How to Create a Marketing Design for a Costume Company

You’ve been tasked with creating a marketing design for a costume company.

The costume industry is worth megabucks. Spending on Halloween costumes alone is expected to reach $3.4 billion in 2017.

So how do you create a design to help entice customers?

Decide What Your Marketing Design Needs to Do

What is your marketing design for? Is it a flyer to advertise a sale or event? Or is it a web graphic to use on social media?

Knowing what it’s for, and where it will be used, will guide the finished design. For example, you’ll need to abide by Facebook’s rules about using text on ads. Twitter ads don’t have the same constraints.

Use a Hierarchy of Information

You might think that all of your information is important to the customers of your costume company. Some information is more important than others.

Opening hours, location, and the dates of an event carry more weight than examples of costumes held in stock.

Use your marketing design to highlight this information. Instead of having a cluttered flyer with text competing for attention, your design will be balanced and easy to understand.

Keep Things Simple

Those new to design sometimes believe they need to make designs ornate or intricate. Good design is based on the fundamental principle that form follows function.

Only include what needs to be included for the design to perform its function. This comes back to what the design is for. Anything that doesn’t relate to the purpose of the design can be left out.

Keeping designs simple means you can also keep them legible. Don’t use more copy than you need and use readable fonts that suit your costume company.

Look at the Oya Halloween Costumes website as an example. All of the costumes are arranged according to theme, era, or character. It makes it easy for a customer to find what they’re looking for.

Work With Spacing and Alignment

Using space between your elements stops your design looking cluttered. Align elements with guidelines to work within the spacing.

Keeping your copy and visual elements aligned instantly elevates the quality of a design. Mis-aligned elements create a jarring experience.

Don’t Use Too Many Colors or Fonts

Adding more colors to a design doesn’t make it more eye-catching. It just makes it more confusing.

Try to restrict your color palette and, where possible, use colors that complement each other. It’ll create a more harmonious design.

Bear in mind the colors of the costume company. You can use seasonal colors to advertise specific events or colors from the company’s branding if the design is more evergreen.

Likewise, keep fonts to a minimum. Using any more than two creates confusion. If you need to emphasize written content, use different weights from the same font family.

Whatever you do, keep it consistent. That way, you can turn your designs into templates to be used again and again.