When you start immersing yourself in the world of graphic design, it’s hard to find a place to start – there are so many techniques and skills that you cannot learn right away. While being a professional designer is not easy, learning some of the basics of graphic design is a great way to get started.
“What does the visual hierarchy mean?”
Don’t worry, we will learn this and many other factors in graphic design.
By learning the principles and rules of design, you’ll find the right direction to design your own logo, marketing materials, website, and more.
1. Typography
Typography is the arrangement of fonts, ideally when forming an attractive and easy-to-read visual format. This is one of the most basic principles of basic design and is a broad definition for both the use and design of spelling elements such as type, font, hierarchy, etc.
Learning about typography is a simple way to start your design journey, because typography plays an important role when appearing in any design (and almost every design includes typography!)
Basic elements help elevate the design
And because many people confuse typeface and font or assume that both of these concepts are one, here’s an explanation of what they mean:
• Typeface: a set of one or more fonts placed in a list, because they share design features. For example: Avenir.
• Font: a specific font has a certain size and style. Fonts with typeface will often differ in weight, thickness, inclination, and so on. For example: Light Avenir LT Std 35.
Here are three graphic design principles that all cover spaces between letters
1. Kerning is the distance between two specific characters in your text
2. Leading is the distance between two lines of text
3. Tracking is the space between all letters
Basic elements help elevate the design
All of these elements play an important role in the level of the text and can also be used to convey various emotions.
For example, text with large tracking and leading can evoke a sense of calm, while narrow kerning and leading can cause tension.
Tip: Don’t leave kerning too narrow or the text will become hard to read!
Basic elements help elevate the design
When using tools like Photoshop and Illustrator to work with text spacing, make sure to always think about the human experience! Text that is easily readable is better than text that is too stylish.
The typeface serif contains small decorative strokes (often called “legs”), at the end of each line in the letters. Fonts of this style often feel classic, fancy or professional. Many newspapers use serif typefaces and they are also common in high-end books, brochures and print.
Basic elements help elevate the design
Some examples of this type of font are Baskerville, Caslon, Didot, Bookman Old Style and Times New Roman.
Sans-serif typeface is the opposite of typeface serif: they do not contain the decorative lines at the end of each line in the letters, so they are more modern and simple.
This typeface is super easy to read in both large and high-end prints, making them ideal for use on any digital document, from websites to ebooks.
Basic elements help elevate the design
Some examples of this type of font are Avenir, Futura, Circular, Lucida Sans and Helvetica.
5. Use seasoned fonts
Slab typeface is a serif typeface with a thicker, thicker stroke. As such, they are often used only as headlines (or as company names in logos) and are rarely used as content text.
In the example below, only the company name is written in typeface slab, while the slogan is sans-serif, which gives a clear hierarchy.
Basic elements help elevate the design
Some examples of this font are Clarendon, Black Slabbath, Sentinel, Rockwell and Arvo.
6. Imitate handwriting
Imitate handwriting with curves and curves This style can add a romantic or luxurious element to a design. Because they can be harder to read at different sizes, script fonts work best when used as headings or in applications that need a larger font size.
Basic elements help elevate the design
Visual hierarchy is the arrangement of design elements to navigate the viewer and help them decide which information is most important. Visual hierarchy is achieved through the use of fonts, colors, images, and dimensions – such as a lighter, bigger and bolder company name, with a smaller and smaller slogan below.
This is one of the most important graphic design principles to learn, as it affects the entire user experience.