Who doesn’t like to look at or feel beautiful?!
We obviously don’t like to be shallow. But, we are all drawn towards beautiful things! Whether that’s in a shop or pausing on a pretty picture on Pinterest. Design is all around us and when it’s beautiful we can’t help but want to interact with it for longer or even own it – and if your like me and in a shop well you just have to pick it up. But what makes something beautiful?
When we find something beautiful
There are many things we find beautiful like a sunset, attractive face or a brand, we actively seek out beauty. When we admire something aesthetically pleasing to the eye it fulfils us emotionally and provide us with pleasure. There have been studies to show that if your environment is beautiful you’re behaviour can change positively, plus they have seen higher levels of happiness. Beautiful space makes people be more respectful and maybe even take picture of it to remember it. But in ugly places people are more likely to litter and simple care very little about it. This might give be why when I get in a slump and lazy by not putting things away, the mess quickly builds up and up and I care less and less about where I put things.
When we are admiring something whether that be a beautiful person or an object or in this case a design. We develop a stronger attachment to the person or design in question – because it feels interesting to us. I’ve spoke about this before but there is a concept called the Halo effect essentially it influences our opinions or feelings in a positive way – what it means is we become bias without our knowledge really. We already associate beautiful thing being good and interesting. So we already have a default switch of feelings that turn on when we see something beautiful. When a design is well crafted, we make bias assumptions that they are more professional and reliable. We don’t need to say it we just automatically start to think this with good design.
Where there is beauty there also has to be simplicity
It has to be easy to comprehend. When something is complex for us to process – we start to see negative feelings arises with in us, like frustration and annoyance. So what do we instinctively do? Well like to avert are attention away and disconnect from it – who want to look at something for long if it doesn’t feel good! This is not good for brand with poor design and mismatch messaging.
When something is easier to understand we are more welcoming towards it, more open to it. That’s why brands that try to be and say everything feels rather uncomfortable. To be an easy to understand brand we have to weed out the fluffy and be fully grounded into the essential parts of what makes your brand. Have you ever noticed that beautiful brands are usually simplified in both what they are saying and visuals. We feel instantly at easy because it all feel cohesive and easy to take in.
Beautiful design must
A beautifully designed visual identity doesn’t just support your brand – but help you to elevate it. Design has to be answering a problem – it needs to be functional otherwise it not fulling it’s job – and is considered to be art. Brands aren’t just made to look pleasing to the eye, but moulded in a response to what the business need to say to attract and achieve what they want. Function comes first in design that’s why in branding we start with research and strategy to solve all the unanswered questions. Once answered we can then design and moulded you to look a specific way that’s attractive and easy for your people to understand. So if you skip the research and strategy it leaves more room for your brand visuals to be lacking effectiveness – even if it does look well put together.
If you want to a beautiful designed brand you must remember to
– First is the function – What do you need it to do?
Start by brand research and strategy. Get a clear idea on what problems it need to solve.
– Simplify it – What do you want to stay and why do they care?
Move onto crafting your messaging clearly
– Visual Direction – What visuals work best with what I’m trying to say and convey?
Mould you visual personality to look aesthetically pleasing!
That’s it from me today folks hope you enjoyed this fairly short episode, but I think very insight and as always parted with some really actionable steps. I will be off but quick little update on how my new goal planning system is going. And I have to say it’s has been working a treat for me. I don’t feel stressed or put a ridiculous amounts of pressure and there is no long to do list in sight. Let’s face it life should be a long to do list!! If your wondering what the heck i’m wittering on about here – Defiantly go have a listen to episode 69 a great listen if all you previous goal planning systems have not worked for you!