The 7 Principles of Design.

Design is different from art in that it must have a function. Visually, this function is interpreted by ensuring that the image has a focal point. The principles of design are the rules a designer must follow to create an effective composition that delivers a clean message to the audience. The most important basic principles of design are emphasis, balance and harmony, contrast, repetition, proportion, movement, and white space. You may be thinking, "But wait! I thought design was all about creativity?" If you're a beginning entrepreneur or designer, you may be tempted to combine the first five characters and colors that catch your eye, believing you're creating something new. You'll likely find yourself with a cluttered, unfinished, or, well, just ugly design.   As in every discipline, graphic design follows strict rules that work below the surface to make work stable and balanced. If a piece misses this balance, it will be weak and ineffective. This article will cover 7 fundamental design principles that will make your next project stand out.

1. Emphasis

Say you're designing a poster for a concert. You should ask yourself: what's the first piece of information my audience needs to know? The band? Or the venue? What about the cost of attending the day? Mental drafting. Let your brain organize the information, and then arrange your design to convey that order. If the band's name is the most important information, place it in the center or make it the largest element on the poster. Or you can put it in your strongest, boldest typeface. Learn about color theory and use strong color combinations to make the band name pop. Like writing without an outline or building without a plan, if you start without a clear idea of what you're trying to communicate in your composition, your design won't succeed.  

2. Balance and alignment

Never forget that every element you place on a page has a weight. The weight can come from color, size, or texture. Just as you wouldn't shove all your furniture into one corner of a room, you can't crowd all your heavy elements into one area of your composition. Unbalanced, your viewers will feel as though they're sliding off the page. Symmetrical design creates balance through equal-weighted elements aligned on either side of the center line. Asymmetrical design, on the other hand, uses contrasting weights (such as a large element opposed by several small elements) to create an uneven but balanced composition. While symmetrical designs aren't occasionally boring, they're always satisfying. Asymmetrical designs are bolder and can bring real visual interest and movement (more on that later!) into your composition.  

3. Contrast

Contrast is what people mean when they say a design "pops." It separates from the page and sticks in your memory. Contrast creates space and difference between elements in your design. Your background needs to be significantly different from the color of your elements so that they work harmoniously together and become legible. If you plan to work with type, understanding contrast is incredibly important because it means the weight and size of your type are balanced. How will your audience know what's most important when everything is bold? If you look at really powerful, effective design examples, you'll notice that most designs only have one or two typefaces. That's because contrast can be achieved effectively with two strong fonts (or one strong typeface in different weights). When you add typefaces, you dilute and confuse the purpose of your design.  

4. Repetition

If you limit yourself to two strong fonts or three strong colors, you'll soon see that you'll have to repeat some things. That's good! It's often said that repetition unifies and strengthens a design. If only one thing in your band poster is blue italic sans-serif, it can read like a mistake. If three things are blue italic sans-serif, you've created a motif and taken control of your design. Repetition can be important beyond a single printed product. Current packaging design heavily embraces nicely illustrated patterns. Anyone considering a new launch knows that one of the first things you need is a strong logo to feature on your website, business cards, social media, and more. Brand identity? Just another term for repetition.  

5. Proportion

Proportion is the visual size and weight of elements in a composition and their relationship to each other. It helps you approach your design as a whole in sections. Grouping related items can give them importance at a smaller scale; think of the box at the bottom of your poster for ticket information, or the sidebar on a website for a search bar. Proportion can only be achieved if all the elements of your design are well sized and thoughtfully placed. When you've mastered alignment, balance, and contrast, proportion should emerge organically.  

6. Movement

Back to our concert poster. If you'd decided that the band is the most important piece of information on the page and the venue is second, how would you communicate that to your audience? Movement controls the elements within the composition so that the eye is guided to move from one to another and information is properly conveyed to your audience. Movement creates the story or storyline of your work: a band is playing, in this place, at this time, here's how to get tickets. The above elements — especially balance, harmony, and contrast — will work toward this goal, but without proper movement, your design will be DOA. If you look at your design and feel your eye is "stuck" anywhere on it — an element is too big, too bold, slightly off-center, not a complementary color — go back and adjust until everything flows.  

7. White space

All other elements concern what you add to your design. White space (or negative space) is the only one that specifically deals with what you don't add. White space is exactly that — the empty page surrounding the elements in your composition. It can be a dangerous area for novice designers. Often giving a composition more room to breathe elevates it from mediocre to successful. White space sits there and does nothing — creating hierarchy and organization. Our brains naturally associate the wide white space around an element with importance and luxury. It tells our eyes that objects in one area are grouped separately from objects elsewhere. More excitingly, it can communicate a completely different image or idea, separate from your main design, that will reward your audience for paying attention. The above logo uses active negative space to convey multiple ideas in a single fun, creative design.  

How to use the design principles

A design absolutely doesn't have to follow these rules to be "good." Some mind-blowing designs that create striking and effective work definitely ignore one or more of them. Consider Rebecca Schiff's "The Bed Moved", designed by Janet Hansen. This was one of the most acclaimed book covers of 2016. But did you immediately read the first line as "Theeb?" Did your eye jump to the underline where the M from "Moved" is isolated on a different line from the rest of the word? The design clearly breaks two rules of movement and alignment. But! Because the designer boldly used a contrasting color scheme and repetitive structure, your eye is easily directed to the title of the book and the author. The important information is conveyed. That moment of unsettling confusion is what makes this design revolutionary and rewarding. The elements of a design should be seen as moving parts that come together to tell a story. When approaching your design project, you first have to familiarize yourself with these design principles. Only then will you be able to break the rules to create your own signature style.

Images from the article