Graphic designer in Newcastle, NSW: artwork that works everywhere.

A designer decides how your business looks and then makes the pieces. The logo, the colours, the type, and everything they go on. Quotes, business cards, signage, social posts and ads.

Most people hear graphic design and picture a logo. The logo is the smallest part of it. What a designer really gives you is a set of decisions: two or three colours, one or two typefaces, and a way of laying things out.

That is why a good design job makes the quote, the invoice, the vehicle and the social post all look like they came from the same business. A customer never puts that into words, they just notice one business looks organised.

The list most Newcastle businesses actually need is short. A logo, a quote and invoice template, a business card, something for the vehicle or the shopfront, and a way of making social posts without starting over each time.

People read whether a business looks established in a couple of seconds, before they have read a word. Design is what they are reading in those seconds, and it is the part you get to decide in advance.

That decision gets made before anybody reads a price. It is also one of the few impressions a business can settle once and then stop thinking about.

Why it is worth doing early

• It is the cheapest thing on the list.

  A logo and a set of templates is a one off cost. Advertising and search work cost something every single month.

• It turns up absolutely everywhere.

  The same choices go on the website, the vehicle, the quotes, the invoices and the socials. One job, used a hundred times over.

• It sets what people compare you against.

  A business that looks established sits beside other established ones in a customer's mind, rather than beside the cheapest quote in the pile.

The logo in several file types, the exact colours and typefaces written down, and the templates you use every week. Anything you cannot open or edit yourself is not finished work.

Where a trade show or a vehicle wrap sets the date, the mark can be produced in a hurry as long as the name is settled first.

Ask for this list by name. It is the difference between owning a design and renting one from whoever drew it.

What comes back at the end

• The logo in more than one format.

  A vector version, meaning one that scales to the size of a truck without going fuzzy, plus flat versions for the web and one for dark backgrounds.

• The colours and typefaces written down.

  The exact colour codes and the names of the fonts, so the next person to touch anything gets it right first time.

• The templates you use every week.

  Quote, invoice, and whatever else goes to customers most. In something the business can edit rather than only in the designer's software.

• Permission to use the fonts.

  Some typefaces cost money to use commercially, so the licence and whose name it sits in are part of the handover.

Check the business name is written the way it is registered on the Australian Business Register before it goes onto anything printed. Changing it after the signage is made is an expensive lesson.

Less than most people think on its own, and more than most people think as part of a set. A plain logo used on everything does more than a clever one nothing else matches.

Design prices around Newcastle are easiest to read job by job, because a mark and a full identity are quoted nothing alike.

Owners spend weeks on the logo and five minutes on everything it goes on. The logo is rarely what a customer is reacting to. What they notice is a quote, a card and a website looking like three different companies.

What a logo has to do is short. Stay readable at the size of a phone icon, work in one colour for stamps and signage, and still make sense in five years. Past that it is taste, and taste is the owner's.

Before committing, search the name and check IP Australia for a registered trade mark in your industry. The search costs nothing, and it happens before the signage rather than after it.

Business cards deserve the same test. One good card in one weight of stock, rather than four versions that stay in a drawer.

Collect examples first, then name everywhere the work will be used. Agree the file list, send one round of notes back, and then put it onto the things customers already see.

One clear round of notes moves a design job along. A new opinion every Friday is what turns it into a six month one.

1. Collect examples before anybody talks

Five businesses whose look the owner would happily copy, and two they would not. Any industry at all. It is faster and clearer than any adjective.

2. Name everywhere it will be used

A logo going on a vehicle and a shirt is a different job to one only ever appearing on a website. All of it gets said up front, including the parts not bought yet.

3. Agree the file list before work starts

The list from the chapter above, in writing. Who owns the files, what formats come back, and whether the templates can be edited by the business.

4. One set of notes comes back, not five

The business argues its opinions out internally first, then sends one list. Contradictory rounds of feedback are how design jobs stop finishing.

5. It goes onto the things customers already see

The quote template, the invoice, the email signature, the Google listing photographs and the website header. A new logo sitting in a folder changes nothing.

6. One folder holds the current files

One place, current versions only. The most common way a good design job falls apart is three people using three old versions of the same logo.

The brief comes first, then the logo, then the set that follows it. Most of a job is over inside a couple of months, and signage then waits on the printer rather than the designer.

Other studios working in and around Newcastle are listed separately, with what each one publishes about itself, because comparing them is difficult from a search result.

The order it happens in

• First the brief is agreed.

  The references, everywhere the work will be used, and the list of files coming back. Nobody draws anything during this part.

• Then the logo gets drawn and narrowed.

  Directions first, then one round of notes, then the final files in every format on the list.

• Then the set is built around it.

  Templates, cards, signage artwork and the social pieces, all following the same set of decisions.

Feedback decides the length far more than the drawing does. One clear round of notes moves it along, and a new opinion every Friday does not.

Ask what you get at the end, who owns the files, how many rounds are included, and whether the weekly templates get set up. The answers say whether you are buying a picture or a working set.

These are worth asking of any designer, including this one, so the answers given here are underneath each question.

• What files do I get at the end?

  The vector logo, flat versions, the colour codes and the typeface names. That list goes in writing before anybody pays anything.

• Who owns the artwork afterwards?

  You do. Ask it plainly, because the answer is not always yes and it matters on the day you change designers.

• How many rounds of changes are included?

  A number rather than a feeling. Two is normal for a logo where the brief was clear at the outset.

• Will you set up the templates I use weekly?

  The quote and the invoice are what customers actually receive. A designer stopping at the logo has left the useful part undone.

• Can I edit any of it myself?

  Changing a price or a date is something an owner does weekly, so the templates handed over open in something you already have.

A fair amount of this can be done in house with a template tool, and plenty of Newcastle businesses do exactly that. The parts worth paying for are the logo and the decisions everything else follows.