5 Facts You Should Know About People and Visuals

In art and design school you learn a lot about visual psychology and why people tend to pick one visual item over another. But I never would have realized these things if I was never taught them.

As business owners and entrepreneurs, knowing these facts can help you to better understand your viewer and hopefully put out the correct content that will get their attention.

Below are 5 facts that you should know before creating content to help higher your chances of getting great responses.

1. People like things in 3s. Whether it is an image your are uploading to Instagram or a flyer you are creating for an event, use The Rule of Thirds to help you layout your image and content in a way that draws your audience in. Divide your canvas into three columns and three rows and then place your most important element at one of the intersection points. EXAMPLES.
2. We have a specific part of the brain for recognizing faces. Whether you realize it or not the first thing you do when looking at an advertisement or a web page is glance at an image, if there is one. If there is an image with a person, their face will be the first thing you generally look at as well. When you provide an image of a person looking directly at a viewer, this promotes an emotional connection but if the person in the image is looking in another direction toward something on else in your content, the viewer will then look at what they are looking at. If you use images of people in any of your marketing, make sure it is meaningful and provides value.
3. What you see isn’t want your brain may interpret. How many times have you looked up into the clouds and saw a shape that reminded you of something else? We have all done that and the same applies to marketing. When creating visuals, you must look at the negative and positive space and what the viewers brain may interpret not just see.
4. People believe things that are close together belong together. This is a mistake I see quite often. The spacing we put between items in our ads, emails, web pages etc. tends to get overlooked.  When two items are related or go together, they should be closer together than anything else on the page. Instead of adding lines to create sections or boundaries, try playing with space and relativity next time you are creating a piece of collateral.
5. People imagine objects tilted and from a slight angle above. If I asked you to pause and draw a coffee cup, I bet most of you would draw your cup from a slight angle above and with it turn to the right or left. We do this because this is how we tend to view the world. We hold things down and out in front of us. So it is no surprise that this is the fastest way we as humans recognize drawn objects. When creating an icon or an image for your social media account, think about the items you are drawing and if they would be recognizable if you didn’t know what it was from the start.

I hope these 5 tips made you think and go back and review your past campaigns. Was there one you found to be super interesting? Let me know! I would love to start a discussion about this.

Haven’t started your company yet but would like to in the near future? Download and use my Branding Workbook to get heading in the right direction.