What Every Non-designer Ought to Know: The Principles of Design
Remember days when web design looked like text-heavy pages ripped out of a morning newspaper? Nobody would use words intuitive, usable, or enjoyable to describe their online experience. Thankfully since then, design has evolved…
Today, design is a powerful business tool that helps to create a user experience that delights and builds trust in your product or service. By the end of this article, you'll learn how to use design principles to set yourself up for a win in the big-biz games. But first, let’s start with the basics, shall we?
Understanding the Basics of Design
What is Design
To help you better understand what design is, we’ve asked our top-notch designers to define it. And this was their response...
“Design is not an art! It’s a way to solve a problem. Every design starts with a specific brief filled with tasks for designers to solve. So the visual results you get are very logical and easy to understand. Yes, there is creativity involved to make a visual picture more attractive, but the main goal is to help solve a problem” says Artem Pohrebniak, a Graphic Designer from Awesomic Community.
Importance of Design Principles
To solve users' problems designers rely on so-called design principles as guidelines in the creative process. Without these principles creating engaging and aesthetically pleasing graphics would not be possible... imagine having those distorted newspaper-looking websites back! No, thank you!
The thing is, even if you’re a business person and have nothing to do with design, I bet you would want to know how to make it your competitive advantage. If not, feel free to stop right here. The rest of you, let’s proceed.
Design Elements
Visual Elements
Visual elements are like pieces of a puzzle: get it right and your design will be both visually appealing and functional. There are five universal design elements that you need to know about—line, shape, color, grid, and space. The tools designers use to integrate these elements are called design principles.
Principles of Design
As we already established, using design principles results in a user-friendly and visually appealing user experience. They also serve to emphasize or highlight important ideas and messages. When working on design, our team suggests asking these questions:
- Is the design fulfilling its goals?
- Is it easy to perceive? (Go through the list of design principles to double-check.)
- Does the design look aesthetically pleasing?”
After identifying what your design is lacking, you can use the guide below to find the right solution.
Unity
Introducing the first design principle—unity. The primary purpose of unity is to create the right aesthetics, and harmony between your design elements. Try reading a book that has no clear storyline… Do you think the message that an author is trying to deliver will be clear? The same happens with the design that lacks unity.
Balance
Let’s move on to the next principle—balance. To simplify it, balance is responsible for a satisfying positioning and proportion of design elements.
“Usually we don’t pay attention to balance when everything is balanced well. But we do for sure when the design is unbalanced. It irritates the viewer’s eye and makes people ask questions,” shared one of our designers.
Hierarchy
Imagine landing on the website and being unable to figure out where to look. Frustrating, right? That’s when visual hierarchy comes to the rescue. Visual hierarchy helps guide users’ attention to different design elements in the order of their importance.
Examples of hierarchy would be to use bigger typeface sizes (aka font family) on the most important content, or bringing it to the top of a web page. This way your layout will have a clear visual hierarchy. Another option is to use bright colors to highlight something and muted colors to hide less important content.
Rhythm
And last but not least, rhythm. Rhythm is the repetition of visual elements to establish a pattern. Now, what do we need this pattern for? It is used to provide a stage for a special object to direct attention to the change when the pattern is purposely interrupted.
Let’s move on to another essential concept in design that you probably heard of—the color theory.
Color Theory
Color Theory was created to help designers strategically incorporate colors in their graphics. It is essential to design and cannot be adequately summarized in a single paragraph. But a good start for a beginner would be to highlight the contrast colors and number of colors in the palette.
Contrast helps elements to be visible in the background. As for the number of colors, the rule of thumb is to combine a small number of contrasting or complimentary colors. Remember: the more colors you have in your palette the harder it will be to match them. Use color schemes to assist you with that.
Color Schemes
Having multiple colors in the palette requires a special guide on how and when to use them. For that exact purpose color scheme exists. It reveals the primary colors that should dominate in your graphics, and the secondary ones used to highlight the key elements.
As we progress through our crash course in design, here are a few more things to consider…
Composition and Layout
Hierarchy and Visual Flow
One of the main design goals is to create a seamless visual flow. To achieve that, spend a good amount of time building the visual hierarchy. Feel free to experiment with scale, value, color, spacing, and placement to get your graphics right. Also, white space can help!
Whitespace
Here’s what our designers have to say about white space:
“Whitespace is one of the most tricky principles in the design. The most common questions designers get are, “Is there something missing?”, or “Shouldn’t the text be bigger?” A lack of whitespace in your layout can amplify design issues and lead to visual discomfort for the user. On the contrary, whitespace in a well-balanced design makes the layout aesthetically pleasing,” says Artem Pohrebniak, a Graphic Designer from Awesomic Community.
Elements of Composition
Lastly, your design needs composition. Composition is a space where individual elements like images, text, color, and graphics become one design. Well-thought composition will help you ensure the integrity, interconnectivity, and harmonious integration of all elements in your design.
User Experience Design
Designing for the User
Design has many shapes and forms, and one of them is user experience (UX). The goal of UX design is to create enjoyable experiences with your brand utilizing design elements and principles discussed earlier. The foundation of every UX design is the user journey, and when done right, it can turn users into brand lovers. OR haters, if done poorly. “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products,” says cognitive scientist and user experience architect Don Norman.
Applying Design Principles
Obviously, having just a head knowledge of design principles is not going to cut it. Theory without practice has no value and will not be beneficial to your business. What’s more, doing design on your own is also not an option, especially if you’re a newbie. That’s why you need an action plan…
At Awesomic we have a track record of connecting our startup with a handpicked team of top designers to get your design projects off the ground. Our AI algorithm guarantees a successful match but also does it in under 24 hours. And to top it all off, it is all done in one app! If you need design help, contact us.
Design Projects
Our design team has done it all: design-from-scratch, partial design, complete redesign projects, you name it! Clients from different backgrounds and industries come to seek help with their designs. We match them with highly-skilled UI/UX, logo and branding, graphic, and motion designers. Check out these case studies to learn more:
Filta - NFT marketplace
Live In Care Jobs
Playhouse-real estate app
Bottom line: when you master the design principles described here, you'll elevate brand loyalty and create an unforgettable experience for your users. Ready to harness the power of design for your business? Contact Awesomic today.
Remember days when web design looked like text-heavy pages ripped out of a morning newspaper? Nobody would use words intuitive, usable, or enjoyable to describe their online experience. Thankfully since then, design has evolved…
Today, design is a powerful business tool that helps to create a user experience that delights and builds trust in your product or service. By the end of this article, you'll learn how to use design principles to set yourself up for a win in the big-biz games. But first, let’s start with the basics, shall we?
Understanding the Basics of Design
What is Design
To help you better understand what design is, we’ve asked our top-notch designers to define it. And this was their response...
“Design is not an art! It’s a way to solve a problem. Every design starts with a specific brief filled with tasks for designers to solve. So the visual results you get are very logical and easy to understand. Yes, there is creativity involved to make a visual picture more attractive, but the main goal is to help solve a problem” says Artem Pohrebniak, a Graphic Designer from Awesomic Community.
Importance of Design Principles
To solve users' problems designers rely on so-called design principles as guidelines in the creative process. Without these principles creating engaging and aesthetically pleasing graphics would not be possible... imagine having those distorted newspaper-looking websites back! No, thank you!
The thing is, even if you’re a business person and have nothing to do with design, I bet you would want to know how to make it your competitive advantage. If not, feel free to stop right here. The rest of you, let’s proceed.
Design Elements
Visual Elements
Visual elements are like pieces of a puzzle: get it right and your design will be both visually appealing and functional. There are five universal design elements that you need to know about—line, shape, color, grid, and space. The tools designers use to integrate these elements are called design principles.
Principles of Design
As we already established, using design principles results in a user-friendly and visually appealing user experience. They also serve to emphasize or highlight important ideas and messages. When working on design, our team suggests asking these questions:
- Is the design fulfilling its goals?
- Is it easy to perceive? (Go through the list of design principles to double-check.)
- Does the design look aesthetically pleasing?”
After identifying what your design is lacking, you can use the guide below to find the right solution.
Unity
Introducing the first design principle—unity. The primary purpose of unity is to create the right aesthetics, and harmony between your design elements. Try reading a book that has no clear storyline… Do you think the message that an author is trying to deliver will be clear? The same happens with the design that lacks unity.
Balance
Let’s move on to the next principle—balance. To simplify it, balance is responsible for a satisfying positioning and proportion of design elements.
“Usually we don’t pay attention to balance when everything is balanced well. But we do for sure when the design is unbalanced. It irritates the viewer’s eye and makes people ask questions,” shared one of our designers.
Hierarchy
Imagine landing on the website and being unable to figure out where to look. Frustrating, right? That’s when visual hierarchy comes to the rescue. Visual hierarchy helps guide users’ attention to different design elements in the order of their importance.
Examples of hierarchy would be to use bigger typeface sizes (aka font family) on the most important content, or bringing it to the top of a web page. This way your layout will have a clear visual hierarchy. Another option is to use bright colors to highlight something and muted colors to hide less important content.
Rhythm
And last but not least, rhythm. Rhythm is the repetition of visual elements to establish a pattern. Now, what do we need this pattern for? It is used to provide a stage for a special object to direct attention to the change when the pattern is purposely interrupted.
Let’s move on to another essential concept in design that you probably heard of—the color theory.
Color Theory
Color Theory was created to help designers strategically incorporate colors in their graphics. It is essential to design and cannot be adequately summarized in a single paragraph. But a good start for a beginner would be to highlight the contrast colors and number of colors in the palette.
Contrast helps elements to be visible in the background. As for the number of colors, the rule of thumb is to combine a small number of contrasting or complimentary colors. Remember: the more colors you have in your palette the harder it will be to match them. Use color schemes to assist you with that.
Color Schemes
Having multiple colors in the palette requires a special guide on how and when to use them. For that exact purpose color scheme exists. It reveals the primary colors that should dominate in your graphics, and the secondary ones used to highlight the key elements.
As we progress through our crash course in design, here are a few more things to consider…
Composition and Layout
Hierarchy and Visual Flow
One of the main design goals is to create a seamless visual flow. To achieve that, spend a good amount of time building the visual hierarchy. Feel free to experiment with scale, value, color, spacing, and placement to get your graphics right. Also, white space can help!
Whitespace
Here’s what our designers have to say about white space:
“Whitespace is one of the most tricky principles in the design. The most common questions designers get are, “Is there something missing?”, or “Shouldn’t the text be bigger?” A lack of whitespace in your layout can amplify design issues and lead to visual discomfort for the user. On the contrary, whitespace in a well-balanced design makes the layout aesthetically pleasing,” says Artem Pohrebniak, a Graphic Designer from Awesomic Community.
Elements of Composition
Lastly, your design needs composition. Composition is a space where individual elements like images, text, color, and graphics become one design. Well-thought composition will help you ensure the integrity, interconnectivity, and harmonious integration of all elements in your design.
User Experience Design
Designing for the User
Design has many shapes and forms, and one of them is user experience (UX). The goal of UX design is to create enjoyable experiences with your brand utilizing design elements and principles discussed earlier. The foundation of every UX design is the user journey, and when done right, it can turn users into brand lovers. OR haters, if done poorly. “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products,” says cognitive scientist and user experience architect Don Norman.
Applying Design Principles
Obviously, having just a head knowledge of design principles is not going to cut it. Theory without practice has no value and will not be beneficial to your business. What’s more, doing design on your own is also not an option, especially if you’re a newbie. That’s why you need an action plan…
At Awesomic we have a track record of connecting our startup with a handpicked team of top designers to get your design projects off the ground. Our AI algorithm guarantees a successful match but also does it in under 24 hours. And to top it all off, it is all done in one app! If you need design help, contact us.
Design Projects
Our design team has done it all: design-from-scratch, partial design, complete redesign projects, you name it! Clients from different backgrounds and industries come to seek help with their designs. We match them with highly-skilled UI/UX, logo and branding, graphic, and motion designers. Check out these case studies to learn more:
Filta - NFT marketplace
Live In Care Jobs
Playhouse-real estate app
Bottom line: when you master the design principles described here, you'll elevate brand loyalty and create an unforgettable experience for your users. Ready to harness the power of design for your business? Contact Awesomic today.
