At Elizabeth Schorr & Co., one of the things we talk about the most is how we love to help businesses “get legit”. But what do we mean exactly? 

If you’ve wondered about that or about the importance of graphic design in general, you’ve come to the right place!

Why is graphic design so important these days?

You might be thinking, “of course, they’d say graphic design is important, that’s their business.” But it’s not just us saying it. 

Look at the world today and how most people consume their media. 

People are constantly on the move, scrolling through feeds that give them hundreds or even thousands of different options all competing for their attention. This wealth of options has made people more selective about what they click on. 

And when we say more selective, we mean they’re really picky and make rapid decisions. 

Studies show that most people will decide if they’ll continue to interact with a site and ALSO their lasting impressions of a company in about 50 million milliseconds. That’s how long you have to capture your audience. 

0.05 seconds. 

In that amount of time, there is no way they’re reading your content and deciding based on your subject matter expertise. 

That’s not the only stat that proves graphic design is important to your customers. Studies also show:

• If given 15 minutes 2/3rds of people will choose something well-designed over something plain, even if the plain source is more trusted
• First impressions are 94% design-related
• 8 in 10 customers will stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well or look right

So, to even get your foot in the door with most readers, you have to capture their attention through design first. 

Graphic design gives you a fighting chance

If your page, feed, etc look professional and trustworthy, then visitors will make a decision to read a headline and think about clicking through. When you neglect your look and feel, your potential customers will notice this and look for another company. 

Don’t believe us? 

75% of customers judge a company’s credibility based solely on their website design! 

You can have years of experience and thousands of happy customers, but unfortunately, new customers are going to judge you based on how you present yourself.

New options are a click away for customers, so they will move on, even if you have a stellar reputation. 

Here are some of the ways graphic design helps improve your performance:

• Color use can improve your brand awareness by 80%, helping you cut through the clutter and noise online to find your target audience
• Visual assets like photos in a social media posts increase engagement by as much as 650% over plain text posts
• When a brand presents itself clearly through professional graphic design branding they see a 33% rise in sales
• Design-driven businesses on the stock exchange outperform the S&P index by 219%

Ok, so what’s all this have to do with being legit?

So it’s not just us saying it. Design is more important than ever today. Humans have always been visual, and now with more options, it’s even more vital to get your visuals right.

When we say we make your business legit, we mean that we help you look the part. You’re already legit. You make sales and satisfy your customers every day. 

However, the unfortunate truth is this – if you don’t look the part, no amount of word of mouth or track record matters. These days you have to look legit to get your foot in the door. 

We make sure you pass your customer’s initial visual inspection. The rest is in your capable hands.