Archive for August, 2010
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 3: Contrast
Posted by Kris Sheppard in Five Basic Steps on 08/30/2010
Allrightythen! It’s time to get into some of the other reasons this design works well. It’s time for the next step…
Step number three: Turn up the contrast!
Another reason this design works is that there is strong contrast that also helps to separate the information. This is accomplished in a number of ways:
The first way that we used contrast is that of size. You will notice that the “Magic by Bob” portion is much larger than the rest of the text on the card. This adds further emphasis between the headlines and the contact information.
Next, we used two different fonts. The headlines were put in a fun, slightly whimsical font called “Huggable” from fontdiner.com. The rest of the text is set in Trebuchet MS. The difference between the two fonts also helps to emphasize the two different portions of information. I’d also like to point out here that even though the headline and the subhead contrast in size, we put them in the same font to tie them together.
Finally, we wanted certain words and information to stand out within their groupings and to do this, we used color. In the headlines we wanted the word “Magic” and the subhead, “Featured Performer…” to stand out more. Nothing stands out more from the black background than the color white, so that’s the color we used. We also did the same thing for the phone number, web address and email. The rest we put in red. This overall, helps us to draw attention to specific items. Keep in mind that this shouldn’t be overused because it is very easy for a design do start becoming too busy and more difficult to read which is the opposite of what we are going for. The old adage “less is more” is a good thing to keep in mind.
Next up…alignment! See you soon.
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 1: Organize!
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 2: Proximity
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 3: Contrast
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 4: Alignment
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 5: Repetition
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 2: Proximity
Posted by Kris Sheppard in Five Basic Steps on 08/12/2010
Great! So now that you have all of your information organized, it’s time to start putting together an effective layout.
Step number two: Arrange related info into same proximity.
Arranging related information into groups helps to create focal points which in turn will help you to guide the reader’s eyes to where you want it to go…sort of like misdirection. This is the first step to controlling your reader’s experience.
From the previous step, we have two groups of information and an image. In order of importance, we will want the reader to first go to the headlines, second, to the photo and third to the contact information.
We’ll start by placing the title where people generally start reading…at the top left. Then we’ll guide the eye to the photo, placing it after the title. It’s very easy for the reader’s eye to continue to the right and rest upon the photo, connecting it to the title. Finally, we place the contact grouping below the title which will be the final place for the eye to rest.
There’s another element here that plays an equally important role in directing the reader’s eye and helps to visually organize the information. In my next post you will learn about the next step…contrast.
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 1: Organize!
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 2: Proximity
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 3: Contrast
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 4: Alignment
Five Basic Steps to Better Design — Step 5: Repetition
Follow The Method!