In the realm of design, graphic design rules serve as the guiding stars, illuminating the path to captivating visuals. From the harmonious blend of colors to the strategic placement of elements, every stroke and pixel plays a crucial role in crafting a compelling narrative. Join us as we delve into the graphic design rules that govern the world of graphic design, unveiling the secrets behind creating stunning visuals that captivate and inspire.
Whether you’re a seasoned designer looking to refine your craft or a newcomer eager to explore the artistry of design, this journey promises to unlock the creative potential within you. Let’s embark on this adventure together, unraveling the magic of graphic design one rule at a time.
Simplicity
Learn ways to win the hearts of your clients with stunning visuals in your designs with these graphic design rules to maintain harmony and try to keep things not looking overly complex. Simplicity makes your designs look professional and easy to understand.
Big brands and companies choose to make their products whether digital or physical, simple so that users will be able to understand how to make use of their products. For instance, Apple is known as a leading tech company that has produced great products featuring incredible and simple designs, starting from their iPhones, desktops, and iPads. When you ask an Apple brand loyalist why he decided to choose Apple? One of the reasons will be “simplicity”.
Various Graphic Design Rules Designers Must Obey
Hierarchy
Elements on a design canvas come in various colors, forms, and sizes. The beauty of a design relies on so many factors and hierarchy is one of the pivotal graphic design rules that must be adhered to for a design to effectively pass its message to the reader or viewer. Hierarchy in a design helps to organize elements according to their importance either by positioning, scaling, or color. This helps to lead the reader’s eye as he or she journeys through the path of the design.
However, hierarchy can be present through popularly known patterns. The Western world follows a certain pattern of reading. For instance, when encountering an interface design, users react quickly in a matter of milliseconds, they swiftly have a gut feeling about whether to stay or leave your site.
The users’ eyes follow predictable reading paths, which are culturally influenced. Left-to-right-reading Western users use an F and a Z-pattern. So, you can design a hierarchy either to fit any of the two patterns.
High contrast for important elements
In graphic design, there is a need to obey the graphic design rule of contrast between the various elements on your design canvas. Any design that lacks contrast will cause an eyesore, will appear dull, and also will not pop or look attractive to the eye. Contrast helps various elements in the design stand out from each other and can also enhance the visibility of elements that carry important attention.
One of the rules in graphic design states that when two things are completely different, the degree of difference is amplified. It is undeniable that when you find yourself in a room filled with white balloons and all of a sudden a smaller black balloon appears, your eyes will automatically be drawn to the black balloons. This experience proves how fascinating the power of contrast can be to the human eye.
Legibility
Legibility is how readable or how visible an element especially text is capable of being read while present among similar elements or elements of different types. For example, the level of visibility or how easy it is for readers to be able to understand a message that is being passed. Legibility in this scenario has to do with the font used, is it a serif or san serif font that is easily readable and can perform well amongst other fonts?
Text legibility in design depends on where and type of font is used, it could be on the heading or title page but unfortunately, it is done with the wrong type of font used. The type of font used might not be legible enough for the eye to read or a bad font choice is used for the body of the design.
Font settings like good kerning which is how much space each character has between each other and the size of the font. This setting heavily influences the legibility textual elements have on design and it is one of the pivotal graphic design rules designers should learn to conform to.
Font
Unless you are an artist just painting a beautiful portrait of a sunset at the beach then I see no importance in using fonts in your painting design. But if that is not the case, and you are creating a promotional flyer design or website design then fonts must be needed for the design effectiveness. Fonts are undeniably an element that can single-handedly break or make your design if not properly picked. Additionally, one of the rules in graphic design that every designer should have in mind is that every font carries a certain personality and can impact the look and feel of your design.
You don’t understand what I mean by that? Let us take for example you are designing a website for kids’ products. A good designer should know that he or she should use whimsical fonts that are not of the San serif, Serif, or script font. Some fonts are handmade fonts for children’s design.
Space
Space in graphic design can be defined as the area any form or shape occupies on a design canvas. One of the rules in graphic design which is spatial law indicates that adding wider space between elements indicates their differences and adding narrow space between elements creates emphasis that the elements are of close relationship. There are different types of space in graphic design:
White space: is a term used to refer to the areas of interest and focus in a piece of artwork. Positive space is often the subject of a work of art such as a person, landscape, or object. Even in abstract artwork where there may not be a singular subject, shapes and patterns can become positive spaces.
Negative space: is the space surrounding a subject. Negative space, also called white space, is typically empty and lacks details to simplify an image and keep the focus on the subject (positive space).
Elements should be relatively aligned
Alignment is the proper organization of design elements in a design so they align properly in relation to the various edges of the design canvas. Alignment can easily be overlooked because of its subtlety in a composition. But when done correctly, its impact goes unnoticed because it gives a clean and visually organized composition.
In design, we use alignment to organize elements, to group elements, to create balance, to create structure, to create connections between elements, and to create a sharp and clear outcome.
We have 4 different types of alignment in graphics design:
Left alignment
Aligning elements to the left area of your canvas allows you to place items to the left side of your canvas. This is a popularly used form of alignment that every design software provides whether coredrae, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Left alignment is commonly used but adds little to no surprise to your design. However, it’s a perfect choice for giving descriptions or giving points just like the texts you are reading right now.
Center alignment
Center alignment aligns every element selected to the center of the canvas creating space at the both sides of the elements thereby enhancing emphasis to the center-aligned elements. As one of the rules of graphic design points about emphasis, center alignment can be used to do the trick.
Right alignment
This is simply the opposite of left alignment. All elements on the canvas are arranged to the right side of the canvas, this type of alignment makes viewers eyeball move from “Right to the left” which is uncommon in graphic design but could be an interesting trick to arrest readers’ attention when all things are going left.
Justified alignment
Justified alignment has to do with equally spacing out elements on the canvas so that they fill up both sides of the canvas. Graphic design which aims at achieving visually pleasing organization of elements across the canvas might lose its structure when making use of justified alignment arbitrarily unless it’s for a deliberate purpose.
Justified alignment naturally breaks the rule of graphic design by applying improper kerning between texts due to trying to fill elements or texts edge to edge.
Vertical alignment
In contrast to other alignment methods, vertical alignment is utilized alongside various alignment approaches. It determines where items should originate, extending them to the edges of the canvas. In graphic design, elements can be aligned to the top, middle, or baseline (bottom).
Top alignment is often the default choice and provides a smooth flow to the elements. Middle alignment is suitable when items do not fully occupy the canvas. While less common, baseline alignment proves powerful when items are arranged in a typographic flow. To apply any of these alignment options, select the desired item and use the corresponding alignment feature in the editing menu.
Consistency
One of the crucial graphic design rules that every designer must adhere to is the consistent flow of design style across the entire design process. Consistency as graphic design rules of thumb helps keep the whole process together and shows that every part and parcel of the design is holistic.
When a design is consistent there tends to be a unified visual continuity that is evidenced through the entire design. It could either be fonts, shapes, or textures. For example, when designing a website various elements go into the design process and these elements may be repeatedly used across various areas of the design which creates harmony.
Make every action deliberate
All design choices and actions made on your canvas should be intentional and not arbitrarily or haphazardly made. Every move made by your cursor, every element dragged and dropped, every text scaled, and every slider adjusted should be made to achieve the result you want in your design.
Design is a deliberate act of using graphic design elements to create meaningful visual messages used to inform, educate, or convince users to an action e.g. buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, etc. So you can see that it isn’t arbitrarily done, all graphic design rules must be obeyed to send out the intended message effectively.
Measurement should be mathematical
Achieving accurate visual structure, appeal and balance requires math calculation in graphic design. This is evident in every click of buttons and every element we move around on our canvas. Mathematics in design plays a crucial role in determining how well structured and how properly aligned elements are on the canvas.
When using Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator to design for example, the guide uses a mathematical calculation to help direct you on how elements are vertically, and horizontally aligned to each other and also inform you how much space is between elements.
Apply simplicity to complexity or complexity to simplicity.
Finding a way to balance the visual busyness between simple and complex elements in your design will earn you nothing but a positive effect. As people eyeball through your designs they subconsciously appeal to the simplicity in your designs.
However, complexity adds up too but make sure that when you are playing with these two ingredients, you should properly apply one to the other in the right amount for good visual balance. Keep in mind the adage in graphic design that says “Simple is the new more”. following the rules in graphic design can help make your design look simply professional.