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