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wenty-some years ago, we found ourselves in awe of how computers and the internet changed so many aspects of life. Just when we thought technology had reached its peak, we were also blithely aware that more was going to unfold. Today we can only look back at the impact the digital revolution made on how we communicate, the way we work, and even the way we socialize. Graphic design is no exception to this change. Technology now plays a major role in the creation of digital work available in many fields. Portfolio design, presentations, signage, logos, websites, animations and even architectural production have all travelled far since the dawn of the digital revolution.
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one are the days when graphic design was solely focused on the obvious graphic elements of a product like its packaging and marketing materials. Technology has enabled brands to have more exposure online, allowing businesses to interact with their clients and consumers, which has also allowed us the ability to review and analyze real-time data to measure and see what sources are driving more traffic. We can actually analyze digitally the type of content and graphics that are getting more media impressions, more likes, more saves and, ultimately, are more appealing and converting to an audience.
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he visual power of graphic design is even inspiring companies to combine useful tools for the office. For example, Peerhatch, one of our clients, employs graphic designs to create customizable wall surfaces. With its collection of images that companies and workspaces can customize to fit their own spaces, they are able to create stunning visuals for any work area that lends itself to brainstorming, allowing employees a collaborative environment where all ideas feel welcomed. We have helped Peerhatch develop an effective communications strategy that incorporates modern content marketing campaigns to expand their exposure to its target market.
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raphic design is an ancient craft, dating back past Egyptian hieroglyphs to 17,000-year-old cave paintings. As a term originating in the 1920s’ print industry and covering a range of activities including logo creation, it concerns aesthetic appeal and marketing – attracting viewers using images, color and typography. However, graphic designers working in user experience (UX) design must justify stylistic choices regarding, say, image locations and font with a human-centered approach, focusing on—and seeking maximum empathy with—users while creating good-looking designs that maximize usability. Aesthetics must serve a purpose – in UX design we don’t create art for art’s sake. So, when doing graphic design for UX, you should consider the information architecture of your interactive designs, to ensure accessibility for users, and leverage graphic design skills in creating output that considers the entire user experience, including users’ visual processing abilities. For instance, if an otherwise pleasing mobile app can’t offer users what they need in several thumb-clicks, its designers will have failed to marry graphic design to user experience. The scope of graphic design in UX covers creating beautiful designs that users find highly pleasurable, meaningful, and usable.
Bleeds allow you to run artwork to the edge of a page. On a press, the artwork is printed on a large sheet of paper and then trimmed down to size. If you do not allow for a 1/8 of an inch bleed, any misalignment while cutting will result with the artwork not running to the edge of the paper. Bleeds ensure you get the results you need. Small mechanical variations can end up leaving a hairline white edge where there should be no white edge at all if the image is not extended beyond the final trim size. Extending images 1/8� beyond the final trim size guarantees that images truly will go all the way to the edge of the printed paper. Bleeds allow you to run artwork to the edge of a page. On a press, the artwork is printed on a large sheet of paper and then trimmed down to size. If you do not allow for a 1/8 of an inch bleed, any misalignment while cutting will result with the artwork not running to the edge of the paper. Bleeds ensure you get the results you need. Small mechanical variations can end up leaving a hairline white edge where there should be no white edge at all if the image is not ex-
It is difficult to print exactly to the edge of a sheet of paper. To achieve this, it is necessary to print a slightly larger area than needed and then trim the sheet down to the required finished size. Graphics like background images and fills, which are intended to extend to the edge of the page, should be extended beyond the trim line to give a bleed. Bleeds in the U.S. are generally 1/8 of an inch from where the cut is to be made. Bleeds in the UK and Europe generally are 2mm to 5mm from where the cut is to be made. As a result, some printers ask for specific sizes; most of these companies
tended beyond the final trim size. Extending images 1/8� beyond the final trim size guarantees that images truly will go all the way to the edge of the printed paper. When it comes to designing for print it can be extremely difficult to print exactly to the edge of your page. In order to do so, you need to set your print area to a slightly larger area, allowing you to trim around the page to the right size. This larger area around your page is often known as the bleed area. It is important to ensure you leave an area for the bleed when you are designing for print. The main reason for ensuring you include a bleed section when designing for print is to avoid white strips appearing along the edge of your print work. This can occur from time to time as there can often be movement when you are printing your final document. These white lines can often impact on how your print will look so whether it is a brochure, leaflets, flyers or business cards that you are printing, the last thing you will want is a white line running around the edge of it. This can often cheapen the look of your printed item. To ensure your print job will not have any white lines it is important that you include a bleed when designing. This is really easy to do using design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign by simply adding your dimensions at the start menu.. The amount of margin you leave is a personal choice and maybe dictated by what it is you are designing. Most graphic designers leave a margin of 3mm, 5mm or 10mm depending on the size of the final design. Now that you know how important bleed is when designing for print, browse through our product pages to see how we can help meet your printing needs. To find out more information on using bleed and margins and getting your final print right, be sure to check out our section on creating production-ready artwork. This can save you time and money in your printing process.
Oh, what a feeling. Look what we’ve overcome. Oh, I’m gonna wave-a-wave my flag. And count all the reasons. We are the champions. There ain’t no turning, turning back. Saying “Oh, can’t you taste the feeling, feeling. Look how far we’ve come. There’s beauty in the unity we’ve found. I’m ready, I’m ready. We still got a long way. But look how far we’ve come. Hands up for your colours ready the people. A new day has just begun and I wear my colours on my back (celebrate, celebrate). We’re created equal. One race, and that’s human. Can’t wait ‘til they all see, that. Saying “Oh, can’t you taste the feeling, feeling”. Look how far we’ve come there’s beauty. There’s beauty in the unity we’ve found. I’m ready, I’m ready. We still got a long way but look how far we’ve come. Hands up for your colours one hand, two hands for your colours. Show your true colours here we go (here we go). Let’s put on a show (let’s put on a show right now). Look how far we’ve come there’s beauty in the unity we’ve found I’m ready, I’m ready we still got a long way but look how far we’ve come. Hands up for your colours (There’s beauty in the unity we’ve found). One hand, two hands for your colors. Observing the effects colours have on each other is the starting point for understanding the relativity of colour. The relationship of values, saturations and the warmth or coolness of respective hues can cause noticeable dif-
ferences in our perception of colour. Two colours, side by side, interact with one another and change our perception accordingly. The effect of this interaction is called simultaneous contrast. Since we rarely see colours in isolation, simultaneous contrast affects our sense of the colour that we see. For example, red and blue flowerbeds in a garden are modified where they border each other: the blue appears green and the red, orange. The real colours are not altered; only our perception of them changes. Simultaneous contrast is most intense when the two colours are complementary colours. Complementary colours are pairs of colours, diametrically opposite on a colour circle: as seen in Newton’s colour circle, red and green, and blue and yellow. Yellow complements blue; mixed yellow and blue lights generate white light. Impressionist interest in colour and light is influenced in part by the research of scientists like Michel Chevreul. Specifically, the idea that an object of any given colour will cast a shadow tinged with that of its complementary colour and tinting neighbouring colours in the same manner. This theory was already known to earlier painters, such as Eugène Delacroix. A primary colour such as red has green (the combination of the other two primaries) as its complementary. Similarly, blue has orange and yellow has purple as a complementary colour.
When you first come across a new design where does your eye go? What’s the first thing you see on the page? Where in the design is your attention drawn? The answer to all three questions is one of dominance. Dominance through an emphasis of one or more particular elements creates a focal point in your design. It’s where most people will instinctively go when first looking at your work. Dominance will create an entry point on the page from which you can lead the viewer to
Given the definitions above it shouldn’t be too hard to understand dominance as a design component. When you create dominance in your work you are creating elements that command attention and prevail over other elements. Every design should have a primary area of interest or focal point that serves as a way into the design. From the primary dominant element, design flow can be achieved by creating elements with secondary and tertiary dominance. As I mentioned above dominance helps create an area of interest, a focal point or starting point in your design. The dominant element on your page should be the element you want people to see first. Perhaps it’s your logo or the title of the page or whatever else you want people to notice first. Dominance creates a visual hierarchy in your design. A hierarchy is by default a series of different levels of dominance. A lack of dominance between elements leads to competition between them. If there are two red circles of equal size in your design, which should I look at first? Different people will choose different circles and some will bounce back and forth between both. Had one circle clearly been dominant your viewer knows to look at it before the other circle.
Without a dominant element on the page, your readers must work to find their own entry point into your design. That’s not as easy as it seems and the least amount of work may be moving on to another design on another page on another site. Remember, “Don’t make me think.” Instead, make it easy to find a way into your design. By creating a dominant element in your work you reveal what’s most important in your design and show people were to look first. From there you can create a subdominant element to guide your viewer where to look next.
As a general rule, the elements in your design with the most visual weight will be the most dominant. However, that may not always be the case. At times the dominant element may be the element that most dominates its immediate surroundings. An object surrounded by whitespace dominates its immediate environment. In the image above your eye probably falls first on the circle in the centre. It’s hardly the largest shape in the image and doesn’t carry the most visual weight.
Balance is an ability to maintain the line of gravity (vertical line from the centre of mass) of a body within the base of support with minimal postural sway. Sway is the horizontal movement of the centre of gravity even when a person is standing still. A certain amount of sway is essential and inevitable due to small perturbations within the body (e.g. breathing, shifting body weight from one foot to the other or from forefoot to rearfoot) or from external triggers (e.g. visual distortions, floor translations). An increase in sway is not necessarily an indicator of dysfunctional balance so much as it is an indicator of decreased sensorimotor control. The senses must detect
changes of spatial orientation concerning the base of support, regardless of whether the body moves or the base is altered. There are environmental factors that can affect balance such as light conditions, floor surface changes, alcohol, drugs, and ear infection. There are balance impairments associated with ageing. Age-related decline in the ability of the above systems to receive and integrate sensory information contributes to poor balance in older adults. As a result, the elderly are at an increased risk of falls. One in three adults aged 65 and over will fall each year. In the case of an individual standing quietly upright, the limit of stability is defined as the amount of postural
sway at which balance is lost and corrective action is required. Body sway can occur in all planes of motion, which make it an increasingly difficult ability to rehabilitate. There is strong evidence in research showing that deficits in postural balance are related to the control of medial-lateral stability and an increased risk of falling. To remain balanced, a person standing must be able to keep the vertical projection of their centre of mass within their base of support, resulting in little medial-lateral or anterior-posterior sway. Ankle sprains are one of the most frequently occurring injuries among athletes and physically active people. The most common residual disability
post ankle sprain is instability along with body sway. Mechanical instability includes insufficient stabilizing structures and mobility that exceed physiological limits. Functional instability involves recurrent sprains or a feeling of giving the way of the ankle. Nearly 40% of patients with ankle sprains suffer from instability and an increase in body sway. Injury to the ankle causes a proprioceptive deficit and impaired postural control. Individuals with muscular weakness, occult instability, and decreased postural control are more susceptible to ankle injury than those with better postural control.
When you repeat elements, the intervals between those repetitions can create a sense of rhythm in the viewer and a sense of movement. Musicians create rhythm in the spacing between notes, effectively making these “silent” gaps play off the notes. Designers insert spacing between elements to make rhythm. There are, broadly speaking, five types of visual rhythm. Repeating elements with no specific regular interval creates random rhythms. The spacing could be a millimetre here, a centimetre there, while the elements could be all over the place. Think of falling snow, pebbles on a beach, traffic movements: they are all examples of random rhythms in action. Remember that you have positive and negative images, which you can use so that both the elements and the spaces between them make your design hard to “predict”. By using a larger series of elements, you’ll have virtually limitless possibilities to play with. The artist René Magritte made particularly interesting use of random rhythm. You can repeat more than one element in a design. In an alternating
design, you use a 1-2-1-2-12 pattern. Think of the black and white squares on a chessboard: that’s an alternating rhythm in play. An alternating rhythm is, in fact, regular rhythm with more complexity. It could be as straightforward as our chessboard, or we could envision something more intricate. Some fantastic alternating rhythms include rows of fish, birds, or other animals. Taking fish as an example, we can see that each identical fish is following another. M.C. Escher’s Lizard (1942) is another great example of this, incorporating three colours of lizards with a pair of lizards of each colour facing away from each other, tail to tail. As simple or complex as we want to make an alternating rhythm, it can be an easy way to break up the monotony of a regular rhythm. It’s also worth noting that rhythm may appear random if you examine a small section of the rhythm.
Other principles of design are also touched upon in various articles on the subject. These include typography, colour, Gestalt Principles, grid and alignment, framing, and shape. Some definitely fit the definition of “principles” while others are more like elements of design. Typography refers to the way text is arranged in a design. That includes the fonts used, their spacing, size, and weight, and the way different text elements relate to each other. Good typographic design is heavily influenced by all of the other design principles mentioned earlier in this article. The use of colour in design is one of the most psychologically important parts of a design and has a huge influence on user experience. Colour psychology and theory heavily influence some of the other principles mentioned earlier. Gestalt Principles include similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, figure/ground, and symmetry & order (also called prägnanz). Some of those principles are closely related to the principles mentioned above. Grid and alignment are closely related to balance and refer to the way elements are arranged in relation to an invisible grid on the page. Framing refers to how the primary subject of design is placed in relation to other elements on the page. It’s most often heard referred to in cinematography or photography, with how the main focus of an image is placed within the overall image. But the principle carries over into design. The shape is also a major part of any design, both in terms of specific shapes used as elements within the design, and the overall shape of the design itself. Different shapes can evoke different feelings, i.e circles are organic and fluid, while squares are more rigid and formal, and triangles give a sense of energy or movement. These design “principles” or elements are important aspects of good design and should be considered alongside the other basic principles to create the best user experiences. What constitutes the “basic” principles of design is certainly up for debate. But understanding and implementing the principles covered above is vital to the success of any design project. Designers should aim to understand how each of these design principles actually impacts their work. Studying how other designers have implemented these ideas to structure their own designs is also an incredibly valuable tool in learning to create better designs. It’s entirely possible to create a good design without a thorough understanding of these elements and principles of design. However, it’s typically done by “designer’s intuition” and may take a lot of trial and error in order to create something that actually looks good and creates an optimal user experience. Designers could save a lot of time and energy by practising the principles we have discussed until they become second nature.
Typography refers to the way text is arranged in a design. That includes the fonts used, their spacing, size, and weight, and the way different text elements relate to each other. Good typographic design is heavily influenced by all of the other design principles mentioned earlier in this article. The use of colour in design is one of the most psychologically important parts of a design and has a huge influence on user experience. Colour psychology and theory heavily influence some of the other principles mentioned earlier.