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The 10 Graphic Design Basics You Need To Know
As a graphic designer, you must understand the design values in order to make harmonious and good designs. These guidelines will assist your projects with accurately communicating your thoughts and how all of the visual components of your product work with one another.
1. Contrast
Contrast is one of the most basic graphic design principles that any graphic designer must master. Contrast refers to the distinction between the elements of the design, which means that if you have a dark colour in one product, the other graphic elements must be of a bright colour to distinguish one from the other clearly.
For example, if you create a template of text and the background colour is dark, the text colour should be bright to make it easy to read.
2. Balance
If you are a Graphic Designer working on a design project, you should be aware that any feature you put in your design has a weight to it, which can be derived by colour, scale, or texture.
Balance relates to how you arrange these elements on your design in order to avoid seeing any of your heavy elements in the same place. There are two forms of balancing: symmetrical, which creates balance by aligning evenly weighted components, and asymmetrical, which creates contrast by aligning a heavy element with lighter ones.
3.Emphasis
Emphasis refers to the role of the components of your design and the order in which they should appear. The priority theory states that the most valuable detail about your design should be the first thing people see about your project.
In a movie poster design, for example, the first thing you can see is the title of the movie, followed by the name of the director, and finally, the names of the actors and actresses. If you want to know those are the best Poster Design in Movies, check out my article on it and see how the focus works on these posters.
4. Repetition
A repetition is a perfect tool for reinforcing a concept that you want to convey in your design. Repetition also helps to unify your project. You may apply the repetition theory to various elements such as colour, typefaces, forms, or other graphic design elements.
For example, if the design has several typefaces or colours, it could be seen as a poor design and difficult to watch due to the confusion, but we may prevent this by selecting two typefaces, for example, by using them in the design.
5. Proportion
The proportion theory of graphic design is one of the simplest to grasp. Proportion refers to the scale of objects in relation to one another in the design. Larger elements in architecture are easier to see than smaller ones, so larger elements are more desirable than smaller ones.
6. Hierarchy
The hierarchy theory of Graphic Design states that the most significant things of your design can also tend to be the most important; this helps those who see your design understand what is the most important thing on it.
From start to finish, hierarchy guides the order in which we interpret design components. The visual hierarchy of a design is determined by the size, colour, and organisation of graphic elements. For e.g., you are more likely to notice a bright red outline than a pencil-thin line. In addition, you will find an object higher up in composition before one lowers down.
Your audience is guided through your whole message in a logical order by visual hierarchy. A style that lacks a consistent hierarchy overwhelms audiences with so many signals at once, without providing them with a sense of the big picture. When you have a lot of elements in a plan, make sure the most important message has the most visual weight, and work your way down from there.
7. Rhythm
The rhythm theory is easily understood when using music as an example. When you use repeated elements in your design, this creates gaps between these elements, which creates a visual rhythm, much as it does in musical compositions. Visual rhythm is classified into five types: spontaneous, normal, repeating, fluid, and progressive.
8. Pattern
In Graphic Design, a pattern is a repeat of different graphic elements on the design that work together to produce an eye-catching and harmonious design.
The pattern theory refers to how concept components are constructed in a project and establishes a standard to share your ideas effectively.
9. White Space
White space, also known as negative space, is the region of a design that is empty and does not have design features. However, white space is an essential design element; you must allow the design elements room to breathe to distinguish them from other elements clearly.
White space is often used in logo design to generate hidden icons to provide more detail about the brand while preventing saturation.
10. Movement
In graphic design, the flow concept applies to how the human eye deals with your design because the most important feature in your design must be the first thing viewers see, and after seeing it, your design must take the spectator to the next most important element.
11. Variety
The variety theory is used in architecture to generate visual appeal for the spectator and can be achieved by the use of various elements such as colour, typography, photographs, shapes, and several others. And by using a variation, we stop having a monotonous interface and losing the viewer’s attention.
It is critical to understand that by using the variety theory, you must exercise extreme caution to avoid overloading the template and causing confusion.
12. Unity
The unity theory applies to how well all of the components involved in your design project fit together; they should have a consistent bond and share the same principles, which would make the design look more organised and everything on it connected to each other. The online course at Blue Sky Graphics can help you learn graphic design along with the various principles required to create an outstanding design!
