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Feb 21, 2023 · Although there’s no mathematical formula to determine what makes good design, there are rules and principles that help us distinguish good design from bad. In this article we’ll equip you with knowledge to understand how to make design both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
- Danica Popovic
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Nov 22, 2023 · We’ve added graphic design examples, resources, expert quotes, and visuals to help you grasp all of the complexities. What is graphic design in simple terms? Graphic design is the art of creating visual content, which includes using typography, images, colors, and shapes to communicate a message.
- Focus on alignment. Alignment is one of the most important design principles. It helps ensure a sharp, ordered appearance for ultimately better designs by ensuring your various elements of design have a pleasing connection with each other.
- Use hierarchy to help focus your design. When you have multiple visual elements in a design, you want to make sure you’re giving extra visual weight to your most important message.
- Leverage contrast to accentuate important design elements. Contrast is an important design principle because it lets you draw out the most important elements of a design and add emphasis.
- Use repetition to your advantage. Repeating colors, fonts, words, or shapes can help tie your design and overall look together — it also helps people remember your brand or other important information.
- Color
- Line
- Scale
- Shape
- Alignment
- Contrast
- Space
Sir Isaac Newton is widely credited with creating the very first color wheel back in 1706. As the storygoes, Newton took the spectrum of colors produced when light passes through a prism (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet) and arranged them in a segmented circle. When the circle was spun rapidly on a rotating disk, the colors blu...
Lines are more than just dividers -- the right lines can convey movement and emotion, tying together your composition and making it looked polished and professional. Rikard Rodin, a graphic designer and blogger with over 15 years of design experience, explainsthat lines can form the underlying architecture of your project. Defining the line of move...
The scale of different elements in a design will have a big impact on how your audience views and makes sense of your composition. Playing with the relative size of different components in your design allows you to set a focal point, highlight areas of importance, and ultimately guide viewers' eyes through the piece. Scale isn't quite the same thin...
Shapes: they're not just for preschoolers! A shape can be loosely explained as anything defined by boundaries. There are two categories of shapes to consider: Geometric shapes, which are defined by perfect, uniform proportions (such as a circle, square, triangle), and organic shapes, which have less well-defined edges, free-flowing proportions, and...
Think of alignment like an invisible axis that runs between elements, connecting them visually either by their edges or centers (see the image below). Alignment most frequently comes up in design discussions about text and typography, but it's equally important to consider the alignment of non-text elements when building a balanced, orderly composi...
Contrast refers to the juxtaposition of elements that strongly differ (big vs. small, light vs. dark, etc.) to create visual interest or draw attention to particular elements. Without contrast, our designs aren't just lackluster and boring to look at, they're also difficult to understand. A lack of contrast is often what separates mediocre design w...
Space is exactly what it sounds like: the empty areas between elements in your design. When it comes to creating professional-looking designs on your own, sometimes what you don'tinclude is just as important as what you do. When working on a design, consider not only the elements you're including (such as images and text) but how they're arranged a...
Mar 11, 2024 · The 11 principles of design every graphic designer should be familiar with: Hierarchy. Balance. Alignment. Emphasis. Proportion. Movement. Negative Space. Contrast. Repetition. Variety. Unity. 1. Hierarchy. Visual hierarchy is a vital part of good design.
Feb 17, 2022 · 1. What qualities should a successful graphic designer have? As a graphic designer, it is not enough to simply be good at designing. You must also have good communication skills and be full of curiosity. In addition to having passion and drive, a good graphic designer should also believe in openness.