Wherever we look these days, there are alluring, alluring, and provocative images to entice us to click, read, or watch. Without these temptations, we move on until something catches our interest. Okay, it’s fair to say that there are indeed words that can do this too. Actually, the sentences would be more accurate. The right combination of information can bring us to a stop and pay attention. Combine that with the right image and you have a winner for sure. But wait … let’s go one step further: the right combination of words, the right image, and a crisp, professional presentation – now there’s a formula that takes you by the nose down the road of no return. He has been detained without even knowing it. So powerful is the attraction that you have lost all awareness that you have been caught in a trap, your curiosity propels you more and more towards the abyss that attracts you. Suffice it to say, this is the essence of effective marketing, one of the most manipulative forces in the cosmos. Transcending culture, intelligence, profession, and any other human characteristic, this is a phenomenon of unimaginable proportions, capable of moving an entire way of life toward a desired end.

But how fickle we are. With attention spans of no more than a nanosecond, it seems, we are a nation riding on the tailcoats of the latest fashions, intoxicated by a momentary infatuation with the newest quirk, usually a product of the media circus. Right now, we’re all caught up in the LeBron James decision, the BP oil spill, the obesity epidemic, and the global recession, in that order. But wait a couple of days and we’ll find a whole new spectrum of more current issues spawned by the buzz of that day’s spin.

As a result, the competition is quite stiff for all those who aspire to achieve superiority in marketing. Complicated by the many ways we market, which include a predominance of those that are visually driven, I reintroduce the topic of this article: the importance of graphic design.

What exactly is graphic design? It is art and science. It’s the ability to package a visual presentation with the trappings of intellectual brilliance, psychological influence, and cosmetic glitz. Using style and content to elicit optimal viewer reaction, successful graphic design controls the entire message delivery experience, one where reception is strong, compelling, and permanently memorable.

Walk down the aisle of any supermarket, drive down any main street or spend some time surfing the internet or browsing the channels and you will be bombarded with an infinite variety of visual stimuli. Color, shape, size and composition: these are the variables that define our options. Do we respond to the big, bold and rich, or the delicate, the subtle and the pale? Modern or classic? Smooth or ornate? Simple or busy? Smart or dumb? Ridiculous or sublime? The alternatives are endless. Effective graphic design grabs our necks and forces us to react impulsively based on our innate sense of taste and preferences. Without a moment’s hesitation, we like it or we don’t like it. Buy it or discard it entirely.

This can be a great bet for the marketing team, betting on a unique concept that uses a particular mode of graphic design. In sales, we all know that you can’t please everyone all the time. But tell that to the authoritative customer who’s waiting for the moon on a silver platter.

What works better: the tried and true, or the revolutionary and innovative? Do people feel more secure with the same old thing or do they long for the excitement of something new and different? It really depends on the market you are appealing to. With the tools of graphic design to work, some marketers plan to wow the gullible masses with their favorite tricks of the trade, which usually consist of miraculous claims of suspicious origin. Then there are those who take an alternate route, resorting to sophisticated propositions to trick an unsuspecting segment of the market into swallowing their pitch: hook, line, and sinker. My octogenarian parents used to fall into this group: fanatics of a letter telling them that they had proven themselves worthy of belonging to some distinguished group that recognized that higher prices indicated true quality. Oh, the tactics that give this profession a bad name! Few are the trusted suppliers that go the right way, representing their products fairly and unequivocally, in a way that emulates the utmost excellence.

This places an enormous responsibility on the graphic designer, who must be able to play the role of marketing expert, client liaison, creative director, text editor and visual conceptualizer, not to mention the deceptive prevaricator and the deceptive exploiter, in some cases. . And in more than a few small businesses, that role is filled by a single person.

While traditional Madison Avenue advertising boutiques may have utilized a group of specialists in the industry heyday, the result of that kind of collaborative effort was often a watered-down performance due to too many compromises brought on by self-centered goals. When a single artist is unleashed, the end result can be a staggering departure from the norm. Art by committee rarely is. Of course, that assumes that the graphic designer is the genius type with the ability to understand what is needed and how to make it happen. Too often, either through lack of experience and / or lack of talent, graphic design can easily miss its goal, sometimes confusing the problem beyond recognition, even suffocating its appeal with a total lack of aesthetics!

Since graphic design is a component of so many varieties of communications, including advertisements, mailers, posters, publications, reports, letters, invitations, trademarks, websites, greeting cards, signs, exhibits, programs, movie titles, packaging, posters, dust jackets and more, to name a few examples, their applications are universal and their impact is indispensable. The next time you’re faced with a dilemma involving making a decision about which product to buy, ask yourself, “Am I getting it because I think it’s the best option, or am I turning it down because it costs too much?” Whatever you do, your graphic design has most likely influenced you in one way or another!