense but here's something really good to know if you logically work through your briefs and
your projects like how we've spoken about in today's course then pitch into a client
pitching your Concepts should be a breeze and that's because you have so much information and
so much kind of data to back your reasoning on pretty hard to argue against that from a
professional point of view you don't need to be a master advanced level designer to make
money or a living in this industry it's all relative of course but if you want to take
yourself Beyond an intermediate designer then I suggest bookmarking this course or
maybe coming back to it in the future but if you want to expand your knowledge right now
then just clear the video on screen and until next time guys design your future today peace
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