The hidden cost of amateur design

Way back in the 1980s, producing 'camera-ready artwork' was an arcane process, the secrets of which were known only to a few senior staff in a handful of advertising agencies and repro houses with access to bulky and expensive typesetting machinery.  Creative work was untainted by technology (apart from the airbrush) and involved several years at art college and the use of deskloads of coloured pencils and paints.

Now every PC comes bundled with desk-top publishing software which can create anything from a conference badge to a full-colour brochure as fast as the operator can click the mouse (though there may be time for a good lunch while it's printing out).  This has raised the standards of business presentation dramatically, but too often there is a fatal missing link - the designer.

Qualified graphic designers cost money, but the alternative - the well-meaning but untrained person playing with bundled graphics software - can cost you more.  It takes a designer to know:

• How to interpret a brief
• How to produce graphics that match your corporate image
• Where to source illustrations that will create the right effect
• How to choose and use fonts, weights and sizes - and where to put them on the page
• How to link text to illustrations
• How to draw (something computers still can't do on their own)
• How to use colour cost-effectively
• The production implications of different approaches
• When to stop designing

Without these skills, chances are you will have to send the work back for repeated revisions - and even then you are likely to end up with a second-rate, amateurish piece of design that will make your company look second-rate and amateurish as well.

When commissioning graphic design, please:

• Make sure you are dealing with professionals.
• Understand what it is you want and what it has to achieve.
• Give the designer as clear and tight a brief as possible.
• Resist the temptation to improve, embellish or modify the work - accept it or reject it.
• Remember that if the result isn't what you expected, that's probably because it's original.

Chris Newton Communications will make sure that your graphic design is handled by the right professionals for the job, so your budget is spent wisely.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep” - Scott Adams