Imagine, for an instance, your perfect house. Total opulence, fantastic use of space. Roomy to the extreme, custom-designed to cater to your every whim. Now, look at it from the outside and as you approach notice the horizontal opening placed eight feet above the ground which is the only way in. You need a ladder to get in there. Nothing else will do. The designer, in keeping with the innovative nature of your requests for an extraordinary, innovative, home thought that a door, placed vertically, at ground level was way too traditional and designed something else instead.

Does the house still work for you? The example here may be a little extreme but it makes a valid point. When it comes to design you have to understand that there is a very fine line between getting something which is out of the ordinary (and does not work) and getting something which “everyone else has”.

As designers of highly industry-specific websites, business cards, brochures and leaflets, we understand that each design we create is as unique as the business it helps. In order to achieve that uniqueness we carry out extensive research in the design itself, take into account industry-specific standards, consider what trends are happening in the field and how they can be implemented in a visitor-friendly manner. 

Without the design working for you the best functionality (in a website), or wording (in a brochure or leaflet or business card) is not going to arrest the visitor’s eye long enough for the content to work on their mind.

No less a personality than Sir Alan Jones, of Toyota, Chairman of SEMTA and Diploma Champion for Employers has publicly stated the importance design makes when it comes to differentiating yourself in the market place. This is a corporate policy which Toyota employs as part of their branding and unique selling point (USP). What works in the crowded and ultra-competitive car market can also work when it comes to giving you the advantage you need as a company or even an individual trader.

More to the point, when you start to use design as part of your branding and marketing strategies you have began to fully internalize what makes you different from your competitors which also means that you have began to be truly professional and are now on your way to dominating your market share.

The Web Direct Studio company Blog is penned by a number of our in-house staff from our different areas of activity. They write anonymously in order to free their range of expression, particularly when it comes to criticizing their sector of activity or making observations about their job. They work under a simple edict: What you say must make sense and must fit in with the tone of our online business. Apart from that they are the ones who choose the topic they write about in each Blog post.