How to prioritize your graphic design budget
If you’re a church, nonprofit, or small business with a tight budget for things like design, advertising and marketing… read this! You might not have an in-house designer or creative team, but strategically making investments in really good design for your organization can have a huge impact. Here's a list of design projects you should prioritize, highest to lowest. So start pinching pennies on things with a short shelf-life, so you can spend more on the really important things like branding, physical touch points and capital-generating items. Save this for later… you’ll thank me!
hIGH PRIORITY
1. BRANDING
Invest in a full brand identity package by a designer who does absolutely awe-inspiring work. Spend a little extra to get more deliverables than just a logo in a couple of versions and colors. Ask your designer about add-ons like patterns, illustrations, icon sets, expanded typography selections, expanded color palette, and templates. This initial investment will pay off when you realize you can use these for massive social media reach, stunning packaging, merch that flies off the shelves, engaging web design, eye-catching signage and more. You’d be surprised, many times the most expensive designers or agencies do NOT deliver the most high-quality, inspiring creative assets, and the moderately priced independent designers with low business overhead are often hitting home runs each and every time. Most designers BECOME freelancers because they place such a HIGH value on creative excellence and want to have ownership on working with clients in a collaborative, personal way.
2. PHYSICAL SPACE
With a more collaborative than ever community of creative professionals, inspiring spaces are everywhere. Team members expect to feel valued and motivated by their workspace ambiance. Exciting spaces make for a culture ripe for community, authenticity and connections. Guests connect with your brand when they have an emotional response to your space. Immersing people in a sensory, experiential representation of your DNA brings your brand to life in a memorable way. The bottom line is good design within your space adds real value to your offering. People are willing to pay a much higher price for a Starbuck coffee than a Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and good design has a lot to do with that.
3. BRAND TOUCHPOINTS
Your brand has a lot of touchpoints: your website, social media accounts, physical space, print collateral, signage, advertisements, apps, packaging and everything surrounding the experience your customers have with your people, products, platforms, and services. But the value consumers place on these touchpoints isn’t created equally. Excellence is the standard when it comes to digital platforms with a long shelf-life like web design, and app development.
4. REVENUE-GENERATING DESIGN
Anything that’s being designed for your brand specifically to bring in revenue, (i.e. paid ads, fundraising campaigns, investor presentations, and merchandise) should get special attention. If you’re a coffee shop and you hope to sell some branded swag at your counter, go the extra mile of making sure those t-shirts and mugs are items people actually want to pay money for and take home. If you’re a nonprofit and you’re hosting a fundraising event or launching a capital campaign, hire the best designer you know for just those projects. You might invest $5000 on killer design that will help you cast vision and tell your story, resulting in hundreds of thousands more in funds raised for your cause. Quality is always going to be a worthwhile investment when your organization is making a pitch or presenting a vision for growth.
LOW PRIORITY
5. PRINT COLLATERAL
These days print collateral like flyers, posters, cards, and menus are considered a low value medium. It’s nice if they have a touch of consistency with your brand but the reality is, consumers don’t have high expectations for design excellence in print collateral and the lack of interactivity of these pieces, means they don’t leave much of a lasting impression compared to things higher on this list. Cohesion and simplicity are the main goals here. If you do have the budget to go above and beyond on printed assets, by all means, go for it, but if you’re on a tight budget, prioritize the above elements first.
6. SHORT SHELF-LIFE DIGITAL TOUCHPOINTS
Social media and blogs are a great way to increase your audience little by little over time, but they reality is, this type of content has a very short shelf-life. Use these platforms more for making connections, sharing stories, and relating with your audience. Simple is better when it comes to design for social media and blogs, so keep things cohesive with your brand identity and aim for quantity, personality, and authenticity.
AUTHOR
Hi! I'm Tiffany Kelly, owner of The Honest Pixel, an independent graphic design studio in Winter Garden, FL. I've been a creative professional all my adult life. I have a Master's Degree in architecture from RISD and over a decade of experience in graphic design. I've learned so much about design, freelance, and owning a business since starting The Honest Pixel in 2022.
I aim to be a trusted and authentic coach for other graphic designers, freelancers, or owners of small studios. I share honest tips and wisdom about things I'm putting into practice within my own business. My goal is to encourage and build up other creatives in a real way that broadens your community and impacts your success.
I aim to be a trusted and authentic coach for other graphic designers, freelancers, or owners of small studios. I share honest tips and wisdom about things I'm putting into practice within my own business. My goal is to encourage and build up other creatives in a real way that broadens your community and impacts your success.
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