Four Design Principles to Live By

Maintaining your creativity when designing content can be a challenge. Luckily, there are four major design principles that can help guide your ideas. These principles are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Understanding the role each can play in the design process can help keep your ideas fresh.

Contrast

The first principle, contrast, is all about how differences matter. This refers to having parts of your designs stick out from the rest to highlight their importance. Contrast can be achieved in several ways. For example, if you are creating a webpage for a client, some of the text can be a different size, color, font, or shape. By editing the text in several ways, you are emphasizing the importance of different areas of the page. Even subtle contrasts can draw more attention to certain elements of your work.

Repetition

Repetition, repetition, repetition. This refers to the value of repeating key details in your design. In the same way that adding contrast can highlight the importance of a part of a design, repetitive elements can keep information and details unified. For example, most companies keep several aspects of their branding consistent across multiple platforms, including the font and color palette of their website, social media profiles, and packaging.

Alignment

Alignment is the idea that location matters. Whether it is a webpage, a news article, or a movie poster, the text and images should not be placed arbitrarily. When you carefully consider how to position each element, you can create a cohesive piece of work that has a logical progression. This can help direct the viewer from point to point without making them feel confused.

Proximity

An extension of alignment, proximity involves grouping related design elements together in a meaningful way. Items that are in close proximity should be connected in a manner that adds to the viewer's understanding of the piece. For example, in an advertisement, the product, its name, and its price should be close together because those elements rely on each other to answer the viewer's questions.

Following these four principles can add functional value to your designs and make them more engaging. At the Tulane School of Professional Advancement, our Digital Design program has three degree options that can help you pursue your passion for graphic design, game art and animation, or interactive design. To meet the needs of working adults, we offer flexible online classes so that you can further your education on your schedule. If you're interested in our Digital Design program, apply online or request more information.