To make extra-sure what you\u2019ve done is readable, take a step back and look at it from a few feet away. Then look at it again sized down to a thumbnail. Is the most essential information still readable at a distance or tiny?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve committed no typographical horrors.<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
Now, you can piss off a typographer by doing so much as bolding text that doesn\u2019t have a proper bold weight. There are tons of little rules, because typographers are the secret masters of the design world, but all you have to remember is not to do anything the type wasn\u2019t already designed for. This means no stretching it out of shape \u2013 ever. No adding funky effects (this includes 3D-ifiying or changing it from fill to stroke). These are all terrible sins that will summon Zalgo<\/a>, the type fiend.<\/p>\n But there are less nitpicky rules you should always follow to avoid making people\u2019s eyes bleed. No really, stop stretching text and adding fake 3D effects. That shit makes type look like garbage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This means doings things that make sense, like header hierarchy. All that means is making sure your titles are bigger than your subtitles and so on. It also generally means putting the important stuff at the top (and\/or left in the west), or center of the layout if it\u2019s a minimal design. If you take a step back from your work and find it hard to get the essentials at a glance, you need to fix that, because people won\u2019t give you enough time to explain your bullshit if their first impression is, \u201cThis is bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is about more than legibility, and applies to type an imagery. If you cram everything together when it just won\u2019t fit, you\u2019re going to give your viewers a headache. Don\u2019t cram the page until you make people barf their brains. Less is more. Layouts look better when there\u2019s some empty space chilling out in there. In fact, pro designers will tell you the negative space is just as important as the content, because it frames the content. I\u2019m continually amazed at how increasing the leading between lines of text can make a meh<\/em> design look better.\u00a0 There\u2019s also cool things you can do with negative space<\/a> once you learn to pay attention to it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whether you use the rule of thirds or golden ratio doesn\u2019t matter as much as knowing how to align every element to every other element. Use a grid. Whether you\u2019re working on paper or the computer, use a grid. Even if you\u2019re making a poster for a hippy\u2019s psychedelic shoe farm, use a grid<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Barring any psychedelic shoe farm posters, where the goal is to lead a stoner\u2019s eyes around and around the page to make him go, \u201cWoah!\u201d choose a single color scheme and stick to it. Adobe\u2019s got a great color wheel app<\/a> online, and it\u2019s free. Remember that bright colors draw the eye, so keep your powerful colors powerful the same way I limit my swears per blog post.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Again, I\u2019ve seen this, on some poor soul\u2019s self-published book cover. I don\u2019t even know what the \u201cdesigner\u201d was doing using the airbrush effect behind all the text with baby-poop brown, and behind the bad cut&paste job around the stock model, and all over the background. It was like virtual projectile diarrhea over everything. How someone can look at that and go, \u201cYep, a job well done.\u201d \u2013 it boggles the mind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This last point I\u2019ve added thanks to Alicia\u2019s comment about finding a mentor. Feedback is critical, especially when starting out, and not just from clients. Clients can have awful taste in everything. Their happiness doesn\u2019t guarantee that you didn\u2019t produce an unholy abomination, it just means you got paid. You\u2019ll still miss opportunities for more work if what you put in your portfolio looks like a dog turd. If you live in a vacuum, sealed off from other professionals, you will never learn their tricks. Get a mentor!<\/p>\n There are tons of books and online resources that go into design in more detail, but following the rules outlined above will at least make your designs look like they weren\u2019t done by someone\u2019s blind grandma. Next time I\u2019ll try to puzzle out what makes great design as I struggle across the competency plateau on my way to mastery mountain<\/a>, because I sure as hell haven\u2019t reached it yet.<\/p>\n Also, here is more good advice from pro designers.<\/a><\/p>\n The simple answer to this question is: whatever looks good and does the job. But that\u2019s hard to quantify, so let\u2019s break it down. Here are the basic rules to making yours designs not look like crap: The information is readable. Believe me, I\u2019ve seen people screw up this basic requirement. Back in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[20,15,42],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","tag-advice","tag-bullshittery","tag-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Your layout leads the eye in a logical way that aids the viewer in getting all the information.<\/h4>\n
You\u2019ve left enough white-space to give every element breathing room.<\/h4>\n
Remember grids are your friends.<\/h4>\n
You have your colors under control.<\/h4>\n
Your Photoshop work doesn\u2019t look like a four-year-old spread poop all over it.<\/h4>\n
You get feedback and advice from good designers.<\/h4>\n
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