photo credit: Team Dalog

Last week I gave you a little intro into the process of designing your personal visual mark. Your logo. Your brand. A unique tool for individualized marketing.

Now, as promised, I have the highlights of my conversation with a professional graphic designer, Ali Rowan. Ali stays up to date with the latest trends and market analysis pertaining to the graphic design field. The advice and insight she shared is invaluable information for anyone looking to make their mark in the freelancing world.

There are so many different factors to think of when creating your brand. A professional such as Ali, can guide you through the process, using your vision and their expertise to build a finished product that represents your services and your skills to their utmost potential.

The first question to ask yourself is: What is the immediate message I want my branding to convey?

Some of the things you may want to focus on include:

• trust
• friendliness
• speed
• uniqueness
• value

Each focus is individual to the person the branding represents. Some may want their affordability to be their edge, others their relentless attention to detail. A professional knows how to take that mission statement of your business and create a layout that leaves no question of what your mission is.

A secret tip from Ali: Never go with your first idea. Most of the time, your first idea is also the first idea of someone with a similar product. You want to be unique and stand out. Table your first idea and work on some different variations. Sometimes you will end up coming back to the first idea, but most of the time your finished product will knock your socks off; and the socks of your clients.

Once you have decided on your immediate message, next you have to create a “picture version” of that message. Ali recommends all preliminary graphics be done in black and white at first. This will allow an undistracted pure view of the brand. Then you add color to make it POP.

Color is very very important. Color symbolism is easily searched on Google. The response and values associated with colors are a key factor in how your brand is perceived by others. Notice how a lot of financial establishments use the color blue as a prominent feature in their logo. Blue represents trustworthy attributes. The Banks want you to feel confident placing your financial needs with them, and subconsciously, the color of their logo instills that confidence in you without you even realizing it.

Some examples of other color symbolism are:

• Red – All things intense and passionate
• Purple – Spirituality and wisdom
• Orange – Energy and enthusiasm
• Black – Power and wealth
• Brown – Reliability and simplicity
• Green – Nature and vigor
• Yellow – Imagination and joy

The color chart also gives you the emotions and representations that may not be your preferred message:

• Red – aggression and danger
• Purple – Cruelty and arrogance
• Orange – Flamboyant and demanding of attention
• Black – sadness and anger
• Brown – I didn’t see any negative adjectives for this one. Interesting…
• Green – inexperience and misfortune
• Yellow – cowardice and deceit

A professional knows which color combos will best convey your message. They know to focus on the target market you want to reach. Different cultures and branches of society have different perceptions of colors. Just because you think something looks good, it may be offensive or turn away others you are marketing to. Use a professional to avoid any misunderstandings.

Wow, as I go over my notes from my conversation with Ali, I’m realizing our 45 minute conversation generated A LOT of advice for me to share. Be sure to check back for part three for some more great advice from Ali, a professional graphic designer. At the end of this series, you will be well on your way to creating the next iconic brand to market yourself and your services with ease.

Ali Rowan is a freelance graphic designer in the time that fits around her being a student, writer, crafter, girlfriend, daughter, sister, Canadian, and the various other things that keep her busy—not that the Canadian bit entails a lot of effort on her part, Olympic spirit aside. To embrace cliché, art and design have been a part of her life since she was little—she was temporarily ambidextrous around the age of 3, just so that she could continue colouring when one hand grew tired. To this day, she deeply regrets not keeping up with that, because come to think of it, being fully ambidextrous would be quite awesome.

Brief tangents aside, it was only in 2009 that Ali embarked on her freelance career, and admittedly, she’s still got lots to learn, just as she always will—if there’s one piece of advice she’s got, it’s that there’s always something left to learn, so never stop.

For more on Ali, don’t hesitate to follow her on Twitter, or check out her website,Avian Function.