Icons with text
Pair short text with an icon to give focus to store information, product features, and unique selling propositions.
Learn how you can use great graphic design to get the edge on your competition. In this blog we layout our secrets on how we acheive excellent design, and teach you how to develop this skill for the benefit of your online brand.
Are you looking to make your eCommerce business stand out from the competition? If so, then good graphic design is an absolute must. Graphic design can be a powerful tool for creating a unique and consistent look and feel across all of your digital channels. It’s also essential for drawing customers in with eye-catching visuals that will compel them to take action.
But how do you create great graphics when you don’t have any experience in this area? Well, there are some simple tips and tricks that you can use to get started on the right foot. In this article, we’ll discuss why graphic design is important for eCommerce businesses, as well as provide three quick tips on how to become a master at it. Here are some of the topics we are going to be diving deeper into today:
- What is eCommerce Graphic Design?
- Why Graphic Design is Important for Your Business
- What Makes Good Graphic Design Work
- 3 Quick Tips to Be Good at eCommerce Graphic Design, Even If You’re Totally New
- Choosing the Equipment, Software and Tools
- Learn from Examples of Great Timeless Designs
- Wrapping Up – How To Put These Tips Into Action For Your Store's Success
If you're unfamiliar - eCommerce Graphic Design is the practice of creating visuals that effectively communicate an idea, message or product to an audience.
It involves the use of typography, imagery, colour, layout and other design elements to create a powerful visual representation for digital channels such as websites, mobile applications and social media.
In order for eCommerce businesses to be successful coming into 2023 when competition is at an all-time high, these graphics must be designed with the utmost attention to detail and professionalism. The details are what helps you stand out from average and appear credible.
Graphic design is an important part of any eCommerce business. It helps to create a visually appealing and easy-to-use interface that customers will enjoy using. Not only does it make a website look professional and modern, but it can also be used to draw attention and boost sales.
Excellent and detail-oriented graphic design is important because it allows you to communicate your message more effectively. It can help you to make a powerful statement that differentiates you from others in the industry and capture customers' attention.
It also helps visitors understand what your brand stands for and how they can benefit from it. Good graphic design should provide a clear path for users to find the information they need quickly, and make it easy to take the desired action.
Finally, good eCommerce graphic design is crucial for brand recognition. It establishes an identifiable look that customers can come to associate with your business and recognize time after time. This consistency establishes trust in your brand and allows you to stand apart from competitors.
Good graphic design is all about creating visuals that are effective and appealing. It involves the use of elements such as colour, typography, imagery, layout and other design elements to create a powerful visual representation for digital channels. These visuals should be designed with the utmost attention to detail and professionalism in order for them to be successful.
As a general rule of thumb, the primary key elements of good graphic design work are:
Balance – A balanced design is aesthetically pleasing and interesting. It should be neither too busy, as well as not being too bland. Duality is important in design.
Contrast – Contrasting colours and textures, as well as typography can create interest and draw the eye in. You want identifiable features that have purpose, not some blurred hard to identify colour palettes that makes your eyes have no idea where to look.
Readability – The text should be easy to read and understand. Think clean, sharp, and minimalistic fonts for your designs so that anyone is capable of instantly reading your work, therefore understanding things faster, leading to more sales, as there is less friction.
Consistency – A consistent look and feel should be maintained throughout all visuals in order to create a strong, distinguishable brand identity. You want your brand to be identifiable and consistent between every touch-point from your website, to your packaging, social media profiles, and even what your influencers post. Look at how the big brands manage brand and design consistency across their many mediums.
Simplicity – For the love of God, please don’t over complicate the design, just for the sake of it. The visuals should only include what’s necessary to effectively communicate the message or product. Less is sometimes, most often, more. Look at luxury brands and how they leverage minimalistic design to craft high-end desirable images. There's a reason for every decision that profitable businesses make, and simplistic graphic design is up there with a common theme amongst heavy-hitter brands.
There are many more, but those will get you moving in the right direction, for now.
As mentioned above, try to keep everything as minimalistic and simple as possible. This means being mindful of the number of colours you use, keeping the font choices to a minimum, and using whitespace intelligently.
Experimenting with different design elements can be a great way to discover what works for your brand, and what doesn’t. However, make sure you are following the above guidelines so that whatever experiments you do are within the context of good design.
Make sure all graphic visuals are optimized for both desktop and mobile devices, and responsive. This is especially important for eCommerce platforms, as more and more customers are now using their mobile devices to shop. For mobile devices, most of the time you'll find 4:5 or 9:16 ratio designs and bigger text serves you well, on a vertical platform.
Once you’ve got an idea of the type of design you want to achieve, it’s time to pick the tools and software you need to get the job done. As a general rule of thumb, you should choose the most basic software that will do what you need it to do. This is especially important if you don’t have any experience as a graphic designer.
For eCommerce, the basic tools you will likely need are:
Photo editing software - Canva and/or Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom are great for creating visuals with text and formatting images to be used on websites and social media channels.
Video editing software - Adobe Premiere Pro is a great choice for creating videos, or if you’re just getting started with video creation iMovie can be a good place to start. We also love using Adobe After Effects or Final Cut Pro X. All of these are popular and widely-acknowledged as top-tier editing softwares.
Design software - For designing your website layouts, logos and other elements you’ll need some kind of design software. Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard for vector graphics/
Laptop or computer - You’ll need a laptop or desktop that can handle the software you choose. Usually, with eCommerce design, this doesn’t require too much power due to many of the tools being web-based or cloud-based.
Colour palette - You will want to develop a colour palette for your brand and use it across all your visuals. This will help ensure consistency and brand recognition across all your touch points, from websites to social media.
There are plenty of other valuable tools and equipment that come in handy when refining and improving your graphic design skills for eCommerce. These ideas mentioned are a great starting point to get you up to speed.
Here at Ecom Takeoff we'd highly recommend you to get skilled in these softwares so you have the ability to create engaging designs for your brands, and even get paid to do so for other brands who lack these skills.
When you’re just starting out, it can be hard to know how to create great graphic design for eCommerce. It helps to look at what other successful companies are doing and use those designs as inspiration.
One of the best ways to learn is by studying timeless and classic designs that have been used throughout the years. These designs are often classic and simple, but have a unique flair that catches people’s attention.
Take a look at some of the most iconic logos, websites, and other graphic design pieces from popular companies like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, Versace, Mercedes Benz, FedEx, Amazon, Tiffany & Co, Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola, etc. You can learn a lot by studying their colours, fonts, shapes and other design elements.
You can also look to other brands in the same industry as you and see what they’re doing. Model what works. Trends come and go, but some designs will never go out of style. Try to learn from these examples and figure out how to make your designs timeless too.
Finally, we recommend keeping up with the latest trends and techniques in graphic design. There are so many resources out there that offer tips, tricks, and tutorials on how to create stunning visuals for eCommerce. The more you know, the better your designs will be.
The truth is - graphic design is an art form and a science; it takes practice, skill, and creativity to make stunning visuals. Understand that with the right tools, knowledge, and inspiration you can create captivating designs that will help your eCommerce brand stand out as above-average and even excellent, online.
To summarise, graphic design is essential for an eCommerce business, but it takes practice and skill to create stunning visuals that will help your brand stand out. We hope you enjoyed reading this article today and we hope you got some value out of it.
To put these tips into action for your store's success, start by researching timeless classic designs from iconic long-lasting companies. Look at what other successful brands are doing in the same industry and use them as a source of inspiration.
Keep up with the latest trends and techniques so you’ll be better equipped to produce high-quality visuals that convert leads into sales. Finally, take some time to experiment with different graphics software until you find one which works best for you - then get creative!
With enough dedication and effort, there’s no limit to how far your graphic design skills can take you on this journey towards online success.
Furthermore, if you want to take advantage of our years of knowledge, skills and award-winning talents to create a successful brand that elevates your business into a league of its own, giving you a clear edge over low-level competitors, contact us at Ecom Takeoff today.
We’ll work with you every step of the way to ensure success for your eCommerce store! Get in touch and let us know how we can help - we will point you in the right direction.
Boost your ecommerce skills with our helpful blogs on online marketing, website design, payment processing, and more. Get practical tips and valuable insights to succeed in the competitive world of ecommerce.
View All BlogsTurn the odds in your favour when it comes to making money online. Our Shopify experts will set up a lucrative "done-for-you" eCommerce business from scratch. Let's chat!
Stay up to date
Follow us on social media
Connect with us on our socials and stay up to date on sales and product releases. Let’s support eachother!