2020 August 11 Archive - EXEIdeas – Let's Your Mind Rock

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Now a picture, in reality, might not be able to say a thousand words, but the power of visual identity in the world of business is undeniable. Most of the time users, clients, customers are judging the world by its cover. And that’s why digital solutions, whether it is a website, software, or a simple survey form generator, all depend on their strong visual identity to become important and useful to the users.VIsualize the logos of the most powerful and popular companies you know. Can you see it in your mind? How long did it take for you to remember the image? Not very long I suppose. And that is where the power of strong digital product design lies. Companies like Google and Facebook have created such a strong visual identity that at this point we are almost always thinking about using their products. The effects of visual representation among the users are a matter of detailed psychological analysis. But the creation of visual identity for the digital solution is not that complicated. Let’s check out what really goes into the process.Creating A Visual Identity: It’s More Than Just The Visual ElementsIf you thought that the creation of a visual identity was just picking out visual elements and integrating them together, then you have to broaden the idea. Creating a visual identity, especially for a digital product is more than just picking random colors and illustrations. Here is a description that will tell you what exactly goes on during digital product development.1.) Gather Knowledge With Market Research:Market research is necessary to really understand the kind of visual style that is needed. And the reason for this is two-fold.The first reason is that as a digital product creator, one needs to understand the target audience. A target audience that’s largely comprised of teenagers will have different visual expectations from a digital product than a target audience of people aged 35-50 years. The aesthetic preferences of the users vary largely based on various factors, such as age, profession, geographical location, etc. And to figure out all these data, you truly have to dig deep into the market research to get a complete understanding of your target audience.The second reason is the competition at hand. In this digital era, it is quite possible that the unique digital solution has a rival out there, with the same goals. And through market research, you have to check out what kind of product design and visual identity have they created for themselves, and how well it is working. This knowledge will help you to create an identity for yourself that not only aims at the target audience properly but also helps the digital solution to stand out in a saturated market.2.) Understand The Company, And The Product:You have an understanding of the audience and the competition. But you can’t move forward without understanding the business and the product.The visual identity of your digital solution is how the users look at the product and feel about it. All these will determine if those users are going to come back to the digital solution or not.And that’s why the second step is to evaluate the product and the message you want to send with it. You can easily hire an experienced web design agency based in major cities like New York to help you with this crucial step. Because even though you might know the message you want to send with the product, it will still take an experienced designer from product design firms to create a visual landscape that expresses that message.The visual identity, as we have mentioned before goes beyond the random images and colors. Till now all the strong visual identities for various products you have observed, none of them picked the colors and aesthetics just for the visual appeal. They made their choices based on the kind of message they wanted to send. And that’s why you need to do the same. Before deciding on any type of aesthetic elements, you need to understand your product and the kind of message you want to send with it. And in such a case, hiring product design services will be a good step forward.3.) Create A Moodboard With Essential Aesthetic:Next up, we have the moodboard creation. This is probably the most fun stage in this entire process of creating a good product design, but only when done properly.The previous two steps will provide an understanding of the product, its message, and the target audience. All this information can help in the creation of an inspiration board that will contain all kinds of visual aesthetic elements that resonated with the kind product visualization you’ve been aiming for.These boards need to contain everything. From colors, illustrations, fonts to animations, all of it needs to be on the moodboards. Make sure you are including all the information you have gathered so far and let the board reflect it. Keep in mind that this moodboard is going to help you in the next step, and that is visual identity asset creation.4.) Create Assets For Visual Identity:Now we come to creating the assets for visual representation. Once you have established the guidelines and aesthetic for your digital solution, it is time to develop and create the digital product key elements that make up the entire visual aesthetic, which will ultimately become the product identifier of your solution.There are a few important assets you have to determine on this stage, and this is-LogoFontsIconsColorsInteractive elementsVisual content (photos, patterns, illustrations, videos, texts)Based on the moodboard you have already created, you can easily develop these assets to integrate within the digital solution. Make sure that these elements are well defined and align perfectly with the platform and the kind of audience it wants to target.5.) Keep It Consistent:Lack of consistency is common when it comes to the visual identity of a website or software, but that does not mean its not damaging. As it turns out that consistent brand representation increases revenue by 33%. And that’s why sometimes you have to perform cross-product visualization between various products to keep up the consistency.In this changing technical scenario, it might be a little hard to keep the visual identity consistent, but it is not entirely impossible. And that’s why it is going to be necessary for you to create a strong digital solution and website design strategy and keep it updated through various changes in the business goals.Wrapping Up: Visual Identity Is Your Best Chance At Getting Noticed:Without a proper visual identity, it is going to be impossible for you to get noticed in such a competitive market. And that’s why you need to follow the right web design strategy and information architecture to create the right kind of visual identity for your digital products.About the Author:Pratip Biswas is the Founder and CEO of Unified Infotech, a New York-based web design company that has been featured in Deloitte Fast 500 | Fastest growing tech companies in 2018. His company is working with Enterprises, SMB’s, and Start-ups to improve their efficiency through Digital Adoption and help them discover new possibilities through constant innovations. Pratip also writes regularly on Blockchain technology and has been published in publications like “Yourstory”, “Dzone” etc.Find Me On Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn