Looking for Design Services for Your Nonprofit?
If you’re on a nonprofit team, you already know how much design support your organization needs. The answer is probably a lot. Nearly every day you’re posting several new graphics or designs. Maybe it’s on social media, or in fact sheets. Maybe it’s for upcoming events, such as announcing that gala. Whatever it may be, you might be tempted to do it entirely in-house. Canva, ChatGPT, Adobe Suite all seem easy enough until you find yourself two hours in, working on trying to figure out why that link doesn’t look right or fixing that heart so it looks more like it’s for a nonprofit and less like a Valentine’s card. We get it, design is difficult. Our team has spent years perfecting our branding and design services for nonprofits.
If you’re struggling to stay on top of your design needs, it might be time to bring in a design partner. CH Web Agency is a professional design agency in Chapel Hill offering website design, print design, and branding services to nonprofits in North Carolina and beyond. It can be difficult to find the right design team to support your nonprofit. In this article, we break down a few different areas of design and how you can manage your projects better.
How Nonprofits Should Manage Branding and Design Projects
Managing design projects for nonprofits can be difficult. When you have multiple stakeholders and multiple versions of the same file, the details start to blur. You might finish the design and then wonder if what you just designed is accessible? Will it print correctly? Are you using the right shade of blue? Then you go back and you’re trying to figure out if it is the one saved with “-1-1-1” or if it is “copy-copy”?
Clear brand guidelines, the right design software, a logical file system, and version control are some basic first steps. Brand guidelines make sure that those doing the design follow the right rules so your designs match your organization’s branding. Design software is a must in order to produce professional results. Using the wrong tools can make print and visual designs exponentially more difficult. A logical file system makes sure you don’t get lost in your own naming conventions, and version control helps make sure you don’t lose your work. If you’re contracting with a designer, it’s important to make sure that you have the rights to what they design for you. As an organization, if you ever need to change designers, you want to make sure you have the right to make edits to your own collateral, business cards, logos, and so on.
How Interface and Print Design Are Different
Print design and visual design require different skills. A designer who specializes in print might not be the best at designing a website. This is true in reverse. Print design requires an understanding of different printing methods, color spaces, bleed, and many other small technical details. All of which are critical to ensuring the end product that was designed on a screen matches your nonprofit’s expectations in print. Meanwhile, an expert at print design might not be an expert at web design. Web designers have different technical details that they must understand ahead of designing a web page.
Accessibility for print and web are different. Color spaces are different. In web, the layout is fluid. In print, it’s a fixed size. A web designer needs to create a design that works just as well on a very large screen as it does on a phone. In print, you’re designing for one size. But testing whether that design will look correct requires printing proofs and making sure that everything is perfect before you go to print.
Testing and errors are handled differently. If you print the whole run, 500 brochures, and there is a typo, fixing that one error can cost you a lot of time and money. In digital, designing something that isn’t accessible from the start can create a massive amount of rework and potential liability. There is a lot that goes into branding and design services for nonprofits.
Maintaining Brand Consistency Across Materials
Having a professional design team on hand can help you maintain consistency across your materials. When your team starts using a large variety of tools and services, brand consistency can be difficult to control. With the right design partner, all branding and design can be channeled through a professional set of designers who can ensure that the look and feel of your brand is consistent with each new piece of collateral.
When it’s time to create the banners and materials for your upcoming Gala, having a trusted design partner can make the process easy. They understand your brand, the tone, the preferred look and feel of your executive director, and will simplify your process.
Is it Time for Professional Branding and Design Services?
Whether you’re trying to do all your design internally or working with a design partner, if you’re struggling to manage your design projects, it might be time to consider additional options. CH Web Agency is a professional design agency in North Carolina, offering branding and design for nonprofits since 2019. Our team of expert designers can help you with brand, print, and web design services. If you have multiple ongoing projects and need a reliable partner, reach out to our team to discuss your options. We have a variety of packages including options for unlimited designs at a flat rate. These packages provide your team with peace of mind and predictable pricing. Contact us today to learn more.
