Creative work is often thought to be subjective. What one person likes may be considered a true marvel, while another might turn their nose at it. There are countless artists whose work was scrutinized for years before finally being appreciated.
While beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, some principles underpin graphic design that will make your work more visually appealing.
By adding each of these principles to your checklist when you work, you will have an easier time organizing elements, establishing hierarchy and creating a unified aesthetic experience.
The number of people working as graphic designers across the United States.
Whether you're just starting out or already have some experience under your belt, consciously applying these design principles will help you produce impactful pieces and stand out in this expansive community.
Alignment
As you learn graphic design as a beginner, let's start with a principle that significantly creates visually appealing and well-organized designs: alignment. Alignment involves arranging elements on the canvas about its edges or borders.
If you want to see an example of alignment, it’s as easy as pulling out your phone and looking at your photo library. Whatever subject you are trying to capture in your photos, you will need to ensure that the respective object is displayed in the right place.
Just like you can edit the alignment of any photo on your camera roll, a graphic designer will do the same in their creative process. Proper alignment ensures a structured layout, making the design easy to comprehend and navigate.
Alignment is mentioned first, as it is typically considered at the beginning of the creative process. Suppose you need to align your work correctly. In that case, it can result in an incomplete look, affecting the aesthetic and effectiveness of the design.
If you haven’t developed an eye for alignment just yet, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that there are plenty of tools out there, such as Pixso, that offer grids and auto layout features that help you achieve organized element positioning!
Repetition
You are already familiar with repetition, but perhaps not in the context of design. For graphic designers, repetition fosters unity and coherence by connecting elements, bringing their creations together.
Essentially, as the name might suggest, repetition involves repeating design elements in your work. These elements could be just about anything you decide to incorporate, such as colors, fonts, shapes, or imagery throughout the layout.
If mastered, this skill will allow you to easily satisfy clients who are looking to reinforce their brand identity. The recurring use of brand elements ensures that your design reflects the brand's identity and effectively conveys its message or what is outlined in the project brief.
Part of improving your use of repetition in your work is knowing when enough is enough! While it can be crucial for maintaining unity and rhythm in your designs, you must balance it with some variation.
Always consider the viewer or consumer when in your creation process, and try to understand how they will interpret your work. To capture and subsequently keep the viewer's interest, you should strategically vary aspects like scale, color or positioning to create points and sustain interest.
Contrast
Contrast is a crucial principle of design that many of us know more about than we might have thought. If you have ever edited a scenic picture from your camera roll or uploaded a picture on social media, then you will likely already know the basics about contrast.
As a graphic designer, it adds visual appeal to your work by highlighting the differences between design elements and directing attention to specific areas.
Put yourself in the shoes of the person on the other end, interpreting your design. Contrasting elements are particularly striking and can captivate someone in your work.
You may have yet to realize that you can contrast elements such as color, typography, shapes, and textures. There are several ways to introduce contrast in graphic design:
- Color Contrast: Contrasting colors can create a striking visual impact. This can be achieved by using complementary colors, high-contrast combinations, or varying the saturation and brightness levels of colors.
- Typography Contrast: Mixing types of fonts, such as styles, weights, sizes, or even families, can help highlight elements or set a clear order in the design.
- Shape Contrast: Juxtaposing different shapes, such as hard and soft, geometric and organic, or large and small, can introduce contrast and visual interest.
- Texture Contrast: Mixing rough textures or blending matte and glossy surfaces can add depth and dimension to a design.
- Value Contrast: Adjusting the brightness and darkness of elements, which is referred to as value contrast, can give a feeling of depth and draw attention to specific parts of the design.
There is a strong emphasis on the importance of improving your ability to use contrast effectively in your work. Contrast helps lead the viewer's gaze to points in the design.
Suppose you want to be recognized for your skills as a graphic designer and have an easier time securing clients. In that case, this is one area that you should focus your development on.
While several principles must be considered throughout the design process, few capture interest, like the effective use of contrast. This is especially important when considering graphic design career paths, as different specializations may require proficiency in specific design software.
Hierarchy
As a graphic designer, you’ll have a degree of control over how a viewer navigates your designs. This comes with the effective use of hierarchy, enabling you to direct the viewer's attention through your design.
While your work is often displayed on a flat 2D screen, you can create depth in your work by adding the components of your creation in layers. Regarding design, hierarchy plays a role in structuring information and ensuring that the viewer focuses on the most crucial elements.
For example, you might find yourself working with a client who has asked you to create a visual to showcase their product.
The above conversation details how, through hierarchy, you can display their product in a surfaced layer to be at the forefront of the design and on display for potential consumers to see.
Adding a series of design layers around and behind the product can create a more striking image for the consumer.
Hierarchy is essential because it can help you craft designs that convey an intended message more clearly.
By adding this to your arsenal as a graphic designer and subsequently refining your skills over time, you will create designs that resonate with audiences.
Balance
A graphic designer must consider all of the core principles throughout their creative process. Just because five of the six principles featured in this article are nailed down doesn't mean that your designs will effectively captivate your audiences.
Even with a strong foundation in design principles, there's more to consider. For those interested in learning more, there are many resources for beginners learning graphic design.
So last but certainly not least, we’ll look at balance, a concept that is relatively easy to grasp. Still, it can take some time to get to the stage where you effectively incorporate it into your work.
In a nutshell, balance involves how elements like shapes, colors and textures are spread across your designs to create an easy-to-follow composition!
Achieving balance can be obtained through several methods, so there is no correct answer, which is just one of the beautiful things about design.
Suppose you are looking to practice achieving balance in your designs. In that case, you can practice many techniques, such as mirroring identical elements on both sides or establishing a central focal point with elements radiating outward.
On the other hand, asymmetrical balance hinges on placing elements with differing visual weights to establish equilibrium.
Designers often use weight to achieve balance. This means that certain larger, darker, or more intricate elements in your designs carry more weight than smaller, lighter, or simpler elements.
Using this concept of weight, you can practice achieving balance by editing the same graphic five times and comparing the outcomes. This will also help you develop an eye for what constitutes effective balance and what to avoid in future projects!
Learn the Fundamentals of Graphic Design with Superprof
While the above principles could be considered the basics of graphic design, there is no limit to how effectively you can apply them in your future projects.
Suppose you're interested in improving your knowledge of design. In that case, consider taking lessons from a tutor on Superprof.
One of the more difficult things about getting up and running as a graphic designer is that it can feel like there are countless platforms that you need to familiarize yourself with.
Depending on your specialty, future clients and employers may require you to have a strong grasp of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, UI/UX design, typography, and more. To help you get started, you can discover the best graphic design software with a Superprof tutor.
The last thing you want is to feel limited in your design process by the limitations of the tools you use. They should be there to enhance the design process, not limit you.
Learning from a private graphic design tutor is the most effective way to pick up best practice tips from an experienced designer and target your areas of weakness.
Whether you're new to design or a seasoned designer looking to refine skills, a private tutor can help based on your experience level and interests.
Superprof offers a platform for enhancing your design skills, with both online and in-person tutoring options so you can delve into the core principles of graphic design. Start your journey to becoming a more well-rounded designer with a private tutor as soon as today.
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