Design and Public Relations: Elevating Your Brand

Design is an important skill public relations practitioners should know. Good PR design can help elevate a brand, attract target audiences and generate brand recognition. Several design elements impact the effect and interpretation of a project: typography, color, logo, layout, balance and unity.

Image: Cloudless Lens Photography

PR Design Tools

1. Adobe Creative Cloud apps: Photoshop,

2. & InDesign

3. Canva

I found these three applications to be very useful when creating captivating designs for public relations. Each application has unique benefits that make them better for different types of projects.

Design by Lexie Oliver

Adobe Photoshop

I used Photoshop when creating complex designs that required advanced image editing or design styles. Photoshop has a unique toolbar that contains design tools such as layering, brushes, layer styles, blur, etc. These tools are necessary for adding a unique touch to images/design covers. On Adobe Photoshop, I designed the cover for the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum tour guide and postcards. I used the layer style tool to add shadows, pattern overlay, brightness adjustments and outlines to the text and images. I used brushes to create a torn paper effect—more information on my tour guide design here.

Designs by Lexie Oliver

Adobe InDesign

I used InDesign for projects where I needed to compile several pages into a file. Unlike Photoshop, InDesign allows you to create a project with multiple pages. Using InDesign, I designed the corresponding pages in the tour guide and a tri-fold brochure for the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. These projects taught me that InDesign is good for creating print media and layout guidelines. InDesign has a guide tool for creating layouts across your design pages. These guides are perfect for separating pages into brochure-style or newspaper columns. Typography is an important element when using InDesign—making sure that the text fits into the guides, titles and quotes are separate, etc. More information here.

Design by Lexie Oliver

Canva

I used Canva to create social media posts. Canva has templates and layouts for specific social media pages and posts. There are templates for Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. On Canva, each template is fully customizable, so you can add unique images, designs, text and ideas. Canva also has free elements that you can add to designs: stickers, frames, fonts, images, etc. The design to the right is an example of an Instagram post—more info on social media here.

Branding with PR Design

PR design has the potential to elevate the brand of a business. To create designs that promote brand identity remember to stick to a color palette, utilize brand logos, unifying typography, intentional layouts and imagery. Throughout all my designs for the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum and Okla. Route 66 Centennial Commission, I have used the shades of orange from the logo. This burnt orange color resembles the color of an Oklahoma sunset and unifies each design. I used the fonts Optima and Impact throughout my work. My typographical skills are present through the way I used the bolded Impact font for headlines and titles, while the Optima font was for less important textual elements. You can find more information on typography and improving typographical literacy here.

While each element of design is uniquely important, I think unity is the most important element for brands. Unity across each project will create brand recognition and elevate the impact the design has on viewers.

Before starting a design project, remember to research and know what you want the designs to say as a collection. Research should include that for target audiences, stakeholders, brand identity and values. Your designs should be targeted to certain stakeholders and promote the brand's identity and values.