Bibliography

Introduction

Being an avid Graphic Designer for many years now I have noticed things changing in what constitutes graphic design and what is needed from the client. Social media being a big impact on the graphic design world. So I want to explore what effect does graphic design have on social media? I will have two areas of research; the relationship between social media and graphic design, focusing on what design capabilities are available from a designer’s point of view and a non-designer. In addition, what companies/businesses use design in social media posts. Is this work from a designer or has this been created by a marketer or social media manager, is this something that you can tell as a designer? I want to explore this and show how designers have had to adapt their work to both print, digital and social media while also offering a service unique to a designer that social media managers could not achieve themselves. I will use screenshots and analyse various styles and applications to create different posts and see what gets the higher engagement from followers using my own account as a reference showing the effect graphic design has on social media in the modern age.

Chapter 1 – Creation

For graphic designers, social media is an opportunity or a challenge, and possibly even an intimidating problem to be overcome. However, it can’t be ignored. There is a symbiotic relationship between graphic design and social media. If you manage to master that balanced relationship, you can enhance your creative work as well as your success as a practical businessperson.

https://platt.edu/blog/relationship-graphic-design-social-media/

As there are many social media platforms, I have decided to focus my research on Instagram as this is a very image driven platform and therefore will show more design capabilities of my research. To get some perspective of what social media platform, Instagram is capable of creating and what me a graphic designer is capable of I am going to create two different posts and share them on the platform asking for feedback as to which the user/client prefers. I will use the in-app features to create a promotion for myself as a graphic designer and then create something in adobe illustrator using the same text but use wider range features, as a graphic designer would use.

My first design I have used Adobe Illustrator to create an advert for myself as a graphic designer. I have used a bright background and coinciding colours for text and a logo I have quickly created. I have matched the fonts, using only two as using too many looks overcrowded and I want to create a brand. I have listed my capabilities using hexagonal bullet points in different corresponding colours to my logo. The design is simple and clear while being bright and appealing to my audience. For me as a designer and avid social media user I find I have more design capabilities in Adobe Illustrator to create a more striking and involved piece of work. To create something a bit more animated I could have dropped this page into Adobe after Effects but did not feel this was necessary for an advertisement of this style.

My second design I have used the basic features available in Instagram’s create mode. There are limited colours available for the background, this dark grey was the only solid colour available, and I believe a mixture of gradient colours would be too busy for an advertisement. I have contrasted the grey with an orange text making a readable clear design. Again, font variations are limited in the tool however; this looks to be a standard Arial style font, which is widely used in the graphic design world as a standard font. This tool in Instagram also allows me to add a block style background to the text making it stand out more. There is also options to add features such as a direct message box for the user to send a message through Instagram, also the added sticker/gif feature to create something more animated. The design does the job and was very quick and easy to create so for someone who is starting a small business for example this would be ideal as you can create a promotion yourself without paying a graphic designer.

Chapter 2 – Results

I asked my audience to simply view both designs and then vote as to which they prefer, the first or the second. The overwhelming majority voted for the first design created in Adobe Illustrator. I am assuming this is because the care and detail in the design is more than the design created in Instagram. I have created a pro’s and con’s list for both features to determine what would be best for engagement with an audience.

Instagram Create Mode

Pros

• Easy to create
• Free service
• Ability to do paid promotion
• Does the job

Cons

• Not much available creatively
• Limited to social media only

Adobe Illustrator / Graphic Designer

Pros

• Good Quality Design
• Can be altered and changed for various uses not just social media
• More features available – fonts, colours etc.

Cons

• More expensive to pay graphic designer or purchase adobe illustrator

To add to my results I have asked my audience to expand on why they chose the first as their preferred design. Is there something specific or identical feedback from individuals that aligns with my own thoughts of the designs? Here is the feedback I received the consensus being that the first design looked more professional, cleaner and more visually pleasing.

To which I do agree, as a graphic designer though my opinion is biased. I am bound to prefer the more professional thought out design but to know that others believe the same that the design is more eye catching and looks more professionally designed by someone who is technically not qualified is flattering and makes me believe I do have a potential career in this. However I do believe that due to the current circumstances and the impending recession companies will struggle to be able to afford a graphic designers fees and may have no choice but to use social media tools themselves to create promotions for their business. As a graphic designer it would be worth considering offering certain cheaper services for clients or even advice for them to create their own promotions such as text or placement. Easy tasks that will affect the look of their social media promotion.

Chapter 3 – Further Research

Having looked at what the user prefers from things I have designed it’s also worth looking at what other larger companies that use social media avidly to promote their business or company and the engagement they receive on said promotions. For example these instagram pages are usually run by an individual at head office posting adverts or photographs of products onto their feed, while also engaging with the public doing quiz’s, asking for opinions or posting about sales on their website including links to the various different items. Does a graphic designer have any impact on this? Can I make an accurate assumption that this probably is the work of a graphic designer by doing a deep analysis of the work featured. 

I’ve collected some screen shots of various business’ pages with work I think must have been created by a graphic designer. The colours, text and design are all specific to the companies branding. Using Pantones and fonts that align with the business’ image. In particular the Hamleys page is using a lot of Christmas styled images due to them promoting themselves as a high brand toy seller, the level on intricacy on many of their posts is too high quality to not be a graphic designers work. This also looks to be the same graphic designer or possibly a paid promotion that they are using multiple times on their page. As you can see the design features the same colour scheme and general illustration style hinting this has been done by the same person.

However as you can see the company ‘Game’ features a number of different other companies on their story feature such as xbox, playstation and Facebook. The company logos are obviously designed by a graphic designer for the company and then ‘Game’ will have had to get approval to use such logos on their page. But as they are a gaming company the usage of their page to promote xbox and playstation games and products is a given. This is the most popular store for gaming and therefore should be able to feature the branding for such companies. Although the usage of their logos/branding feels less individual for the company such as ‘Primark’ they have used their own colour scheme and style on their page specific to them but this is because they are only promoting themselves as a retailer. Rather than a seller of various products they sell their own brand of items. I decided to look further into this on other companies pages for those who sell other brands in their stores is this a similar pattern.

I looked at the retailers ‘Debenhams’, ‘Sports Direct’ and ‘The Perfume Shop’. I was surprised to find not a lot of brand usage considering these retailers sell on other brands. The products they sell are obviously featured but no reference to the brand logo or guidelines. For example the perfume shop sells many different brand perfumes and features them on their page is this because the selling of perfume is a niche market so when they purchase the rights to sell products on do they not have to feature the original brand? As a graphic designer I suppose it’s not my business to know but it is for creating brand guidelines for a company as depending on the retailer they might want to use certain Pantones or fonts to create a certain promotion for a brand.

Conclusion

In conclusion I believe that social media does impact a graphic designers thought process and what they design for certain companies and what these are used for. Such as my creation of a story differed to what could have been created by a social media operative for which there are many companies wanting someone to focus on their output on social media as it’s such a popular way to promote your brand/company or product. This therefore means a graphic designer must branch out further into the social media world to create professional, bold designs used for promotion on social media. There are many courses that feature designing for social media and this is definitely something universities and colleges should consider combining with graphic design or even business studies. In this day and age most companies want an individual to have multiple skill sets so having these would certainly be of benefit for someone starting a small business and can’t pay multiple salaries. That and it lessons the communications issues there could be surrounding speaking to a designer about what the brand wants and then having to speak again to the social media manager about what needs to be featured on the page for promotions. It’s something that I will definitely consider as a graphic designer, I may even study the use of social media aside of my graphic design and visual communications skills. I believe social media is such a useful tool for small businesses to create promotions but I also believe that graphic design should intricate together with social media in the future. Design companies are starting this process by introducing products such as Adobe Spark where you can very easily create instagram stories and posts. Similar to Adobe Illustrator you choose a background and add texts or images to feature but this you can do on the go on your mobile or tablet again very useful tool for a small business but this feature is exclusive to Adobe Creative Cloud. I think the use of social media on it’s own is definitely worth doing but if you can afford to you should pay a graphic designer to create something for your company for promotions on all platforms and graphic designers should be adding this feature to their skill set.