You gotta have principles!
And we're not talking about Ms. Alvarez!
We're talking about basic rules of thumb that help a design look instinctively better. Rules, especially in art and creativity, are meant to be broken! BUT you've got to know what the rules are before you test your wings off the cliff!
These rules of thumb might include:
We're talking about basic rules of thumb that help a design look instinctively better. Rules, especially in art and creativity, are meant to be broken! BUT you've got to know what the rules are before you test your wings off the cliff!
These rules of thumb might include:
UNITY |
Whatever we do to our picture or soup or project, whatever edits we give it, it's all got to create a WHOLE - what some people have called a gestalt. It's like making soup: any ingredient you put in there has to belong.
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Repetition |
The easiest solution to creating a good design, right off the bat, is to make sure some elements are repeated in some way. Maybe it's a repetition of some forms or shapes on the page; maybe it's a repetition of a color or an image. Repetition gives a design cohesion, gives it a sense of order, and can lead to a sense of pattern or rhythm, if the repetition happens sequentially. There's nothing like "copy/paste" to save the day.
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VARIETY |
While repetition is great, the easiest way to make a design more interesting in an instant, is to give variety to one or more of the elements: variety of angle, of distance, of size, of color, of lightness or darkness. Rather than creating rocks or clouds or trees that are all exactly the same size, vary their sizes, vary where they are placed, vary how far apart they are, or vary their shape a little: so much more interesting!
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HARMONY |