What do your customers feel when they see your advertisements or announcements? The answer could be positive, negative, neutral, or a mixture.
That begs the question, why is it important for your graphic design to incite emotion? Join us as we answer that in today’s blog.
Presenting to you—emotional design with its quirks and all.
What Is Emotional Graphic Design?
When you create designs, what is your primary guide? Even before the color palette, the typography, and the type of branding, the first aspect you think of is how you make your customers feel good.
Your product or service needs to be the answer to feeling good, whether want or need. That’s the effect of emotional graphic design.
It evokes familiar emotions that allow your customers to connect with your business on a deeper level. Around 81% of consumers say they need to trust the brand before making a purchase, and design helps build that trust.
Whether positive or negative, your design needs to make your viewers feel something light up or darken their mood, depending on your message. Your aesthetic could hit any of the three levels proposed by Don Norman, director of The Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego.
- Visceral – reaction to the appearance
- Behavioral – reaction to usability
- Reflective – reaction because of tapped individual’s inner emotions.
Visceral design hooks your market since it has to do with the images, icons, typography, and color palette you use. Let’s look at Mcdonald’s or Wendy’s. They both use mascots to represent their brand and have a predominantly red color in their design—it encourages hunger.
Behavioral answers to the person’s need, like when you need a beverage or eat food. And lastly, reflective emotional design taps your market on a personal level, prompting them even more to avail your product or service.
In short, emotions in design connects aesthetics and functionality on a personal level through your products and services.
Reasons to Use Emotions in Design
Now you know how to create this design, let’s understand why you should do it. Creating a brand is not just your business name.
You need to assess beyond that and tell your market that your product or service can give them what they need and want.
Come in, brand identity. Showcase your expertise, values, and offers through this design.
Around 64% of consumers support a vocal business about social issues. Show that in your design. Hit your market where it matters, the heart.
With that in mind, here are the two reasons you should consider using emotional design in your various brand design endeavors.
- Positive Affinities
- Superior UX Experience
1. Positive Affinities
When creating a business, the saying, “Bad publicity is still publicity,” doesn’t always ring true. It’s a double-edged sword that could sway your market away or towards you.
If you win against the controversy, sure, but if not, you’ve got a problem. Come in Emotional Design. You create positive associations through the speech pattern, the color palette, and the images you use.
Take, for example, your favorite stress reliever. It could be your go-to food, book, or even movie. For us, it’s the TV show Friends. What’s yours?
When you answer that, make it your goal to be the favorite of your market. And the first step for that is always making a good impression on them.
Around 94% of first impressions are design related. Utilize emotional design and take the chance to be one of the brands that stand out for catching your customers when they fall into a slump.
Make them realize that you can help them attain good vibes by buying from your business. That’s when positive associations start, which turn into memories.
And, in turn, makes a stranger into a patron just by looking at your emotion-filled design.
2. Superior UX Experience
Who doesn’t love seeing a great design brandished on everyday merchandise design, website design, and social media posts on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook?
Give your market eye candy while impacting their lives on a personal level. Your design could trigger sadness, but your product could help ease your customer’s sadness.
The happier your customer is, the more frequently they’ll buy from you.
Tips for Creating Emotional Graphic Design
Let’s get designing to incorporate emotions. It’s a brain and heart issue when it comes to this method of designing.
We determined three strategies to help you appear personal to your customers through your design, packaging, label, or email newsletters.
- Get To Know Your Target Market, a.k.a. Research
- Design to Tell a Story
- Ownership Matters
1. Get To Know Your Target Market, a.k.a. Research
Know who you want to sell your product or service to; they’re integral when building your business. Research what they like through groups, research data, and trends.
Know the platforms they use so you can find them better as well.
- 74% of Gen X use Facebook
- 74% of Gen Z use YouTube,
- 70% of Gen Z use TikTok.
Find the commonalities between the two and test what works for your audience. It’ll take time to see results, but after the trial and error phase, you can now perfect incorporating emotions in your design.
2. Design to Tell a Story
As stated earlier, functionality isn’t enough. Your product or service has to say something that connects with your target personally.
Take color psychology and incite happiness and joy by using hints of yellow and orange in your design. Then make sure you have a core character that stands out and empathizes with your market.
A mascot design could do that for you since it represents your values. It could be an animal or a human. As long as they communicate with your market well and coherently, it’s effective.
Pair that with a narrative that compels people to buy your product, and voila! You start to earn organic traffic and avid buyers for your business.
Take the rise for climate change awareness, raising funds for supporting a child, or rehoming street cats and dogs. Incorporate those into your design and follow through with action when you tell the world you’re raising awareness and funds for charity.
The people who support that cause will come to you.
As long as your message is evident through your font style, a palette of choice, accompanying illustrations, and a good sense of visual hierarchy, you’re doing emotional design right.
3. Ownership Matters
Lastly, make your customers feel like they are a part of what you have established. Whether it’s a customized letter that accompanies your packaging, live and helpful customer support, or a general name for your growing community, make your market feel like they identify with your brand.
The exclusiveness of your products and design makes you more desirable. Look at Starbucks and its year-end products. Only several people get it after buying a load of drinks to fill up a coupon to claim a planner or tumbler.
That’s how emotional design works to give your market a sense of ownership
Create Emotional Designs for Powerful Branding!
There you have it, our guide to helping you understand why you need emotion-filled designs. Hire a freelance designer or customize a template; it’s up to you.
We offer either to help you create effective emotional designs. Hire a designer here at DesignCrowd.
Or customize templates for Instagram stories, Facebook Ads, posters, and more at BrandCrowd. Either way, we’ll help you achieve your vision for incorporating emotions in your design.
Create impactful posts and narratives through emotional design today!
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Written by DesignCrowd on Thursday, January 26, 2023
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.