Guidelines for Graphic Design: What You Should Know

Graphic design is the process of using visual communication to create logos, ads, social media graphics, books, websites, apps and more.

Winston-Salem Print Shop creates a good design that requires adhering to a set of principles that ensure your audience is able to take away the information you want them to. These principles are known as the “rules” of graphic design, but sometimes it’s necessary to defy them if you need to communicate important information in your design.

Repetition is a major design principle used to create a sense of unity and rhythm in an image. It combines with other principles like proximity, hierarchy, and alignment to achieve specific results.

Repetition can be applied to different elements of graphic design, including colors, shapes, images, fonts, and themes. It can also be used to make certain elements of a website or app easy to recognize and remember.

Without repetition, brands can’t create a consistent style or identity to differentiate themselves from their competitors. It’s also useful for making a design user-friendly and trustworthy.

The same navigation bar on a brand’s web pages, for example, makes it easier for visitors to navigate and find the information they’re looking for. They also know they’ll find the same buttons on each page, which can help them feel more confident and comfortable.

Contrast is a valuable design tool that helps create hierarchy and adds depth, dimension, and focus to your designs. It also helps you direct the viewer’s eye to the most important information first.

It can be achieved in many different ways, from color to size and typography. However, it’s crucial that you use contrast properly.

One of the easiest and most common ways to establish contrast is by making elements larger than their surrounding ones. This is an excellent way to draw attention to a focal point, but it can be difficult to get right.

Alignment is the ability to bind text, graphics, and other design elements together into a cohesive, visually pleasing design. It’s a principle that should be applied to virtually all designs.

A design with bad alignment will appear unfinished and cluttered, and will not be easy to read. The opposite is true, too: a design with good alignment will be clear and clean, making it easier to read.

There are two main ways to align design elements: edge alignment and center alignment. Either option will place elements along an imaginary line that runs from top-to-bottom or left-to-right on the page.

Center alignment is one of the most popular options for organizing layouts, and it’s also a very effective way to make sure that elements don’t look out of place. It’s especially useful for placing larger elements, like photos or logos, on the page without them looking lop-sided.

White space is a key design principle that helps create clarity and emphasis in a variety of graphic designs. It also plays a role in creating a visual hierarchy, guiding the eye through the content and demonstrating which pieces or elements require attention.

Despite its underrated reputation, white space is one of the most powerful tools in any designer’s toolbox. It can increase comprehension, improve interaction rate and help create a sense of sophistication and luxury.

To illustrate this, consider the contrast between a cramped, cluttered magazine layout and a clean, well-designed page. The former makes you want to rip the page out and throw it away, while the latter looks like an enjoyable reading experience that engages your attention and motivates you to read on.

Similarly, a well-designed logo uses white space to draw attention and enhance its appeal. Large amounts of white space may evoke minimalism or luxury, as in the case of Apple and IKEA, while smaller spaces are more appropriate for businesses with more information.