Unless you’re perhaps yourself someone who understands the general principles of the time-to-value ratio, if you’re not a designer of any kind then it can be very easy to undervalue the work that designers of all kinds do, particularly the more artistic ones. It’s very easy to look at the work of a graphic designer for example and conclude that this person essentially wants to get paid for “drawing pictures”.

That’s not how it is at all – graphic designers among other types of designers are paid for their expertise and skills, which are then deployed as a factor of time to create some very important items of design. Think about just how powerful a logo is as well as the weight it contains as per its implications to a company’s branding and identity. You don’t have to actually read out the whole name “Coca Cola” to instantly know that what you’re looking at out of the corner of your eye is indeed a Coke bottle, do you? And yet when you actually take the time and effort to look at a logo such as the famous Coca-Cola logo you’ll realise that there isn’t all too much to it.

I mean it’s just the name written in cursive writing, isn’t it?

This is often where the gross undervaluing of what designers actually do can be most pronounced – you take one look at a logo such as Coca-Cola’s and think to yourself “I could have designed that logo.” Consequently, from this point of view those who are on the other side of the design work fence are reluctant to pay up when they seek the services of designers.

The value contained in the skilled hands of a designer goes deeper than what can be tangibly seen as the final draft of whatever it is they’re called upon to design. The truth is you probably couldn’t have come up with a logo as simple as the cursive writing the Coca-Cola logo essentially is because you would have probably over-thought the process of coming up with a logo for a beverage which emerged to have dynamically evolving ambitions of ubiquity.

The basics of design are what go into the making of the most basic of logos among other designs, leaving onlookers quite surprised to find that up to thousands of dollars and more has been paid for what ultimately looks like a very simple logo. A lot more goes into it, testimony to which can be found by looking at other areas of design.

For example, the check stubs you can generate at https://www.checkstubmaker.com/ are as simple in appearance as they can be, but it is precisely this level of simplicity which makes for a professional and concise presentation. The point is nobody is going to look at a pay-stub and admire the fancy design work – that’s not what a pay stub is meant for and it is its core use wherein the value lies.

Those are the basics of design – conveying a specific message as quickly and clearly as possible.

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