Basic Design Principles With Jose (Part 1)
Even a little bit of design know-how can go a long way toward making your project look like it was created by a professional. JM, the Art Director at SmartDraw, contributes his expertise to highlight these simple, yet effective techniques.
1. Group Related Elements
Visually group related elements on the page. Scattered elements are visually confusing. The reader’s eye doesn’t know where to settle, or which pieces of information are related to each other. When you group related elements, the reader will take in each part as intended. Don’t make the reader work to see your intention. Make it obvious.
Organize your information into small, manageable chunks. If a headline and subhead are related, put them together. If your address appears on the page, put it in a tight block, and put some white space between that block and other elements.
The corollary principle is that unrelated information should be separated by white space, lines, and borders.
Take, for example, the flyer advertising the car for sale. The car’s features can be listed close to each other in a bulleted list. Their proximity indicates that they are related. Don’t, however, include your contact information in the same list. Instead, group that information in a separate block, set off by white space from the features list.
