The Same Information Can Create a Completely Different Perception
When you hand someone a business card, most people think its purpose is pretty simple. It gives them your name, phone number, email address, and website so they can contact you.
But you could accomplish the same thing by taking a napkin, writing that information on it with a magic marker, and handing it to them.
The napkin and the business card could contain the exact same information.
They could perform the exact same basic function.
But they wouldn’t create the same perception.
If information were enough, the napkin would be enough.
That’s because every business is communicating on two levels at the same time.
There is what you tell people about your company.
And there is what people perceive about your company.
Those aren’t always the same thing.
What Are Your Customers Seeing?
A well-designed business card may use a particular finish, weight, typography, spacing, color, and overall design.
None of those things change the phone number printed on it.
They change the perception of the company behind the phone number.
And that perception shouldn’t be accidental.
The goal isn’t to make a business card fancy just for the sake of making it fancy. The goal is to create something consistent with the persona the business needs to project.
Professional. Established. Contemporary. Traditional. Creative. Precise. Approachable. Sophisticated.
Which of those characteristics matter depends on the business—and more importantly, the people that business is trying to reach.
You need to understand your target audience.
You need to understand what they’re looking for.
And you need to understand what the company they would want to hire looks like.
Then we need to make your business look like that company.
That’s a visual persona.
And the same principle applies to practically everything you put in front of a potential customer.
Especially your website.
Two Websites Can Say the Same Thing
Imagine two companies offering the same service.
They have similar experience, qualifications, services, testimonials, and contact information.
Their websites contain essentially the same information, and both websites work perfectly.
But one looks like the type of company its target customer wants to hire.
The other doesn’t.
That’s the difference.
One might appear established, organized, capable, and professional. The other might appear small, dated, inexperienced, or inexpensive.
Neither perception necessarily tells you the truth about the actual company.
But perception begins forming before the customer ever makes contact.
That’s why when I’m designing a website, I’m working with two things:
What does the potential customer need to know?
And:
Who does this company need to appear to be?
Looking Good Isn’t the Goal
This is an important distinction.
The goal isn’t simply to make every company look expensive, sophisticated, or corporate.
The goal is to make the company look right to the people it wants to reach.
A family-oriented business doesn’t necessarily need to look like a multinational corporation. A machine shop doesn’t need to look like a luxury hotel. A children’s company probably shouldn’t look like a law firm.
Each has a different customer.
Each customer has different expectations.
And that means each business needs a different visual persona.
The question isn’t simply:
Does this look good?
The better question is:
Does this look like the kind of company our target customer wants to hire?
What Happens When the Two Stories Don’t Match?
Every company tells people something about itself.
We’re experienced.
We care about quality.
We pay attention to detail.
We’re professional.
But potential customers are also looking at the evidence.
If you say you’re contemporary but your website looks 15 years old, those messages don’t agree.
If you say attention to detail matters but everything you put in front of customers looks thrown together, those messages don’t agree.
If you describe your company as established but your visual presence makes it look temporary, those messages don’t agree either.
Now there are two versions of your company:
The company you’re describing and the company they’re seeing.
Which one are they going to believe?
Your Business Already Has a Persona
This is why I don’t think of design as decoration.
I’m not simply taking information and making it attractive.
I’m considering who your customers are, what they’re looking for, and what your business needs to communicate visually to those people.
Your content answers:
What does my customer need to know?
Your visual persona answers:
Does this look like the kind of company I want to do business with?
When those two things work together, the message and the perception reinforce each other.
Your business already has a persona. Every website, business card, logo, advertisement, sign, and piece of marketing material contributes to it.
You can create that persona intentionally, based on the customers you want to reach, or you can allow it to develop accidentally.
Think about the business card and the napkin.
Same information.
Same basic function.
Two completely different perceptions.
If information were enough, the napkin would be enough.
