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Design Principles Refresher – How does your Marketing Collateral stand up to this?

These days, every business presentation revolves around creative and visually-appealing designs that push the envelope and merge beautifully with the compelling, brand-specific content. This is especially true now that our marketing assets are often first encountered online in their digital form. Wasn’t Design Relevant Before the Digital Era, Too? Yes, it was. Beautifully designed marketing materials always had their spot in collateral, but now are more prominent and valuable. The times are quick, and so are the demands on marketing to keep pace. On the one hand, designers are more pressured and challenged than ever to keep up with the fast-paced, competitive applications, and on the other, they are pushed to experiment with their designs, creative visions and artistic expressions more often than they usually would. Why Are Collateral and Design Interlinked? Collateral materials reflect the core values of your brand, reinforcing the message you want to send to your audience. To inspire your target audience make a brand connection, you need to have your visual and content presentation cohesive, relevant and on point. No matter how beautifully written your brand content is, it won’t leave the best impression unless backed up with suitable design (and vice versa.) Staying relevant, exciting and fresh with the design methods you are using for your brand promotion is now more relevant than ever – that is, if you want to keep your target audience interested. On that note, we’ve put together a few critical design tips that will help you create remarkable marketing materials and refresh your brand. Use Compelling Colors That Reflect Your Brand Concerning brand recognition: colors matter. When choosing colors for your marketing collateral opt for compelling colors that reflect your brand’s personality; the right color process is everything for a good design. Create a strong palette by drawing inspiration from your logo and official brand colors. Be Mindful of the Lines The way you use lines in your marketing collateral may make or break the design; lines direct the eye, give a sense of movement and create emphasis. Don’t be afraid to add a little drama to the plan. If there is any “negative space” (i.e., the space in between) in the design, use it to create original images. Make Sure That the Texts Are Readable We understand you love to play with fonts (who doesn’t!) but don’t go overboard. When designing marketing materials for your business, choose the type of fonts your target market understands, and not those that are only beautiful to look at.  Also, steer clear of using too many font types in a single document: limit your use to 1 to 2 fonts, and make them font representatives of your brand personality. Be mindful of the appropriate font size, too. Adjust the font size of your text in a way that all content of your design is easy to read. Naturally, you can use different size fonts for emphasis and such. Trust Repetition Repetition is vital for brand consistency and tying plenty of individual elements together. Use it smartly. Play with Symmetry and Randomness Whenever possible, use symmetry to give your design a sense of “calm.” Symmetry attracts the human eye, making it a perfect design strategy for your marketing collateral. If you are looking into creating something edgier, break the rules with asymmetry! Randomness and clutter can be very aesthetically pleasing if done right! Embrace Transparency, Movement, and Depth Use transparency intentionally to create movement and add an element of interaction. Movement and depth are your design’s friends; while movement injects life to designs through motion lines, blur effects or waving effects, depth gives dimension using horizon lines, 3D effects, texture, shadows, etc. Include Texture The texture is a fantastic design element that not only gives depth to designs but it also gives them a sense of tactility. Balance Things Out Understandably, you want to communicate as many messages as possible with your collateral, but too much of anything is, well, too much. Remember that every element has a weight, so make sure you balance those elements using scale and composition the right way. Say YES to Contrast To help your design pop, play with contrasts; thick vs. thin, light vs. dark, cropped vs. whole, etc. Merge the purposeful and aesthetically pleasing. Add Dynamic to Your Design Using White Space Utilize white space of your design as the structural support for all the elements of your marketing collateral. Adequately managed white areas help drive the audience’s attention to the design elements you find the most relevant. Remove the “excess” aspects if you feel your marketing collateral doesn’t have enough white space. BP Central Print Hub is a marketing service of Builder Promotions, and a resource for delivering beautifully designed graphics. When you’ve designed your marketing collateral, we help you express it in beautiful print collateral that delivers a tangible brand touch to new home buyers after they’ve toured your Sales Center and Models. The right designs work in tandem with branded marketing products that help you nurture new home buyer prospects. Builder Promotions pairs your graphic messaging and brand with tangible marketing products that leave a lasting impression with your home buyer prospects and stakeholders. Ask our BP Custom Shopper™ team to help you select the ideal gift(s) for Community Marketing Events, Signing and Closing.   Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you soon! We hope you’ll return to check out our blog, Marketing Blueprints to see what resources we’re sharing to support Builder Marketers. We are tweeting, pinning, posting, writing and Linking In. Here’s where you can find and follow us. Twitter: @HomebuilderMktg Instagram: @builderpromotions Pinterest Board: Fun, Creative, Useful Gift Ideas Facebook: Facebook.com/builderpromotions LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/builderpromotions/ Our blog sponsored by Builder Promotions, Inc., is a complete solution of builder-centric branded products and print collateral that support the entire new home buyer journey.
lesliebridgeswriter

Leslie is a partner in Builder Promotions Marketing firm, a company devoted to making life better at work for the Marketing professionals who work tirelessly to deliver New Home Communities that provide a place for families to live and thrive. She loves being a Mom and keeps a suitcase packed for the next travel adventure with her family.

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