Why Is Graphic Design Important in E-Commerce?

You need marketing to develop an interest in your brand when it comes to your e-commerce business. However, marketing and graphic design go hand in hand. While marketing generates awareness, graphic design visually communicates your brand.

Despite the connection between these elements in business, some companies still share a disconnect between them. They go off the rails and don’t share any consistencies in their branding, making communicating more difficult.

However, graphic design goes beyond the company’s logo or page layout. It bridges your brand and its customers, contributing to consumer confidence.

You may have the best copy and targeting techniques, but if the design doesn’t align, you’ll need to fix it to help increase conversions.

The Advantages of Graphic Design in E-Commerce

There are many reasons to focus on graphic design in e-commerce. Here are some things to consider.

Drives Conversions

Implementing seamless design allows you to motivate consumers to take action by providing a simplified path to converting. For instance, good design can drive conversions by creating a clear call to action. 

The next time you create a marketing campaign — despite the changes taking place with targeting and measurement — consider how you can prompt the desired outcome with a call-to-action button. 

Essentially, design is responsible for producing an emotional response from your target audience. 

Gains Consumer Trust

Thoughtful design can build trust with customers by eliminating any hesitancy toward converting. Graphic design does this by addressing any concerns they may have about your products. 

For example, you can create images that show the type of material your product uses to ease their apprehension. 

Encourages Product Use

It helps when you showcase more context of your product to encourage consumers to use it. People tend to use things if they have an emotional connection to them. In some way, it makes their lives better and provides a solution to a problem. 

By sharing more context, graphic design can help them visualize the product in their hands. In turn, they can quickly see how it could work and fit their lifestyle. 

The Top Graphic Design Tips to Consider

Take this information and put it to work by trying these ideas.

1. Build a Brand Identity

Brand identity pertains to the visual aspects of your e-commerce brand. Remember, branding is the impression you build to maintain a memorable business. Brand identity starts with the creation of your brand logo but beyond that, it refers to your company’s personality details. This would entail colors, and selecting the right icons and fonts you use to depict your brand.

You need graphic design to communicate your brand story visually. Therefore, if you create an online presence, your graphics must be eye-catching to develop appeal for your e-commerce brand.

Ask yourself what brand image you want your potential customers to perceive and how you will show it through your brand identity.

2. Use Contrast

Before holding the user’s attention, you first must grasp their interest. Contrast ensures your designs stand out when communicating your brand.

Consider implementing contrast in your designs using color, repetition, white space, texture and alignment. For instance, when designing a product image for your website, you can experiment with different backgrounds for your e-commerce to highlight the product you’re selling. Whether you use a white or gradient background, you can design a good product photo to center the goods you’re selling.

Overall, using the right amount of each element in design can appeal more to your audience.

3. Send an Email Newsletter

Email marketing can provide much return on investment when done correctly. However, your designs need to be simple enough to make it an enjoyable reading experience for subscribers.

Implementing graphics is an effective way to hold the reader’s attention. To ensure you nail the design, consider the following graphic design tips:

• Use dynamic gifs

• Invest in high-quality product photography

• Create visually compelling CTAs

• Be consistent with branding through fonts, colors and icons

• Incorporate infographics to highlight featured information.

Most e-commerce owners avoid getting stuck on a design by starting with different email templates for their marketing campaigns. Email templates can help you save time and guarantee a visually enhanced design when sending newsletters to your audience. 

4. Join Social Media

Social media is an excellent way to market your e-commerce business. Billions of people are active on social media, and you can use it to promote your products through various channels.

However, unique social media graphics are the best way to grab users’ attention. Consider using social media templates if you’re stuck on where to start.

For example, suppose you’re an online business that promotes eco-friendly products. A social media graphic template can guide you through the design process and help you create spectacular visuals. Simultaneously, suppose you wanted to use a colorless design for your graphics. You could leverage a template package to keep your brand on point.

When you utilize share-worthy graphics, you increase the potential for going viral.

5. Take High-Quality Images

When considering your e-commerce site, high-quality product photos are essentially your salespeople. If salespeople aren’t great at selling, they may not generate as many leads. The same goes for your product’s images.

Consider using a product mockup to enhance your design. Mockups enable you to download and edit in various formats. That way, you can fine-tune the details of your product and render a high-quality product image. 

Implement the following graphic design tips when creating product images for your e-commerce website:

• Use high-resolution images, stock images can be an additional resource of images for your project

• Avoid using photos containing multiple objects if they don’t provide context

• Ensure the picture is free of filters and doesn’t alter the product’s color.

• Make the product fill most of the image's space so shoppers can see the details

• Use photos that present different angles of your product

6. Incorporate Different Font Sizes and Typography

You can create a distinct effect using more than one font size and typography when marketing your business online. Different font use and size emphasize the most important parts of your messaging.

For example, the biggest font size is the part users will read first. You might capture their attention using a clear title or headline as part of your messaging. Meanwhile, you could use contrasting fonts to highlight the various aspects of your messaging.

The important thing to remember is that the fonts must be legible. You’ll need to ensure they’re clear enough to make your graphics look enticing and easy to read.

7. Keep It Simple and Clean

In case you haven’t established a popular brand yet, consider using clean design to establish credibility. This graphic design principle is simple to follow — avoid overbearing the graphic with too much text and too many elements.

You should create a clear graphic that users will want to click through. Avoid too many elements by asking yourself which parts are the most necessary. Once you answer this question, you can determine the changes you need to make in your design.

8. Utilize Icons

You don’t have to limit icons to your company’s logo. You can also use them to grab the viewer’s attention and guide them whenever necessary.

Selecting the right icons for your brand is an excellent visual aid, and there are various ways to create them. For instance, you can instill bright, bold colors or make them simple with black and white. You can even enhance the aesthetic value by incorporating a 3D or flat design. 

Integrating various elements into the icon’s design can enhance the experience and render them highly engaging.

9. Employ White Space

You’ll always hear the saying that less is more in graphic design. In some cases, adding multiple elements, colors and fonts are unnecessary for getting your message across. Instead, white space is the key to keeping your message from getting lost in the clutter. 

White space — also known as negative space — is the area of the graphic that doesn’t have any elements. Implementing this graphic design principle ensures your materials will be minimal and simple but also elegant and sophisticated.

Furthermore, this technique saves you time as you reduce the work it takes to create your designs. 

10. Leverage the Psychology of Color

Color theory is useful in graphic design as it can positively impact conversions. Knowing the psychology behind colors is crucial since it helps determine how your customers perceive your brand messaging.

Colors can convey different meanings and cause an emotional reaction in people. That’s why it helps to be strategic in choosing shades to get the response you’re looking for from your audience. 

For example, suppose you wanted to represent your brand as trustworthy and reliable. Most brands use the color blue to carry out this type of tone when promoting their brand.

11. Experiment With Lines

Though lines appear simple, they are still versatile design elements that can enhance your messaging. Lines can be short, long, thick, thin, curvy, straight, vertical or horizontal.

You can enhance the visual appeal of your designs by:

• Organizing information into groups or separate components

• Creating a statement with different dimensions of the lines

• Curating illusions

• Guiding readers to other sections

• Simulating textures

Consider experimenting with lines and applying these ideas to produce stunning designs.

Boost Your E-Commerce Business With These Graphic Design Tips

Good design can bring you immense results regarding engagement and conversions. They can further enhance the connection between your e-commerce brand and your audience. Keep practicing graphic design, use tools to make the process seamless or outsource these projects to keep your business flourishing.

Eleanor Hecks is the editor-in-chief of Designerly Magazine. She’s also a web design consultant with a focus on customer experience and UI. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and pups, Bear and Lucy. Connect with her about marketing, design and/or tea on LinkedIn.