WHY USE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER?
Graphic Designers actually create a wide variety of designs like, vector logos, custom made brochures, graphic clothing, signs and a great deal more, but we don't just create them, we create them in a way that is vivid and memorable to viewers (in other words, "graphic"). More than that, creating custom designs is a complex combination of advertising principles, psychology and art used to communicate to large masses of people or perhaps tailored for a more specific audience.
When you have a design created for your business or advertising there should be a logical balance of information and visual persuasion present. A certain percentage of the design is intended to persuade or entice a viewer while the remaining percentage is intended to inform the viewer. For example, if you need a travel brochure created, it would be made of persuasive photos and images but would not hold every detail of information about the destination in the brochure. That would fill the design with words and not leave enough room for those big persuasive photos to show off the destination (it uses its layout to persuade you to go there - form over function). If you ordered an employee handbook design on the other hand, a designer would use very little visual persuasion as most of the work would go into the organizing of all the text and information making it easier to read and use for its employees (function over form).
True and professional Graphic Designers would never mass produce or quickly make a design using templates or other shortcuts. Rather, they would logically develop a custom made design through a careful process of proofing and feedback from their client.
Pro Graphic Designers utilize a number of principles including but not limited to line, shape, mass, hierarchy, color, positive and negative space and much more to create the best possible visual communication for the intended target audience and the way that audience thinks. A professional composition should speak for itself and leave no question that a great deal of thought has gone into it. If you have ordered custom made designs in the past and not felt this way about your finished product then it is likely you did not receive real services.
Designers use many principles of art to create a visual and verbal communication that is both easy to understand and memorable to the people it is created for (the target audience). There should be a visual and verbal synergy present in a well made piece. It should be custom tailored to either a broad or specific range of people depending on what the client requires. The target audience could be an age group (created to be young and wild verses mature and refined designs). The gender of a person could be the target (women's clothing verses men's tools). Sometimes the audience is not so easy to see. It could just be a certain type of person, where they live, what trends of the world attract them or just their psychological mindset. A good Designer considers these things and much more weather they are creating a single logo or an entire advertising campaign.