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Establishing your startup’s creative and design direction

For marketers embarking on establishing a new marketing department, understanding the crucial role of your startup’s creative and design strategy is paramount. 

    Establishing your startup’s creative and design direction

    For marketers embarking on establishing a new marketing department, understanding the crucial role of your startup’s creative and design strategy is paramount. 

      Tips for your startup’s creative strategy

      (Click linked headings for guidance)
      • Visual Identity
        Develop a cohesive visual identity that reflects your brand personality and resonates with your target audience.
      • Branding Elements
        Incorporate consistent branding elements, including logos, color schemes, and typography, across all marketing materials.
      • Graphic Design
        Invest in professional graphic design to create eye-catching visuals for digital and print collateral.
      • Website Design
        Ensure your website design is user-friendly, visually appealing, and aligned with your brand aesthetics.
      • Content Presentation
        Pay attention to how content is presented in your startup’s creative strategy; use visuals to enhance the message and improve engagement.
      • Consistency
        Maintain consistency in design elements across various platforms and marketing channels.
      • Responsive Design
        Prioritize responsive design in your startup’s creative strategy to guarantee a seamless user experience across different devices.
      • Creativity in Campaigns
        Infuse creativity into marketing campaigns to capture attention and leave a lasting impression.
      • UX/UI Principles
        Embrace user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) principles for digital assets and platforms.
      • Storytelling through Design
        Use design elements in your startup’s creative strategy to tell a compelling brand story and evoke emotions.
      • Adaptability
        Be adaptable and open to design iterations based on data, feedback, and evolving market trends.
      • Collaboration
        Foster collaboration between the marketing and design teams to ensure a unified and effective approach to your startup’s creative strategy.
      • Print and Digital Harmony
        Whether in print or digital, maintain a harmonious design language to reinforce brand recognition.
      • A/B Testing
        Implement A/B testing for various design elements to optimize the performance of your startup’s creative.
      • Design Software Mastery
        Equip your team with proficiency in essential design software for efficient collaboration and execution.
      • Budget Allocation
        Allocate a portion of your budget to quality design, recognizing its impact on brand perception.

      Tips to get you started with your startup’s creative strategy

      (Click linked headings for guidance)

      Visual Identity
      Develop a cohesive visual identity that reflects your brand personality and resonates with your target audience.

      Branding Elements
      Incorporate consistent branding elements, including logos, color schemes, and typography, across all marketing materials.

      Graphic Design
      Invest in professional graphic design to create eye-catching visuals for digital and print collateral.

      Website Design
      Ensure your website design is user-friendly, visually appealing, and aligned with your brand aesthetics.

      Content Presentation
      Pay attention to how content is presented in your startup’s creative strategy; use visuals to enhance the message and improve engagement.

      Consistency
      Maintain consistency in design elements across various platforms and marketing channels.

      Responsive Design
      Prioritize responsive design in your startup’s creative strategy to guarantee a seamless user experience across different devices.

      Creativity in Campaigns
      Infuse creativity into marketing campaigns to capture attention and leave a lasting impression.

      UX/UI Principles
      Embrace user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) principles for digital assets and platforms.

      Storytelling through Design
      Use design elements in your startup’s creative strategy to tell a compelling brand story and evoke emotions.

      Adaptability
      Be adaptable and open to design iterations based on data, feedback, and evolving market trends.

      Collaboration
      Foster collaboration between the marketing and design teams to ensure a unified and effective approach to your startup’s creative strategy.

      Print and Digital Harmony
      Whether in print or digital, maintain a harmonious design language to reinforce brand recognition.

      Video and Multimedia
      Leverage the power of video and multimedia for dynamic and engaging content.

      A/B Testing
      Implement A/B testing for various design elements to optimize the performance of your startup’s creative.

      Design Software Mastery
      Equip your team with proficiency in essential design software for efficient collaboration and execution.

      Budget Allocation
      Allocate a portion of your budget to quality design, recognizing its impact on brand perception.

      Legal Considerations
      Ensure designs comply with copyright laws and industry regulations.

      Understanding the nuances of your startup’s creative and design is integral to crafting a brand image that stands out. By integrating these principles, you can establish a marketing department that not only communicates effectively but does so with visual flair and impact.

      Understanding the nuances of your startup’s creative and design is integral to crafting a brand image that stands out. By integrating these principles, you can establish a marketing department that not only communicates effectively but does so with visual flair and impact.

      Design Resources

      Essential online resources to help kickstart your startup’s design work

      Design Resources

      Essential online resources to help kickstart your startup’s design work

      Design Basics

      The Art & Science of Design - From UX Magazine

      Designing for Scale

      Don't design for your users - From Adobe

      Designing for AI

      Designing for AI: beyond the chatbot - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Design Principles

      4 design principles I use every day to avoid bad UX and create products that work for everyone - From Adam Silver

      Design Blog

      50 of the best graphic design blogs for inspiration in 2022 - From Creative Boom

      Design Systems

      What's a Design System & What Components Is it Made Up of? [Examples] - From HubSpot

      User-Centered Design

      User-Centered Design: What It Is and How to Do It Right - From HubSpot

      Design Fundamentals

      Design fundamentals every creative should know - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Design Tips

      The morning habit Seth Godin says will make you a better designer - From InVision

      Inclusive Design

      13 Inclusive Design Changes to Increase Your Digital Marketing Engagement - From CMS Wire

      Image Compression

      How to Resize and Compress Large Images in Bulk (and Optimize Them) - From Imagify Blog

      Design

      Copying is the Way Design Works - From Matthew Strom

      Style Guides

      50 brand style guides for inspiration (plus free templates) - From Canva

      Insipiration

      The Best Instagram Accounts To Follow For Design - From Fast Co

      Design Patterns

      Design Patterns Are A Better Way To Collaborate On Your Design System - From Smashing Magazine

      Working with Designers

      No More “Make it Pop”: A Marketer’s Guide to Giving Better Design Feedback - From Fenwick

      Design Trends

      Trend List: Documenting visual trends in graphic design - From Trend List

      Inclusive Design

      Inclusive Design - From Nielsen Norman Group

      Visual Identity Systems

      Visual Identity Systems: What They Are & Why They Matter - From HubSpot

      Emoji

      The power of emoji: An interview with Jennifer Daniel - From Figma

      Button Design

      Button Design - UI component series - - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Inspiration

      Top 20 Online & Offline Inspiration Sources for Designers - From Dribbble

      Case Study

      How Industrial Design and Weird Swag Helped MailChimp Find Success - From Wired

      Design Tests

      The blurry-eye test - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Working with Designers

      Getting the Job Done: Working with Designers - From UX Booth

      Design Principles

      11 Principles of Design (& How to Use Them) - From Dribbble

      ChatGPT in Design

      How I use ChatGPT as a UI/UX Designer - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Packaging Design

      The Best in Packaging From 2023: Dieline Awards Winners Revealed - From The Dieline

      ChatGPT Templates

      Creating ChatGPT prompt templates for Design System Documentation - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Designer's Block

      A Writer’s Guide to Overcoming Designer’s Block - From Indeed Design

      Accessible Design

      Accessible Design vs. Inclusive Design (With Infographic) - From Toptal

      Email Background Images

      Tutorial: How to Add Background Images on Emails and Landing Pages - From Email Design & More

      Brutalist Web Development

      The Split Personality Of Brutalist Web Development - From Smashing Magazine

      Psychology

      ? The Psychology of Design - From growth.design

      Conversion-Centered Design

      How To Create Emails That Sell With Conversion-Centered Design - From Litmus

      Design Systems

      What's a Design System & What Components Is it Made Up of? [Examples] - From HubSpot

      Icon Design

      7 Principles of Icon Design - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Design Templates

      The Ultimate Guide to Design Templates - From HubSpot

      Design Templates

      A Branding Expert Shares: How to Use Design Templates Like a Pro - From Buffer

      Design System Case Studies

      7 impressive design system case studies by Dribbble's latest graduates - From Dribbble

      Mobile UX Design

      The Mobile UX Playbook: 8 Tips for Design Success - From Dribbble

      Dark Mode Greyscale

      Why is making a dark mode greyscale so hard to get right? - From Dan Hollick

      Styling Lists

      Creative list styling - From web.dev

      Design Systems

      What is a Design System? - From Dan Mall

      Inspiration - Design Portfolios

      The 23 Best Graphic Design Portfolios We've Ever Seen, & How to Start Your Own - From HubSpot

      Design Principals

      20 Important Design Principals Explained With Simple Illustrations - From Digital Synopsis

      Email Design

      Subject Line—How to Approach Email Design - From Toptal

      Email Design

      Foundations of Email Design - From Litmus

      Creating Digital Interfaces

      Khoi Vinh's tips for creating digital interfaces and layouts - From Adobe

      Design Projects

      All design projects should start in a Google Doc - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Design Process

      This 6-Step Graphic Design Process Drives Results (Infographic) - From Brafton Agency

      Design Asset Resources

      Online design asset resources to use in your design work

      Design Asset Resources

      Online design asset resources to use in your design work

      QR Codes

      How to create a QR code (and QR code best practices) - From Zapier

      Alternative Creative Interfaces

      29 alternative interfaces for creating and editing images and text - From Constraint Systems

      Lorem Ipsum Generator

      Bob Ross Lorem Ipsum Generator

      Design Resources

      Creative Market - Good source for creative resources

      QR Codes

      What is a QR Code + How Does It Work? Everything Marketers Should Know - From HubSpot

      Hand-drawn Illustrations

      Open Peep: A hand-drawn illustration library.

      Data Visualization

      Tips and Examples to Inspire You

      QR Codes

      How to Make a QR Code in 5 Easy Steps - From HubSpot

      Stock Images

      Free Images: 41 Best Stock Photo Sites to Find High-Quality - From Search Engine Journal

      Graphic Design Resources

      100 essential free resources for graphic designers in 2022 - From Creative Boom

      SVG Shapes

      120+ basic SVG shapes for your upcoming project

      GIFs

      How to Create & Add an Animated GIF to an Email - From Litmus

      Stock Photos

      Gratisography - Truly unique. Usually whimsy 😉 Always free

      Infographic Design

      24 Infographic Design Tools to Help You Create Your Own Infographics [Infographic] - From Social Media Today

      Infographic Creation

      8 Helpful Resources for Creating Beautiful Infographics - From HubSpot

      Design Assets

      Free design asset downloads - From Creative Market

      Asset Sizes

      Image and Video sizes for Social Media. - From SocialPilot

      Watermarks

      Watermarks: Why You Need Them + 6 Easy Steps to Create One - From HubSpot

      Image Resizing

      The Quick and Easy Guide to Resizing Images Online - From HubSpot

      Stock Photos

      Artist-owned stock photography

      Product GIFs

      How to create remarkable product GIFs - From Super Human

      Infographic Creation

      How To Create An Infographic In Powerpoint [+Free Templates] - From HubSpot

      People Images

      Mix-&-match illustrations of people with a design library - From Humaaans

      Graphic Design Resources

      25 graphic design resources everyone needs to know about - From Vista

      Generated Photos

      Unique, worry-free model photos

      GIFs

      3 advanced animated GIF techniques to uplevel your email designs - From MessageBird

      Zoom Backgrounds

      Design a virtual background - From Adobe

      Color Resources

      Online resources to guide your work with colors in developing your startup’s creative strategy

      Color Resources

      Online resources to guide your work with colors in developing your startup’s creative strategy

      Color Palettes

      Color Palette Generator - From iColorpalette

      Color Palette Inspiration

      50 Unforgettable Color Palettes to Help You Design Your Own - From HubSpot

      Color palette generator

      Huemint uses machine learning to create unique color schemes for your brand, website or graphic - From Huemint

      Color Psychology

      8 Ways to Use the Psychology of Color to Increase Conversions of Your Landing Page - From Mention

      Color Combinations

      26 best color combinations for your next design - From Webflow

      Color Combinations

      A Dictionary of Color Combinations -W - From Wada Sanzo

      Color Science

      50 Hard Science-Backed Facts About Color - From Creative Market

      Color Psychology

      Color psychology: The logo color tricks used by top companies—and how to design your own - From Canva

      Color Psychology

      Color Psychology: How To Use it in Marketing and Branding - From HubSpot

      RGB Monitor Colors

      The 954 most common RGB monitor colors, as defined by several hundred thousand participants in the xkcd color name survey - From xkcd.com

      Color Theory

      How Color Theory Can Influence Your Customers - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Color Combination Accessibility

      Who can use this color combination? - From WhoCanUse

      Color Palettes

      Color Palettes for Designers and Artists - From Color Hunt

      Color Picker

      Slider that provides HEX, HSL, and RGB #s for colors - From Chroma

      Color Contrast

      Color Contrast Checker - From Web AIM

      Color Theory

      Thinking about color - From Cloudflare

      Typography Resources

      Online resources to guide your work with fonts and typefaces in your startup’s creative work

      Typography Resources

      Online resources to guide your work with fonts and typefaces in your startup’s creative work

      Font Pairing Tools

      12 Excellent Font Pairing Tools For Designers - From Dribbble

      Online Reading

      Best Font for Online Reading: No Single Answer - From Nielsen Norman Group

      Modern Font Stacks

      System font stack CSS organized by typeface classification for every modern OS

      Font Origins

      Where do fonts come from? This one business, mostly - From The Hustle

      Color Dot Font

      The Color Dot Font is a font composed entirely of colored circles - From And Repeat

      Fonts & Typefaces

      Font vs typeface: the ultimate guide - From Creative Bloq

      Typography Tips

      Good design can change lives - From Chris Do

      Typeface Influence

      How typefaces influence you - From Fast Company

      Fonts & Wes Anderson

      Futura & Wes Anderson: a love story - From Linus Boman

      Brand Fonts

      A thread of fonts used by big brands - From Lumumba

      Typographic Hierarchy

      Typographic Hierarchy in Print, Web & App Design - From Pimp My Type

      Typography Terms

      20 Typography Terms You Need to Know - From Design Lab

      Logo Resources

      Online Deisgn Asset resources to help you design logos

      Logo Resources

      Online Deisgn Asset resources to help you design logos

      Logo Refreshes

      So (Re)Fresh and So Clean—How Jessica Hische Brings New Life to an Old Logo - From Print

      Logo Design

      7 Principles of Kick-Ass Logo Design - From HubSpot

      Logo Design Trends

      10 Logo Design Trends to Watch for in 2022 [Infographic] - From HubSpot

      Logo Redesign

      Thinking Of A Logo Redesign? This Is How To Do It - From Logo

      Logo Design Tips

      What makes a good logo? 10 design tips to follow - From Canva

      Logo Design Tips

      8 Tips to Design a Notorious Logo - From Medium

      May require Medium registration

      Valuable tools that can help you develop and manage your startup’s  creative assets

      Valuable tools that can help you develop and manage your startup’s  creative assets

      Canva

      Canva is a user-friendly design tool that allows marketers to create graphics, presentations, posters, and more with customizable templates.

      Sketch

      Sketch is a digital design platform for creating user interfaces, websites, and icons.

      Corel Vector

      Corel Vector is a vector graphic design tool suitable for creating illustrations, icons, and more.

      Lunacy

      Lunacy is a free graphic design software with features for editing and working with Sketch files.

      Adobe Creative Cloud

      Adobe Creative Cloud offers a suite of professional design tools, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more.

      Pixlr

      Pixlr is a free online photo editing tool with features for quick image enhancements.

      PicMonkey

      PicMonkey is an online design tool for photo editing, graphic design, and collage creation.

      Adobe Express

      Adobe Express is a design tool for creating web pages, social graphics, and video stories.

      VistaCreate

      VistaCreate is a graphic design tool with customizable templates for social media, marketing materials, and other visual content.

      Visme

      Visme is a visual content creation tool for designing presentations, infographics, and other marketing materials.

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      Stencil

      Stencil is a simple graphic design tool for creating social media graphics, blog images, and marketing visuals.

      Venngage

      Venngage is an infographic maker that allows marketers to create visually appealing infographics and reports.

      Figma

      Figma is a collaborative design tool that allows teams to create, share, and prototype designs in real-time.

      InVision

      InVision is a prototyping and collaboration tool for creating interactive and animated design prototypes.

      DesignWizard

      DesignWizard is an online graphic design software for creating visuals for social media, marketing, and presentations

      Don’t let marketing slow you down—or drive you nuts. If you’re stuck, swamped, or just tired of Googling everything, Mathlete Marketing has your back.

      Don’t let marketing slow you down—or drive you nuts. If you’re stuck, swamped, or just tired of Googling everything, Mathlete Marketing has your back.