Brand visuals and templates are useful creative assets when creating brand collateral like business cards, posters and corporate email footers. You might also need them when running various types of marketing campaigns or seasonal promotions. 

In this guide, we’ll go over some ways to create good-looking brand visuals and templates even if you’re working with the budget limitations inherent to running an SME.  Keep reading to learn how to keep your design costs down without sacrificing quality. 

Acquire the right tools

In order to create great brand visuals and templates while working with a limited budget, it’s important to be strategic about your tools. First, you should always check for free options. For instance, it isn’t too hard to find quality digital tools like photo editors for free if you do a quick online search. These tools can easily be used to remove or change image backgrounds, allowing you to easily create graphics for a branding campaign, optimising promotional images for social media or editing them in line with annual holidays.

Small business owners have the option to invest in design software packages as a tax deductible expense, so don’t hesitate to secure the right tools for your team as early as possible. That way, your in-house designers and marketers will have plenty of time to get the grips of the tools and bolster their proficiency, which can only improve the quality and presentation of your finished brand visuals and promotional materials.

It’s also important to know exactly what you’ll be using various design software for before paying for them. Speak with the members of your team who’ll be the primary users to ensure they have what they need, alongside scoring a good deal. Once you’re set – you can use the software for all future brand visuals and template projects, minimising the need for further investment.

Empower your design staff

While augmenting your staff may involve increased costs at present, it can be a great investment in the long run. One option is to hire more in-house designers. If you find your business regularly needing new brand visuals and templates, the solution may simply be more manpower. 

Make sure to hire professionals with different or complementary skill sets, however. For example, you might have someone in charge of creating static images and another who makes animated videos. Picking individuals whose skills complement each other is a great way to boost efficiency and maximise your marketing and design budget. 

Besides beefing up your internal team, you can also go down the route of seeking reinforcements in the form of freelancers and contract workers. This is usually a more cost-effective option than hiring full-time workers and might be preferable if you need design work done on an inconsistent or ad-hoc basis. 

Another way to empower your design staff is to invest in training your current employees, in the form of online courses or in-person workshops. By doing this, you can upskill or reskill your team and broaden the range of tasks they can do without inflating your wage bill. 

Standardise your templates

A great way to reduce the cost of creating new visuals, in the long run, is to standardise your templates. To do this, you first need to settle on a criteria of visual elements you want to associate with your brand. This can include using a bold logo, specific colors, and font types. 

Whether you’re doing all your graphic design in-house or outsourcing to freelancers or agencies, we highly recommend building a brand bible. Share it with everyone who makes visuals for you to ensure that they’re producing aesthetically consistent work. Aside from purely visual elements, you should also add factors like brand voice and values to the brand bible to aid and influence their creative decisions. 

If you create templates that can be used again and again, you won’t need to reinvent the wheel each time you need new visuals. By doing this, you’ll quicken the process and save plenty of valuable time down the line. 

Use AI strategically 

Traditionally, among the biggest barriers for SMEs looking to create brand visuals and templates is cost. Hiring designers and buying graphic design software can be expensive, particularly if you need new artwork on a regular basis. 

Today, artificial intelligence has helped level the playing field. Most are aware that AI can help write text, but many professionals don’t know that there’s a host of AI-powered tools that can also generate images for a variety of purposes, including online advertising campaigns and social media content. Some software with this capability includes AdCreative, OpenArt AI, and Shutterstock.ai. Even ChatGPT can create pictures based on your description. 

The key to making the most of these AI image generators is knowing how to prompt them. Prompting simply means providing clear instructions. When asking AI software to generate an image, it helps to include as many details as possible while using concise language. If you need help writing prompts, there are many detailed guides you can find with a quick Google search. 

Generative AI is undoubtedly among the most revolutionary and trending technologies to have arisen in the past few years. Make the process of creating brand visuals and templates more efficient by maximising the AI-powered tools at your disposal. 

Create stunning brand visuals for your small business

As an SME, brand visuals and templates play a massive role in your promotion efforts. No matter what your goals are, it’s essential to create efficient and cost-effective processes for developing new brand visuals and templates. 

We’ve provided tips on utilising free apps and tools, experimenting with generative AI, maximising the potential of your design staff, and more. Apply the lessons you’ve learned from this article to your own practices to do just that, even if you’re on a budget. 

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