Is Your Graphic Design in Need of New Inspiration?

Graphic design is critically imperative for most successful marketing campaigns. In fact, it’s one of the most important ingredients, depending on the mediums you’re using. But if your graphic design is flat, uninspired, or otherwise ineffective, it’s not going to carry its weight.

How can you tell if your graphic design isn’t sufficient to support your campaign? And what can you do about it?

The Power of Fresh Inspiration

Even a modest breath of fresh air can inspire your graphic design efforts and point them in a new, ostensibly better direction. The problem for most designers is finding that fresh inspiration. Fortunately, there are many potential solutions and options.

For example, your firm could choose to work with a fractional CMO in consulting capacity. A fractional CMO has many of the same credentials and experiences as traditional Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), but can be hired in a flexible, consulting capacity. Your fractional CMO can bring in new ideas, analyze your past efforts, and generally help guide you to a new style or new approach. Who should hire a fractional CMO? Almost any organization in need of a fresh graphic design strategy.

You can also find fresh inspiration from other examples of successful graphic design pieces, or from ideas generated by other designers. Even getting more exposure to novel forms of art can help you evolve.

Signs Your Design Is Becoming Stale

These are some of the hallmark signs that your graphic design is becoming stale:

• Repetitive choices. Do you tend to start new designs with the same template, or the same elements, or the same general approach? How repetitive is your work? On some level, repetitiveness isn’t inherently bad, because there are some best practices in graphic design that are always worth following. But if too many of your choices are formulaic and repetitive, your work is going to become stale.
• Outdated elements. You might also notice outdated elements in your designs. What counts as “outdated” is always a bit subjective and is always changing, but if you keep up with modern graphic design publications, you should be able to spot problematic elements in your designs.
• Competitive pressure. You might feel like your graphic design work is lacking because of how it compares to other examples in your field. For example, do you notice that competitor advertisements are enviably superior to yours in some way? Do you find it hard to keep up with industry trends?
• Lower audience engagement. You could notice troubling trends in audience engagement metrics. If your design work is falling short of where it used to be, it could be symptomatic of stale or quality changes in your designs. Of course, that’s only one potential explanation for lower audience engagement scores.  
• No recent innovation. When was the last time you changed your approach? When was the last time you embraced a new style or design idea? When was the last time you altered your process? Good graphic designers are almost constantly refining their approach.
• No response to new technologies. Graphic design approaches must evolve in response to the adoption of new technologies as well. Have you stayed up-to-date on the mediums and technologies that people use on a regular basis?
• Lack of excitement. It’s also possible to identify stale graphic design patterns based on your own perceptions and moods. When was the last time you felt genuinely excited about your design work? Are you in a rut?

First Steps to Take

If you notice that your designs are starting to become stale, these are some of the best first steps you can take:

• Audit your work. First, take a close look at your work and analyze the efforts and processes that led to its creation. Do you notice any especially problematic trends or patterns? Have you struggled to incorporate more sources or ideas into your work?
• Get feedback from multiple parties. See if you can get some feedback on your work, and get it from multiple parties (preferably people with graphic design expertise). It might help you identify ingrained habits in your process and work, or guide you to new ideas for how to improve.
• Experiment. It’s also important to experiment. Not every new idea is worth integrating into your work, and the only practical way to delineate good ideas and bad ideas is to play with them and evaluate them. The more you experiment, the more fluid your designs will become.

If your graphic design efforts have stalled, or if you’re otherwise unsatisfied with your performance as a graphic designer, try not to take it to heart. Most designers, and artists more broadly, struggle with occasional plateaus and uninspired periods. But if you’re willing to acknowledge that you need fresh inspiration, and you’re willing to seek that information, you can spark new life in your work – and ultimately achieve your graphic design goals.