20 Rules for making good graphic Design
...By Timothy Samara. All rules are meant to be broken, but rules should never be completely ignored. This set is not intended to be a definitive checklist to making a good design. It should, however, provide points to be considered in every creative project you take on. From Timothy Samara’s Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual
1. Have A Concept
Every, every, every design you ever make must have a meaning behind it. Plain and Simple. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your art is or how creative your graphics look. If your design doesn’t contain a story, an idea or a message you are trying to convey, it isn’t graphic design. It’s just pretty pictures on a page. Tell us something with your work.
2. Communicate, Don’t Decorate
Form carries meaning. No matter how simple or abstract that form may be, form that doesn’t match up communicates conflicting messages to your audience. Experiment with different shapes, details, colors and effects, and explore how they all can work together to support your message. Without keeping your message in mind, your work runs the risk of simply becoming a collage of graphics no longer qualifying as communicative design. Everything the viewer sees should be there for a reason.
3. Speak With One Visual Voice
Make sure every part of your design is talk to one another in the same language. “Does everything relate harmoniously to everything else?” This is the question you must ask yourself when critiquing your own work. All the elements of good design reinforce, restate and reference each other. This applies to shape, weight and placement, both visually as well as conceptually. If even one element is out of place it can disconnect from the others weakening your entire message.
5. Treat Type As An Image
In it’s most basic form, type is visual material made up of connected lines, dots, shapes and textures. They all need to relate compositionally to the design, no matter how different they seemingly may be. Move away from looking at the headline, pictures and body copy as three separate entities. There are all connected parts of one cohesive image.
6. Keep Type Friendly
It should almost go without saying that illegible type serves your work zero purpose. You may be tempted to grab the fancies, frilliest, most exoctic or creative type you can find, but if it distracts the reader from the message you are trying to communicate it doesn’t work. Type can be expressive, creative and riddled with subliminal meaning, but first and foremost it must transmit the essential information.
7. Show One Thing First
The viewer should be drawn into the most important part of the design first. Make it stand out with a big shape, a startling image, a dramatic type treatment or a daring color–it doesn’t really matter, just hook ‘em in. Once your audience is captured, steadily decrease the action of each less important item guiding the viewer in the logical progression you want them to follow. This establishes ‘hierarchy’ in your image. Remember, you are designing to (a) grab their attention (b) get them the information they need and (c) help them remember it afterward. If there’s no clear focus of what to start with, you’ve already lost the battle.
8. Pick Colors On Purpose
Colors should never be picked simply at random. Every color carries a particular emotional and psychological meaning. Red can mean passion or love, where as green speaks more to nature and growth. Understand what your colors do when you combine them and what they will mean to your audience. The mood of your audience can be successfully controlled simply by what colors you choose to work with.
9. Do More With Less
The more you cram into a confined space, the harder it will be for your viewer to see what they are supposed to be seeing. Anybody can throw a bunch of stuff together and call it ‘complex’ art, but there’s a big difference between something that’s ‘complicated’ and ‘complex’. Remove anything that does not directly contribute to the message you are trying to convey. Make yourself stand out with something sleek, clear and noticeable.
10. Negative Space Is Magical
Negative space (also called white space) can sometimes be more impactful than the actual stuff you put in it. Space in general calls attention to the other content and separates items that are unrelated. Negative space is just as much a shape in terms of composition as positive shapes, and used effectively it can be a powerful element of your design. If negate space goes unconsidered it can feel dead and disconnected, and a lack of negative space overwhelms and confuses the audience.
11. Be Universal; It’s Not Just About You
Artists often create for themselves, but as a designer you create for everyone else. Your audience must know what it is you are trying to say with those shapes and lines and colors, not just a few ‘enlightened’ folks. Your designs are ultimately being used to promote a concert or relay instructions in a manual or something else communicative. While you should most definitely leave your own creative mark on every piece of work, you will be ultimately judged by how effectively you convey the message, not how pretty your piece looks.
12. Squish and Separate / Grouping Elements
If it’s your intention to make your piece look dull and lifeless, then by all means align everything with equal proportions using the same color, shape and typeface. On the of chance you want to give it some actual life (which hint, hint you should always be doing), move things arounds and squish some elements together. Give the viewer’s eyes some curves to follow by creating a breathing, flowing piece ramp with contrast and density.
13. Distribute Light and Dark
Incorporate a full range of tonal values in your piece or you risk not letting it live up to its full potential. Mix in light and dark values, like firecrackers lighting up a night sky. This does not mean, however, you should distribute the spectrum of values evenly throughout the piece. Bunch some of them together. Put contrasting values on opposite sides of the page. Your piece will have more interest and keep the viewer engaged.
14. Be Decisive
Place visual materials with complete confidence. Make clear decisions about size, arrangement, and distance from each other, and stand behind those decisions. The viewer will trust your instinct and readily believe the message you are trying to convey. Any weakness or insecurity your design may have will be picked up by the viewer and summon negative thoughts, even on the subconscious level. Design with confidence and believe in your reasoning for putting things where you put them. You are the pro in this arrangement. Remember that!
15. Measure With Your Eyes
The human eye is often fooled by optical illusions. Ironically though, optical illusions account for nearly ninety percent of logic in visual composition. You must make the judgment calls on behalf of your audience. Are two objects the same size or not? Circular forms always look smaller than square ones that are mathematically the same height. Compensate by making one bigger than the other. And how about the form. Are two objects aligning or not? Should one element touch the edge of the format? If a viewer perceives that two objects are aligned, he or she will assume they actually are (even if they in fact aren’t). Conversely, if two objects are really in alignment but appear to be off-kilter, them being within the grid doesn’t matter. The viewer will only see it as a flaw by a careless designer who forgot to make sure everything was in place. make it look right.
16. Make What You Need; Don’t Scavenge
Make the puzzle pieces you need the best you can, or pay someone else to make it for you. Avoid relying on what already exists even if that may be the cheaper or easier route. Nothing is more meaningless in a design than a commonly used stock image or graphic that pops up everywhere. It will instantly kill your piece and credibility as a designer. Sometimes a solution is no further away than a couple of dots or lines and a personalized scribble that becomes original and will connect much better with your audience.
17. Ignore Fashion / Trends
This can be a difficult rule to follow because you design for an audience that lives in the present. However, when possible steer away from following the latest design trends in an attempt to relate to your audience. Your work won’t stand out and will more often than not get lost in the shuffle. Trends come and go relatively quickly and your newer design to already look dated when new style becomes the next big thing. Be a trendsetter and design based around the content you are looking to communicate, not the current market.
18. Move It! Static Equals Dull
Painters and designers have been working for over a thousand years to create 3-dimensional looks in their work. This is because flat designs look lifeless. Move things around to trick the audience into having a dynamic experience. By keeping things static the viewer’s brain will get uninterested too quickly and miss out on the full message of your piece. Ready, set, action!
19. Look At History, But Don’t Repeat It
Designs of the past have their place serving as inspiration and influence to aspiring designers. It also can be fun to venture back in time and see how communicative strategies and aesthetics have changed across certain periods. Reproduce an older style because you think it looks cool or your client wants a very specific, ‘retro’ look is simply unacceptable, however. Become inspired by old work but make something original.
Symmetry Is The Ultimate Evil
Just because symmetry exist everywhere in nature doesn’t mean it is good practice for your designs. Similar to the “Move It” rule, symmetrical design comes across static and with little movement. Even worse, symmetrical arrangements make implementing asymmetrical any sort of images very awkward to look at. It’s shouts that the designer is lazy and lets the format do the designing. You tell the format who’s boss. You do the designing.
