April 2023

We as humble human beings are, by nature, visual beings, we are driven by what’s most attractive and all of this happens subconsciously, we often don’t notice good design and we are subconsciously repelled by bad design, as a Graphic Designer, here are 15 of the most common design tweaks you can do to increase your sales and conversions, backed by psychology and science. According to research gate, 94% of first impressions are related to design, i.e the way things look, so here are some pro ways you can use design to increase sales. Use Bright colors on CTAs Instead of making your ‘call to action’ button an outline or some random color, change the fill color to something bright and something that contrasts with the background. Ever wondered why Fast food restaurants use red? Because its attractive and grabs customers like crazy, here’s an example: As you can see, the CTA button is clear, visible and stands out, almost like its asking to be clicked on, because thats what its supposed to do! What not to do: While its not exactly a WRONG to do it this way, you can clearly tell the difference,If the ‘button’ could speak, its tone would go along the lines of: “I’ll stand over here, if you want click it, I’m kinda shy, meh, whatever” Not the least bit confident eh? And certainly not what a business would want, because business want to instill confidence to their prospective clients, obviously! Here’s another example of when NOT to use bright colors. Why is it bad? You might ask, isn’t it pretty common? Well, it is common, but it is bad. Because reading long paragraphs like these will become so tiring after like 2 or 3 lines because our eyes have to work so much to distinguish the bright colored text from the bright background, and for many people, its not comfortable.  Blue is a bit forgiving when it comes to contrast but some other bright colors are not, and they turn out to be an eyesore. So please do this world a favor, and please stick to black text on white background, that’s the safe way, or use some color that contrasts well enough with the background. Use Images with an actual human! Images are an essential part of communicating your business to your prospective customers, more and more, people are yearning for a personal connection, and images that show emotions, people smiling, laughing or basically whichever emotion you are trying to convey, will have a lasting impression on your visitors, according to vwo.com Photos with people in them was shown to have increased conversions, but there’s a catch, we are trying to build trust here, so the photos should come across as ‘real’ and people can tell if its a stock photo so you gotta be careful when choosing your photo. Here’s a quick mockup that I put up,  Things to keep in mind while choosing images: Infographics are a cheat code! Infographics are an aesthetically pleasing way to convey data and share statistical information in a way which is more compelling and shareable,  why? You might ask, well,  Our brains tend to process visuals much faster than plain old words, and like I said, we are visual beings. This is like the tip of the iceberg in Digital Marketing, just look at these statistics:  49% of marketers rate visual marketing as “very important”  And 22% consider it important in their marketing strategy, according to Search Engine Journal. Here’s a good example I was able to find on Findstack, See how they have emphasized the numbers, making them bold and big? And the graph-like thingy adds a visual interest to the whole graphic, and all of this keeps the audience hooked. Some of the benefits of Infographics are: Infographics can be a whole article on its own, we dove in deeper in our article on 20 tips on using Infographics. Rounded Shapes You must have noticed that many websites and apps have started rounding their corners lately, is it just a trend or is there a reason behind it?  I did some research, and I’ve found out that there’s some psychology to back it up. Circles and Rounded shapes don’t have angles,  which makes them feel softer and milder,  and they commonly represent both unity and protection. To come to think about it, in this attention deficit age, all the businesses are focusing on attracting as much of their audience as they could, and evoking these feelings with just a simple rounding off of the corners seems like a no-brainer. According to designmodo.com Sharp, angled corners interrupt thought because the brain has to process lines as point A to point B and such, while the natural movement of our eyes is accustomed to curves. From the above 2 examples, You can see that the first graphic, with the rounded boxes just seems much friendlier and approachable, While the second image seems really serious and reserved, and the text inside the box almost seems like a warning, All these different emotions with just rounding off little corners! I do have to note that branding comes into play largely because not all businesses have rounded corners as part of their branding and thats totally okay, Angled shapes and Rounded shapes have their own sets of benefits and drawbacks. KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid Keeping the design simple and minimal forces your audience to focus on what you want them to focus on, and keeps them from getting distracted. A simple design injects elegance and confidence, it gives a feeling that the brand is confident and in control. The navigation and getting around your website or design almost becomes intuitive because the visitors do not need to focus on how to use it, rather, they’ll focus on the actual product. According to PracticalEcommerce, roughly 35% of US adults desire some level of minimalism, minimalism can drive an increase in sales. Minimal and simplistic design can present