When Steve Jobs came out at the launch of the very first iPhone in Jan. 2007, in his trademark tucked-in turtleneck shirt and his round glasses, unbeknownst to everyone at that time, that particular event created a ripple, a series of events that practically revolutionized design in the tech industry or maybe even the world.
Apple has been known to create visually stimulating products with unbelievable attention to user experience. They have perfectly encapsulated aesthetics with utility, beauty with usability, simplicity with functionality, and in the process, made them the biggest company in the world, reaching a market cap. of $1.3 Trillion USD last December 2019.
Peculiarly though, when I think about Apple products, the basketball nerd in me rather easily associates them with the G.O.A.T.
No, not Lebron. The real one.
There’s something about his gracefulness in the air, how fluid his movements are, and how he can muscle his way through defenders that you can easily translate it to Apple’s products. Their sleek lines and minimalistic features coupled with great performance all scream His Airness.
Like MJ, their products today carry a certain sense of elegance and charisma. When you see an iPad, a Mac, or even their wearables: Apple Watch and AirPods, instinctively, you would want to go near it and maybe even try it out a little bit. Most especially nowadays, owning the latest Apple is easily represented as a status symbol.
Yes, it does sound like this is being written by an Apple fanboy.
No, this is in no way an attempt to endorse them or any of their products.
This is just somebody appreciating brilliance, as it should be.
Now, why am I all of a sudden riding on Apple? It’s because of design.
In recent years, this term has grown into so much more than visual aesthetics and graphics. It has become a principle, a discipline, even, a way of life.
Right, ‘design’, So what?
If you do a quick search online, it’s not hard to find out that there are over 3 dozen disciplines or principles in design; from fashion to industrial, organizational to systems, communications to games. Design has impacted the lives of everyone and has made our lives easier in the process.
Look around you right now.
All of the man-made objects you see are a product of a design principle. Every. Single. One.
There have been thousands and thousands of materials written about design all throughout human history, all of which affect our lives in various ways. Today, as the millennial generation takes over the majority of our workforce, digital branches of design are becoming more and more important and sophisticated.
And with all the design principles out there, it’s really difficult to talk about design in its entirety, so for now, let’s focus on two: Graphics and Web.
Graphic Design
Coined in the early 1920s, graphic design is a subset of communication design. It is the process in which we use typography, illustration, iconography, and photography to communicate, help solve problems, and generally express ideas and information visually.
You can see graphic design everywhere, from the moment you turn on your TV, when you look down on your phone, when you walk down the road, when you’re at the grocery store, it is applied in almost every product in the market, in every ad you see, and every email you get. It’s vital for every company wanting to make it big.
Think about it, when have you bought anything that you didn’t see being advertised or marketed?
Moreover, graphic design also helps companies find their branding or ‘personality’. From sketching logos, designing calling cards, or creating your own brand book, graphic design plays a huge and integral part in all of these.
Today, through social media and the interconnectedness we now enjoy, the importance of graphic design has been amplified by several magnitudes. You can see this when you look at your favorite social media platform and see all the ads that have ‘targeted’ you, you won’t be able to scroll through without already seeing a couple.
But how do you graphically design?
In the early days, there were different software that offered different kinds of solutions to your graphical needs. From Xerox PARC’s Superpaint to Quark’s QuarkXpress, they offered different solutions and were used widely in different industries.
Fast forward to today, competition in the graphic design software industry is being dominated by Adobe Inc. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Adobe was founded in December 1982 by 2 former Xerox PARC employees: John Warnock and Charles Geschke.
Adobe’s 3 biggest graphic design products hold a 90% market share.
Photoshop, which first came out in the early 1990s, is so widely used that it is now synonymous with graphic design. It’s mainly used in editing raster graphics and bitmap images.
Illustrator, which was originally created for the Apple Macintosh, is a vector graphics editor. Vector graphics are images that are defined in terms of 2D points, which are connected by lines and curves to form different shapes.
InDesign, is a software primarily used in desktop publishing and print material. It is used by graphic designers and production artists in laying out publications, posters, brochures, etc.
Web Design
With the rise of the internet and the boom of personal computers in the early ’90s, we have been engulfing information at a faster, larger pace than ever before. As of 2019, there have been a total of 1.5 billion websites created.
With all these websites, getting attention from your audience is a daunting task. In order for your site to at least have a fighting chance, there must be a dozen things working together effectively. But more importantly, when an audience lands on your site, you instantly have to awe.
Let me show you a couple of early sites.
These sites don’t look like this today, they have had more than a handful of iterations since they were created, but let’s be honest, today, if you land on a website that looks like either of them, chances are, you’ll exit almost immediately.
They’re both clunky, you don’t know what it does at first glance, different fonts were used, links and call-to-actions (CTAs) are everywhere, the list goes on and on.
All the wrong things I’ve listed down from their ‘90s versions have all since been tremendously improved. Both websites are clean to look at, they’re using uniformed typefaces, you also know they have their own color identities, and more importantly, the experience is seamless.
Fortunately, web and graphic designs, when done correctly, amplifies and legitimizes your company’s presence online. Oftentimes, no matter how great your product may be, your sales may be abysmal without a carefully designed and well thought out visual branding coupled with an intuitive website.
Remember the old adage ‘first impressions lasts’? I’m certain you don’t want to leave a bad first impression on your prospective clients. So level up your online presence with great visuals and an awesome website.
Tell us how we can elevate your brand to the next level. Send us an email at hello@lucidph.com
