The Fundamentals Of Graphic Design

If you master these fundamentals of graphic design it will greatly improve your marketing material

, these rules can be used across the board and applied to whatever marketing piece your are creating be it flyers, newsletters or even a business website.

Main principle of graphic design:

Balance:

Visually you need to balance the content on the page to make sure that not one block has priority over another. You can rearrange the balance to purposely make the design different and create a mood or affect. So rule of thumb do you make your piece balance on the page or purposely off balance which ever you choose it has to have an intention in mind.

Proximity / Unity:

Creates a bond between elements, are contact details tied together, blocks linked together by a graphic to create unity. Depending on where elements are in relation to each other determines if they are connected on the page. You can also create a third element to connect two pieces of content on the page together.

Alignment:

Making your objects or blocks aligned makes the design ordered. If you intend to break this rule it needs to be obvious or the design will look messy. Align contact details together maybe even aligning the header of the page elements with the content block in the footer. For example to make a sub heading break out of the main content copy could be done intentionally to force the reader to see the sub heading and read on. Again if content or blocks are not aligned what is the purpose for this?

Repetition / consistency:

Using repeated styles and elements helps the reader navigate your graphic design piece and also creates consistency in the design. Are the page folios all in same place, is a graphic or style element such as bullet the same colour throughout. Are you using a certain font for the sub or main headlines? Is your headline in the same position on each page? These principles keep the design consistent and the use of repeated elements ties the design together.

Contrast:

Contrast I feel is one of the most important principles of design, large and small elements, dark and light differing shapes all create contrast. The most important elements such as headlines should be larger thus giving them priority against others. Sub headlines can be larger than body text but smaller than the main headlines giving them priority over the body text but not the headline. Contrast can make the design more interesting and make the important blocks/elements stand out.

You need to look at your graphic design piece and ask yourself Is in your design the same size, are you making the important elements stand out by making them larger.

White Space:

If your design has no space it will look crammed and very difficult to read, white space in graphic design is known as breathing space and gives the design room as well as giving the user space to pause. Have you allowed a margin on the left, top or bottom? Have you given pictures room or padding around the boxes?

Is type overlapping or butting up to elements. Look at the design is it easy to read or uncomfortable?

If you follow these principles your design will look clean, uncluttered an above all will get the information across to the reader without them being uncomfortable. I hope this helps and budding designers or indeed ones in the trade.

by: rob steele

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