The Practical Guide to Design Theory [1, 1 ed.]

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Small choices add up when creating strong design.

nice. Concise, orderly and structured

not so nice. Random, busy and lack of consistency

That is the reason I created this single essential source -- to help you understand design theory foundations and to help you apply it to real world practical projects.

Index 04 06 24 32 34 50 61 70 82 84 91

Introduction Gestalt Theory Gestalt Examples Typography Introduction The History of Typography Anatomy of Typography Font Pairing Psychology of Typography Color Theory Introduction Color Wheel Basics Color Harmony

98 106 120 123 128 138 168 173 185 188

Color Palettes Psychology of Color Color Accessibility Color Spaces Using Photos in Design Composition & Layout Different Layout Types Introduction to Grids The Golden Ratio Using Grids

section one //

DESIGN FOUNDATIONS

Strong foundations build the best houses. When you build a home there are basic materials and methods you need to use to build a proper structure. No matter what type of house you build, you will need a roof, flooring, windows, appliances, plumbing and insulation. You will also need to have qualified people install those materials using tried and true methods that have stood the test of time. Graphic design is the same way. Graphic design projects span the entire spectrum of both digital and print projects. No matter which project type

you are doing on this massive scale, you need to have the proper materials (software) and knowledge to put all of those materials together. We are going to talk about terms and theories that you might have heard of before. Everything we go over in this first section will be ideas, methods and concepts you can apply to ALL design projects, big or small, digital or print.

Gestalt Theory

Gestalt Origin: German Noun An organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.

Have you ever played the game when you look up at the clouds and try to find people, animals or things? Your brain is always subconsciously finding patterns, shapes and meaning to everything you look at to try to make sense of the world. This is the basic foundation of Gestalt theory, which stems from Gestalt psychology, a theory of thought that originated in Germany in the early 20th century. We will review some of the laws associated with Gestalt psychology and talk about how it relates to design. When we understand how the human brain processes and categorizes a series of elements, we can use that understanding to help us craft easy to digest visual messages. Gestalt theory is really just trying to explain how we visualize and organize information. Organizing this information is the very core of what we do as graphic designers.

“ The whole

is other than the sum of the parts.” Psychologist Kurt Koffka

We group like objects together regardless of where they are placed. In this case, we group these circles based on color, not by location.

Similar Objects are grouped together by color, size and shape. The human brain loves to categorize things. When you look at the following random assortment of squares and triangles, what do you see? Better yet, how do you see them?

We can do that by making it a different color (see below).

SALE BUY NOW

There is a likely chance that your brain is deciding to group together the triangles like in figure A (below), or it has decided to group the squares together as a group in figure B. It is working hard to make sense of the different shapes presented.

Figure A

In figure C and D below, we have two layouts. Each shape represents a photo, text or element in the layout. In figure C we are using similar shapes in our layout. This helps everything feel like it belongs together. Figure D features different shapes of photos and content which does not allow the brain to categorizes all the different information presented, causing confusion.

Figure B

The principle of similarity also applies to color, texture, shape, position, origination and size. Knowing how the brain works here comes in handy as a designer. We can use this principle to shape how we develop our layouts. We can bring attention to an important element in the design by making it different than the rest.

Figure C

Figure D

Close objects are grouped together. Your car console uses the idea of proximity to make it easy for you to find and locate related controls. You may notice all of the air conditioning and heater dials located in close proximity to each other. You may also see the radio controls put tightly together in relation to the other unrelated controls in the car. This is a helpful concept to keep in mind when doing layout design. We can group related items in the layout together so they feel like larger cohesive groups that share a goal. This helps the human brain to organize large amounts of information.

Just Right

tagline of the company feels like a different item all together and does not feel a part of the logo like it does in the first example. The same principle applies to layout design. In the social media post below we see a layout that groups related event details together by using proximity.

Event Name M U S I C F E S T I VA L

FREE ADMISSION

APRIL 22nd 2022 FROM 2PM-6PM

AT THE COLOSSEUM DOWNTOWN MIAMI

In the illustration above, the logo on top is a good example of the principle of proximity in action. The logo on the top has the words of the company ”Travel” and “Loop” spaced rather closely. I am able to read this logo as one company name, “travelloop”. In the logo in the middle, you see a wider gap between the two words and they start to read as separate words, but also start to feel disconnected from each other. The same goes for the example on the bottom. The

The event name and a descriptor line are grouped together in the same area. You can also see related date and location items grouped close together. This allows the viewer to group related items together so they can easily understand the information. Imagine if we placed all of the information into one area without any sort of separation? It could be messy and intimidating for the viewer to look at.

We break down elements into the simplest forms possible. From the shapes we see on the previous page, we see the image on top as one, complex shape with curves and lines. Instead, what our brains try to do is break that complex image down into something easier to handle and we suddenly see three simple shapes instead of one big complex shape.

One thing to always ask yourself when creating a design is “Can I make this more simple?” You can do this by reducing unnecessary elements, graphics and even combining texts that are saying the same thing. Simplification can make your message appear more clean and concise.

We see the principle of simplicity applied to icon design all the time. Icons need to be seen in very small sizes. If we were to have a detailed illustration for a small icon it would not always be easy to tell what it was. We instead simplify illustrations down to icons that can be identified in many different of sizes.

Ask yourself another question, “Is this graphic or element adding value to my design?” As designers we typically feel we need to show off our creativity, but remember your design’s overall message is always the most important. Make it clear, concise and rewarding to look at.

When reduced down to a smaller size this simplified icon fairs much better than the complex illustration.

The layout to the left is busy and complex with many different sized elements and structures. Simplifying our layout to focus on our main photo, idea or focal point can help a viewer “cut through the noise” to have an enjoyable experience.

Using simplicity makes complex objects easier to understand. The goal is to reduce it down to the point where it still retains its core meaning and use. This clock is still understood as a clock even though it is just a circle and one bent line.

We instantly try to figure out what is in the background and what is in the foreground. This is very important for our brain to process quickly and it goes back to our hunter/gatherer days. We needed to quickly determine what was the animal we were hunting and what was the background. This can be tough if you are looking for a brown lizard in a sea of brown sand. Our brain looks at color and contrast differently to find and assign objects as either in the foreground (in front) or the background (in the back). This principle is evident with the classic Rubin’s vase experiment. Look at figure A. What do you see? Did you see a vase first or two faces?

Figure A

Figure B

What if we switched the colors (see figure B), are you now able to see both? Among darker colors, lighter colors tend to stand out more as foreground elements. This is true with figure B. The bright orange vase really stands out compared to the darker purple faces. The opposite is true for figure A.

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The focus is now on the foreground

In the example above we have a website landing page. We have a pop up box where a user can sign up for the newsletter. You can help the viewer better determine the focal point, the most important item, by darkening all the unrelated items. This darkened area now becomes the background and the lighter becomes the foreground.

sign up for the newsletter.

Without giving the user cues to help determine the foreground or the background, it can make the viewer lose focus on what is most important at any given time.

Your mind tries to achieve balance and establish order with everything it sees. What do you see when you look at the graphic below?

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put them together it achieves a natural symmetrical balance. Looking at the example below, there is a much better chance that the two symmetrical halves on the left will be grouped together as one unit as opposed to the asymmetric parts to the right.

In reality, they are just six brackets -- three facing to the left and three facing to the right. But when you place the left and right brackets together, the mind naturally tends to seek completion, in this case making the form of a rectangle. This logo below for a sushi restaurant features a letter of equal width on both the left and right side of the logo. When you put both letters together on the left but do not balance it out on the other side the logo looks lopsided and unbalanced.

When we talk about balance in design we are mostly talking about Symmetry and Order at work. In the graphic (above left) we have two uneven triangles. When we make them the same shape and

The McDonalds logo features a symmetrical logo. It achieves a proper balance of the left and right sides.

You will see magazine covers use the same tactic, making sure to balance the article titles on both the left and right sides, instead of listing all of them down one side.

Magazine Name Article One

Magazine Name Article One Article Two

Article Two Article Three Article Four

Article Three Article Four

We like to fill in the gaps. Take a look at the square and the circle below. Even though they have gaps in their strokes, we have no problems filling in the rest of the shape to complete it. The circle could really just be two curved lines, but we still like to see it as a complete circle.

In the series of shapes below, what do you see? In reality there are four pies with one slice missing from its shape. What our minds like to do is fill in the gaps and view this as four circles and a square, because it is the simplest explanation. A practical use of the principle of closure in design is the use of negative space in logo design.

Below is a classic example of how our brains fill in negative space. We fill in the open space between the E and the T and form the letter A. The letter A is not anywhere in the active positive space, but only exists in the negative space that exists between positive spaces. The same is true for the O that is formed by the shapes created by the positive space T and N.

Retro Corporate Logo Goodness_00084” by jordan_ lloyd is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

The shape below looks like two opposing arrows, but in fact it forms a D for direction.

Retro Corporate Logo Goodness_00081” by jordan_ lloyd is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

We use past experiences to try to interpret new ones. If you are reading this, then you have learned how to identify each character in the English alphabet. The letter A can be presented to us with out its distinct center crossbar and it is still viewed as the letter A. We are assuming it is the letter A based on our past knowledge with how the letter A is formed.

A

We all have certain expectations when we view or interact with a design. For instance, when we are on a website and want to know if a link is clickable, we know from our past experience that underlined words typically tend to be active links. If the text is not underlined, sometimes it is bolder or has a different contrasting color used for the text. If we decide to make our active links on our website dramatically different than what is expected we risk confusing the visitor. The same rule applies to layout design. Based on past experiences, if we typically see company contact information at the bottom of an advertisement, then doing otherwise would seem strange. Have you ever seen the fine print of an ad at the top?

With magazine articles we are expected to read from the left page to right page, not start from the right and read to the left. What is really interesting is that we can use this principle of experience to do something unpredictable to bring more attention to our design. It could be adjusting our main headline typography go up and down instead of the predictable left to right. This could cause viewers to stop and pay attention to something that is unexpected.

Stop and take a look

Remember our example of finding animals, people and objects in clouds? The only reason we are able to do this is through our past experience of observing the world around us.

That would seem extremely odd and not in sync with our expectations from past experiences.

We prefer to follow smooth curved paths over inconsistent rigid ones. In the graphic below (Figure A), you see two intersecting lines. According to the principle of continuation, your brain will continue to follow smooth curved lines even if there is separation or another intersecting line. In this case, your eye follows the black line all the way past where the green line intersects, following a smooth path. Your eye usually does not tend to follow the black line, then veer off in a dramatic tangent (like you see in figure B), rather it continues on the smooth, direct path regardless of the color change.

the black path all the way through until completion. We can use this principle of continuity to act as our sign posts along the road to guide our viewer’s eyes toward our desired message. A very simple illustration of this is displayed in the magazine spread below. The model is glancing toward the top right of the page, guiding the user to the next page with the advertisement headline. Once again, the viewer’s sight is pulled downward to the photo of the product on the chair. If we were to tweak this slightly and have the model’s eyes looking the opposite direction, the natural smooth flow of the design world be broken.

Figure A

Figure B

COMFORT & LUXURY CAN GO TOGETHER.

In the example below, you see two intersecting paths. You will most likely follow either the green or

COMFORT & LUXURY CAN GO TOGETHER.

Let’s see Gestalt principles applied in real world projects. Gestalt principles are great guides to follow as designers. We are going to review several print advertisements, logos, movie posters, and other projects you might see in the wild, so we can study how multiple principles are at work in strong design.

Fenwick Pythons logo You will notice the law of continuation used to guide the viewer’s eyes from the top of the F, down through the rest of the word, to the tip of the leg in the K. You also notice the law of symmetry and order used to balance the left and the right sides with equal weight in the extended tails.

“Fenwick Pythons Logo Design” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Silk Road Cycles logo If you look long enough, you will start to see the letters SR, an abbreviation for the company name “Silk Road”, that also forms the chassis of the bicycle. The Law of Experience allows us to see both the letters, but also discern the shape of a bicycle, because we have seen this same bicycle shape many times in our lifetime. “Silk Road Cycles Logo design” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Happy Logo Design Simplicity is at play here. We read this word as the full word “HAPPY” even though there is a curved line that is substituted for the H. The Law of Experience also indicates that this slightly curved line represents a smile which then makes the word have the intended meaning of happy.

“appy logo design” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Harp Logo Design Closure allows us to see the A shape created from the safety pin. There is no crossbar in the A, but we still are able to see this as the letter A.

“Retro Corporate Logo Goodness_00097” by jordan_lloyd is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Carmel Cloud Logo What seems to be a random, messy accident of shapes ends up representing a cloud. Our brains are marvelous at locating everyday objects in just a pile of goo.

“Caramel Cloud logo” by SoftFacade is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Gestalt principles never age. Here we will encounter a series of advertisements, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s, that proves that classic design and layout never gets old. This is largely because the way our brain organizes and handles information does not change.

Jaguar XK-E Advertisement 1964 This ad represents a time in advertising where subtle messages spoke louder than large headlines. It was an understated approach and was a unique, new way to present products. Figure and Ground is applied here with the dark, black color creating an obvious “background” while the car and white text functions as the “foreground.” This high contrast helps the product (the car) to be the main focus of the ad. The Law Simplicity graces itself with a headline that focuses all of its attention with its small size and clear background.

“1964 Jaguar XK-E Advertisement Newsweek February 10 1964”

“1972 Ford Pinto - Maverick - Mustang Advertisement Hot Rod Magazine May 1972”

Ford Pinto 1972 The Ford Pinto may have been an awful car, but the advertisement does work well to draw your attention through the use of continuation. The striped lines runs through the entire ad, directing the focus first on the headline, then on the cars and finally down to the final ad copy.

Tobacco Ad In this old Russian ad we see the legs of the gentlemen create letters that spell a word.

“Old Advertisement of tobacco” by paukrus is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Bell Telephone Ad 1974 We see the headline use continuation to completely move the viewers eye from one page to the next, with the headline ending with attentional ad copy.

“1974 Bell Telephone System Advertisement Readers Digest October 1974” by SenseiAlan is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Ad 1973 As we reviewed before, we tend to group like items together with the law of similarity. This ad groups like items by color. It pairs the red square of information with the red car and the yellow box of information with the yellow car. Because of color we pair the right car with the right information.

“1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Sedan and Coupe Advertising Road & Track November 1973”

Disney Pixar UP Movie Poster Movie posters really have to grab our attention. This one also uses the law of continuation to move you from the movie title all the way down to the different characters in the movie. This provides the viewer with an experience that entices them to find out more about the movie.

“up-creative-movie-posters” by jdxyw is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.with CC BY 2.0.

Thor Movie Poster Adaptation In this movie poster, which was a creative deviation from the official one, uses the law of symmetry to commit to a balanced, center-focused design with equal weight to the left and right side of the ad.

Book Cover thor movie poster” by theNerdPatrol is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Figure and Ground. Is it two red faces? Or the smoke from the rocket?

“Laszlito, Poética para Cosmonautas (entry for the 50 Watts’ Polish Book Cover Contest)” by 50 Watts is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

type. photos. layout. color. The four main elements of great design.

good design requires multiple disciplines. In the next few sections we will study

missing piece. The puzzle felt incomplete

typography, color and composition in great

even though just one piece out of a thousand

detail. Each of these are like actors in a play;

was missing. You would think 999 would be

they are dependent on each other for the

close enough, but the empty hole left by the

dialog and to complete the scene together.

piece was glaring.

And just as actors gain energy from one

I believe design is the same way. Without

another and support each other, in the same

understanding all the tiny little details we

way these foundational design elements build

can still place our puzzle pieces together,

upon and are a support structure for each

but the likely result will leave you unsatisfied

other.

or unhappy. It may look okay at first, but something is just not quite right.

I recently put together a one thousand piece puzzle of a beautiful landscape. It took me

Typography needs color. Color needs

days to finally get all of the pieces together. I

composition. And composition needs

am not sure if this has ever happened to you,

typography. These are the core values of

but as I was about to complete the puzzle,

strong design and they will form the outline

I discovered there was one piece missing. I

for this guide moving forward.

looked everywhere and never did find the

section two // T Y P O G R A P H Y

The 3D type graphic you see here was created using a 3D Adobe program called Adobe Dimensions. A very approachable and easy to learn program, it is great for graphic designers for creating mock-ups.

When you look at the world around you

But, can you have a design without any

and study communications coming from

written words or language? If graphic design

companies, what do you see? You see forms

is the art of communication, then what is it

of communication like banners, flyers, e-mails,

without typography?

social posts, posters and advertisements. One thing they all have in common is type.

Of all the main elements that build design

Type, typography, text, words, they all

projects, typography is the core factor that

are communicating something with written

helps communicate the message. This is why

language.

I will focus first on the study of typography and introducing the evolution and history of

Can you have a design without the use of

typefaces, basic anatomy, font pairing and its

photos or other visual ads? Yes, it is possible.

practical uses in design. So, let’s get started.

INTRODUCTION

Typography is used to communicate messages. How you use it becomes part of the message.

T Y P OG RAP HY //

Why is typography such a big deal?

T YPOG RA PH Y // H I S T O R Y

A brief history of typography The printing press changed history and was the true beginning of graphic design as we know it today. We no longer had to write everything with pen and ink; we now had a way to use movable metal letters to print ink onto paper so we could replicate the same words over and over again. In the same way the printing press changed the world, in our age the digital computer transformed how we can see and read language.

T YPOG RA PH Y // CLASSIFICATIONS

Typeface Classifications Serif

Sans-Serif

Old Style (Minion) Transitional (Baskerville)

Grotesque (Helvetica)

Script

ABC ABC abc abc abc abc Didone (Didot) Slab Serif (Archer)

Slab-Serif

ABC abc Slab-Serifs are a special type of serif typeface that has thick consistent chunky serifs like the example below.

ABC Museo Slab 1000

Formal - Bickham Script

Square Sans (Eurostile) Geometric (futura)

Calligraphic - lucky turns Blackletter - FF Brokenscript Casual Scripts - BrotherFree

Decorative

Hand Lettering

ABC

abc All Rights Reserved (top) Monoton (bottom)

abc

abc

Amatic SC (above) Homemade Apple Pro (Below) A special subset of script hand lettering takes on a more custom authentic feeling.

T YPOG RA PH Y //

Old Style The first printed typeface was a serif: Oldtype.

//

As printing presses became more widespread, Italian book printers were looking for a typeface that could be very legible for printed books. They were looking for something that could be printed at a much smaller size. This typeface style became known as Old Style Typefaces, also known as Humanist typefaces.

SERIF

HISTORY

The thicker appearance of each letter ensured that the ink could properly adhere to the paper and remain legible. This was out of necessity.

Garamond Minion Calson Goudy Old Style

A page from the original Gutenberg Bible, one of the first books printed using a printing press.

They have these little accents at the end of some of their strokes which enables and enhances reading from a distance. Readers are able to establish the main letterform by getting cues from these little accents.

A

Calson

Serifs

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

Transitional As print quality increased so did the demand for more detailed, stylized typefaces. So along came transitional typefaces. These started to appear in the mid-18th century. They tended to have more contrast between the stroke thickness, giving them a more dramatic appearance. Instead of more harsh, sharper serifs at the end of the strokes, transitional typefaces tended to have more rounded caps called ball terminals. Transitional typefaces were less influenced by handwritten type and therefore had less calligraphic flow.

yy Old Style

Transitional

The contrast between stroke thickness became greater in transitional typefaces.

Notice the transition from sharper, handwritten endings to more rounded softer endings.

E E OO Old Style

Transitional

Old Style fonts were inspired by hand drawn strokes while transitional were more calculated and precise with sharper edges more reminiscent of modern fonts we see today.

Old Style

Transitional

The vertical stress in the bowls tend to be on an axis that is closer to 12 o’ clock rather than tilted like in the old style typefaces.

Other Popular Transitional Typefaces

Baskerville

Bookman Times New Roman Georgia

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdef ghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

Modern or Didone More expressive stylized typefaces were developed. As we move forward in time, typefaces continue to become more dramatic with even greater contrast between the thickness and thinness of their strokes. Modern typefaces are very elegant and delicate because of this quality. They tend to work better as large headlines because they become harder to read when they are book type size.

ff

Ball terminals on Didone typefaces are even more pronounced and round, forming a teardrop shape.

Bodoni

Big Calson

Monotype Abril

High fashion magazines like Vogue use a modern typeface called Didot.

AA Thick down strokes

High Contrast Strokes

They feature heavy down strokes and have a huge contrast between the thickness of their strokes.

Didot A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R ST UVW XY Z abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

Slab Serifs Readable bold headline fonts. As we will study a little bit later, display fonts are fonts intended for larger sized headlines and for displaying urgent messages. One type of display fonts are Slab Serifs. The best example of the first uses of Slabs are 19th century wanted posters from the Wild West. Slabs feature unbracketed, thick, chunky serifs and have very low contrast between the thickness of the strokes. This was a huge deviation from the Didone style from before. Because of their attention-grabbing, bold characteristics they started to be used heavily for print advertising.

Rockwell Arvo Josefin Slab Museo Slab

RW The serifs on slab serifs tend to be more prominent features and are less detailed and intricate.

bold headlines

Rockwell ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

T YPOG RA PH Y //

Sans-Serif

HISTORY

Minimalistic letterforms take over.

// SANS-SERIF

The popularity of the Sans-Serif exploded in the mid-20th century as a desire for a more geometric grid-based letterform took center stage. The advent of digital computers continued to speed up the adoption of Sans-Serifs as a usable typeface for all applications. This is because San-Serifs are easier to read and reproduce on a digital screen than its Serif counterparts. They started to be seen as the new modern typeface choice because it has modular construction using basic shapes like squares, triangles and circles, giving it an orderly appearance. This was appealing to those wanting to emulate popular art and design trends like Art Deco, MidCentury Modern and Minimalism with its clean simple lines. Just like with Serif typefaces, Sans-Serifs went through a period of transformation from its humble beginnings.

Grotesque An ugly start? There was a reason why some of the first Sans-Serif typefaces were put in a group called Grotesque. People had a hard time accepting Sans-Serif typefaces and considered them hideous and hard to look at. The early Grotesque Sans-Serif typefaces were more crude than their modern counterparts and featured imperfect geometric features and strokes. Some designers like to think these imperfect strokes give it a dose of personality unlike the perfect geometric Sans-Serif history will study later.

Roc Grotesk Monotype Grotesque Franklin Gothic

12 34

G

The upper case G’s have something called a spur at the bottom which give it a distinct character.

MM MM

bu Uneven Weight

Grotesque Sans-Serifs had uneven weight distribution. You can see that here in the bowl of this lowercase B. It has a thinner presentation as you move toward the leg of the b, yet thicker as you move away. Some would consider this a negative attribution, while others like to think of it as unique.

Monotype Grotesque A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R ST U V W X Y Z abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

Neo-Grotesque The rise of Helvetica. Neo-Grotesque, sometimes called Transitional Sans-Serifs, are some of the most commonly used San-Serifs today. They started to lose the odd weight distribution characteristics. They started to become standard typefaces used in operating systems like Windows and the Mac OS.

aa No more awkward space distribution

Monotype Grotesk

Helvetica became popular in the mid-20th century. It was heavily used in wayfinding signage. In the example above, it is still used today as the typeface of choice for the New York City subway system.

Helvetica

r rce

Neo-Grotesque typefaces have a smooth appearance with more precise calculated movements.

Monotype Grotesk

Helvetica

They featured very tight apertures giving them a more sleek, simple appearance.

Arial is another hugely popular Neo-Grotesque typeface, perhaps the most widely used.

Helvetica

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

Geometric Just Google it. As with its Serif cousins, Sans-Serif went through a similar transformation as it continued to evolve toward a specific direction. In this case, it kept moving more toward perfection and grids with geometric typefaces. Geometric typefaces adhere to elemental style of design in which basic shapes like triangles and circles become the core shapes of the characters. These tyepfaces came out of the Bauhaus Movement; an early 20th century shift in how we view art and its importance on society. It focused on combining simple forms together that challenged traditional design.

GG Neo-Grotesque

Geometric

In geometric typefaces you can really see the basic element shape of the circle begin to be applied here. The capital G almost fully adheres to a perfect circle shape.

Futura

oe

The Google logo features a geometric typeface. It seems as though a lot of companies that switch from a traditional Serif typeface to a Sans-Serif typeface, to help modernize the brand, pick a geometric typeface.

Avenir

In Avenir, another very popular geometric typeface, you can see almost zero contrast in the stroke width throughout the characters.

LOVE Avenir

This simplicity makes geometric typefaces great choices for logo design.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 123456789?!#$%&+-

Scripts Expressive typography at its finest.

Formal Scripts

Casual Scripts

Inspired by written scripts from historic calligraphers, these typefaces seek to emulate the personality of calligraphy without the use of ink and a pen nib (the sharp metal tip used in formal pin and ink letter writing).

Casual scripts vary more in their stoke thickness and have less traditional letter endings or terminals. They tend to emulate brush strokes as opposed to pen nibs and ink.

Snell Roundhand They feature continuous strokes like you would see in the handwritten versions.

formal

Decorative typefaces Used mostly for ornamental purposes, these typefaces become the design themselves with their unique textures, shapes and curves. Great for headlines but horrible for smaller readable body copy text.

Cheap PINE Battery Park Modak

SignPainter Not really suitable for larger blocks of text, they make for great accents and small short headlines.

casual

The future of typography

Variable Fonts

The history of typefaces is an interesting one. There are constant changes that happen throughout time and we need to expect similar changes to typography in the future. The emergence of handwritten typography was a surprising one, but more are to come. The future of typography is a digital one. With everything shifting to digital and away from analog, new fonts have to be developed that are better suited for many different screen sizes, operating systems and digital displays. Fonts traditionally come with a wide variety of font weight options that give us choices between thinner or thicker presentations.

This makes things a bit difficult for coding websites and mobile apps. Now we are required to have several fonts loaded to display a wider variety of font weights. The way variable fonts function is to contain all of the font weight options in a single file, reducing the overall load time and data required to display the font. Variable fonts have an axis on which you can change the thickness of said axis. This allows the designer to change the thickness quickly and on the fly. This means there are now thousands of different varieties of font weights instead of just the ones that were part of the original font family.

BEFORE Roboto

A A A A A A Thin

AFTER

Light

Thin

Variable font Roboto Flex

Regular

Bold

Black

identify typefaces in the wild. Knowing your typeface history can go a long way in establishing yourself as an educated designer. Every poster, flyer, billboard and sign will now be opportunities to test your typeface knowledge. Which classification is it? Which subcategory does it belong to? Which typeface family is it in? What weight? The game is endless.

T YPOG RA PH Y // D I S P L A Y T Y P E

Display Type Display Type are special typeface sizes (usually over 14pt in size) that are meant to be used for large headlines like the examples below. They are bold and more detailed, have lots of character and are not meant for larger bodies of text. Most often they have lowercase lettering or italic options. They can be Serifs, San-serifs, Scripts or Decorative typefaces. When reduced in size these typefaces have a hard time being read and are not recommended as text type, or type used for bigger blocks of written text.

For example this display font called Poiret One looks great on the graphic below in a large size, but reads horribly when made a smaller text type.

LOVE TRUMPS HATE Font used: Poiret One fonts.google.com/specimen/Poiret+One

Display Type are special typeface sizes (usually over 14pt in size) that are meant to be used for large headlines like the examples below. They are bold and more detailed, have lots of character and are not meant for larger bodies of text. Most often they have lowercase lettering or italic options. They can be Serifs, San-serifs, Scripts or Decorative typefaces. When reduced in size these typefaces have a hard time being read and are not recommend as text type, or type used for bigger blocks of written text.

BIGGER BOLDER HEADLINES Font used: Staatliches fonts.google.com/specimen/Staatliches

THE DISCO Font used: Monoton fonts.google.com/specimen/Monoton

T YPOG RA PH Y // A N A T O M Y

It is common to see these terms used incorrectly or used interchangeably with one another. The most common issue is confusing a font for a typeface and a typeface for a font.

Glyph These are symbols and shapes that represent a given character. There can be many ways to represent a single character using glyphs, as you can see here. These can be more than just letters.

Letterform These are a type of glyph which are the basic shapes that form a letter. These are the basic core strokes that help make a letter distinct from another letter.

Character These are the most simple forms of a language and can be more than just letters but also can be punctuation marks and numbers.

& 6 ib AA A a A ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghIjklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 @ # * < > ( ) $ % & !

Typeface

Helvetica

Is a collection of characters that exist with specific characteristics.

Times New Roman Abril Fatface

Font A specific way to represent a typeface in different formats (roman, italic, bold etc.) Fonts exist as just part of the overall typeface. Fonts are the program that is installed on a computer to represent a given typeface but are not the typeface themselves.

Helvetica Bold Roboto Light Bookman Old Style Italic

Font Family

Helvetica Bold

A collection of fonts for a specific typeface.

Helvetica Regular Helvetica Oblique Helvetica Light

T YPOG RA PH Y // T E R M S

Basic Typography Terms

Anatomy Terms There are hundreds of descriptors for various parts of type characters in typography. These are the ones that are most frequently used in the industry. Never feel like you have to memorize them all, but they will help you to identify certain parts of a character when talking specifics about a typeface. You will notice a similarity with human anatomy terms.

Stem

Closed Counter

Crossbar

Arm

Shoulder

Bowl

Cross Stroke

Leg

g g r a Ear

Counter

(not closed)

Loop

Ball Terminal

n

 

Serif

E+T = &

Tail

Ligature

This is the joining of two letters (commonly fi, ff, fl, fj) to help the letters have more readability. Some typefaces have this while others omit this feature. A lot of modern designers decide to omit ligatures because of style decisions.

The Ampersand is one of the oldest forms of a ligature. It is the formation of the Latin letters “e” and “t” to form the word “et” meaning “and”. As you can see, there are so many different styles to an ampersand.

& & & & & &

Typography Structure Typography structure varies from typeface to typeface, but basic elements are always the same. The baseline refers to the resting place of the bottom of the capital letters. The cap height refers to the height of the average capital letters. Knowing these basic structure guidelines can help you determine the small difference between similar typefaces

Cap Height

Ascender line X-height Baseline

{

Descender line

X-Height

X-Height is the average top height of the lowercase letters in a typeface.

Ascenders

Anything that exists above the X-Height area is called an ascender.

Descender Anything that is below the baseline is considered a descender.

Specimen - Helvetica

“’A good tpyeafce mkaes ahnytnig eeisar to raed’ Type Poster in Helvetica” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

From thickest to thinnest:

Font weights

Ultra (Uber)

Font weights come in so many different flavors. I enjoy using typefaces that have a wide variety of font weight options. This gives me more flexibility when I put together my type hierarchy and typographic systems.

Regular

Fieldwork Fieldwork Fieldwork Fieldwork Fieldwork Fieldwork

Baskerville Baskerville Baskerville Baskerville Baskerville Baskerville

Roboto Slab

Arvo Arvo Arvo Arvo

Roboto Slab Roboto Slab Roboto Slab Roboto Slab

Josefin Slab Josefin Slab Josefin Slab Josefin Slab Josefin Slab Raleway Raleway Raleway Raleway Raleway Raleway

Abril Fatface

Extra Bold Bold

Light Thin Hairline

Playfair Display Playfair Display Playfair Display Playfair Display Playfair Display

Spartan

Open Sans

Lato

Spartan

Open Sans

Lato

Spartan

Open Sans

Lato

Spartan

Open Sans

Lato

Spartan

Open Sans

Lato

Futura Futura Futura Futura Futura Futura

Bree Bree Bree Bree Bree

Quatro Quatro Quatro Quatro Quatro Quatro Quatro

Merriweather Merriweather Merriweather Merriweather Merriweather Merriweather

Pacifico

Book

Linotype Didot Linotype Didot Linotype Didot

Mokoko Mokoko Mokoko Mokoko Mokoko Mokoko Quicksand Quicksand Quicksand Quicksand

Black

AMBOY

Some fonts only come with one font weight and style option. Most of the time they are display or decorative fonts. These can still be used when doing special effects, headlines or something highly customized.

Fun Fact: A Typophile is someone who is obsessed with the details of typography and typefaces.

FONT CHOICE

This is why we study the characteristics of each character in a typeface.

T YPOG RA PH Y //

The fonts you choose can make or break your design.

Small details matter.

typography

g

typography

g

typography

g





   

Even among serif typefaces there can be details that make big differences on a typeface’s perception and style.

typography g 

Among these serif “G” Characters you can see that the typeface Didot has a completely closed counter in its lower loop but Libre Baskerville has an open loop.

The ball terminal at the end of the lowercase A character has more of a teardrop shape in the typeface Abril Fatface but has a more flattened ball terminal in Didot.

The thickness of the stem in the lowercase letter T in the Bodoni 72 typeface is wider compared with that of Abril Fatface. The terminal of the lowercase T character in Didot has a bowl shape while Libre Baskerville has a more sloped appearance.

g ggg aaaa tttt 











Typefaces can have different X-Heights, Ascender and Descender Line points.

Wow Wow



Ascender line X-height Baseline Descender line

Unique Personalities In Alata Regular the peak in the center of the Character W has a sharp edge.

WW 

X-height Baseline Descender line



In contrast Avenir has a very flat peak in the center of the W.

Wow Wow     

Ascender line





Wow Wow      

 

Overlap to see the differences.

Wow

Overlap two serif or two Sanserif typefaces to see that some have more dramatic differences than others.

aa a 

 









There can be game-changing differences in some characters.

For example, in Alata Regular the lowercase A appears as a round closed counter with a strong straight stem on the right side while both Avenir and Sathu both have teardrop closed counters with a shoulder.

i i i  

  



 





Square and round dots are personality quirks. Round is softer and square is more organized. You can start to assign personality traits to typeface characters. When it comes to logo design these little quirks can have a big impact.

kk
 


 





Lowercase K differences seen here.

This is a very popular example of how some characters are treated differently in different typefaces. The K leg joins at a totally different point in the character.

T YPOG RA PH Y // FONT PAIRING

font pairing

T YPOG RA PH Y // F O N T P A I R I N G

1

NOW SERVING

BRUNCH

Sifonn Outline Sifonn

WEEKENDS | 10AM-3PM

Sifonn

BREAKFAS T S PECIALS • K IDDIE GAMES & GOOD MUSIC

4 Yellowtail

Template Adapted from Canva.com | Cafe Alonso

CAFÉ

Alonso

2

Trocchi

Pairing two or more typefaces together in the same design piece can give it a rich character. MARSH CLOTHING CO.

As you can see in this flyer (left) for Cafe Alonso, the typeface Sifonn is used here using multiple font varieties, weights and sizes including an outlined version. You can tell this is the same typeface by studying the structure and characters of the letter R. They match perfectly, with the R presenting a long closed bowl and short legs. This typeface is a sans-serif, without serifs at the end of its character arms, stems or legs. You also see this second typeface being used called Trocchi. Trocchi is a serif typeface and it pairs well with a sans-serif typeface. Serif’s have lots of character and detail, so it complements the lack of detail on the sans-serif typeface, giving the design nice complexity and variety.

character simple

Come to our Spring Super Sale! All items are 60% off! Clearance items are 80% off!

From May 15 - 30 Visit www.reallygreatsite.com for a sneak All branches peek athours: our sale.10Reserve upPM to 2 pieces, to Shop AM - 8 be picked up the following day.

As with anything in design there is a proper balance we have to achieve when pairing different typefaces. If we decided to use 5 or more different fonts in the same space it starts to feel inconsistent and messy.

Serif

Sans-Serif

STUDENT WORK: Carina Rodriguez @nuanced_gd

The key to font pairing is having enough contrast between typefaces.

MYFITNESS.COM

Use simple typefaces paired with detailed typefaces. Henriette

Detailed Typefaces With Simple Typefaces

Raleway

(Regular)

19

Recipes

French

COOKING DESSERTS & PASTRIES

The Sports Package The package with the most savings. Find out more below.

Add to Cart

Use typefaces with thick characters paired with one that has thinner characters.

Chunky Serif Slab Serif Typeface

Abril Fatface Josefin Slab

A thick serif typeface with a regular weight sans-serif also pairs well together.

Chunky Serif 

Abril Fatface

Myriad Variable Concept (Regular)

Bring more carefree moments to your life.

THE BANK INC.

No fees ever. Online Banking | Savings | Investments

FDIC insurance does not cover other financial products and services that banks may offer, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance policies, annuities or securities. The standard insurance amount is $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category. FDIC insurance does not cover other financial products and services that banks may offer, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance policies, annuities or securities.

You can even pair different fonts in the same typeface family.

Banking done right.

Thick Sans-serif Light Sans-serif

Azo Sans Light

Azo Sans Black

Pairing two different typefaces together is like dating. You will find some fit together like a glove while others are disastrous. The best way to find which fonts pair well together is to follow some basic rules, some of which are the same rules we follow in design as a whole like contrast, repetition and balance.

Good Sample Pairings:

Opposites attract.

hello there My date above is pretty fancy with its high contrast strokes. I’m just a simple guy with consistent thickness in my strokes. and no serifs or fancy details.

A

Didot Bold

A

Avenir Book

wonder wonder

Bree Bold Helvetica

Big Calson Lato Regular

POIRET ONE

Gill Sans SemiBold

Arvo Bold Cambay Devanagari

Helvetica Bold Mokoko Regular

Montserrat Bold Bree Bold

Not having enough differences between your choices can make the two compete with each other, making your design lose focus. These are both Didone style typefaces. It is hard to even tell the difference, and that is the problem.

This One Didot Regular

This One Baskerville Poster PT

The differences are really tiny. Like the way the serif is treated in this lowercase N.

OO n n

Cap Height

X-Height

Baseline

Examples of font pairings that have little contrast

Futura Bold Antique Olive

Henriette

Helvetica Regular Roboto Medium

Benton Sans Regular Arial Regular

Alfa Slab One

Good Sample Pairings:

Disorder with Order

Script

My date is carefree and fun. Her characters have big gaps between the cap height and X-Height lines. I am glad I have more average spacing between mine so I can balance her out.

A Al Fresco

A Laca Book

Primont Soleil Semibold

Lust Script Laca Book

ParkSide

Ballinger Bold

Cortado Quatro Book

This is Strange Play by the rules Try to avoid pairing two strong scripts or decorative typefaces together.

Vikor Script Al Fresco

Liza Disaply pro

Lust Script

Cortado

Fave Condensed One Pro

Coquette

Battery Park

Cap Height X-Height Baseline

Cap Height X-Height Baseline

A good example of pairing an expressive typeface with a simple one.

Rules were made to be broken... sometimes.

“Life Quote typography poster - Life is like riding a bicycle - Retro-style quote art print A3” by Wicker Paradise is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

There are instances where having disjointed font pairings can be a creative expression. This could be by using more than four different fonts in one design piece or fonts that vary wildly from one another.

The psychology How does ofatypography typeface make you feel? The best way to find which fonts pair well together is to follow some basic rules, some of which are the same rules we follow in design as a whole like contrast, repetition and balance. This sounds like a question from the therapist’s couch, but it is one you should ask yourself often as a designer.

differences between typefaces that can change our perception of the message. Take for instance this phrase, below.

Different typefaces come loaded with varying perceptions. It is why the phrase below reads so differently when put into two different type choices.

I have a gift waiting for you!

Another Danger

I have a gift waiting for you!

Abril Display

The all-capital tightly packed characters in the typeface called “Another Danger” makes it feel like the gift involves a knife and is not a gift you want to receive. The second typeface choice, “Abril Display” uses lowercase characters and has soft whimsical ball terminals that make this feel like something wonderful awaits. Those two typefaces are dramatic examples to illustrate my point, but there can be smaller

PLEASE HURRY THE OFFER WILL NOT LAST LONG! Fat Frank Heavy

Please hurry the offer will not last long! Laca Book

Both are sans-serif typefaces, but one is better suited for a phrase that needs to communicate a sense of urgency. The Fat Frank spurs action with its chunky sharp angles and its tight presentation, while Laca Book calms with its thinner weight and slightly curly terminals.

The slight curve to the terminal on the h seen here softens the message.

h

The psychology of typography Typography presentation matters just as much as the typeface choice. The best way to find which fonts pair well together is to follow some basic rules, some of which are the same rules we follow in design as a whole like contrast, repetition and balance.

Line breaks, all caps, wide gaps, and tight spacing can all be tools you can use to communicate your desired emotions and feelings with your typography. The ten graphics on the previous page all represent different ways we show emotion with type.

Look at the word shy. It is slightly blurred and lowercase, fading into the background. It is a nofrills sans-serif without a ton of character. It is also small compared to the other elements on the page.

This type presentation uses a very classic Didone or Modern style serif typeface. There is even the formality of a period at the end. It is a thicker, bold weight and does not surprise or shock anyone in any way.

This thicker sans-serif typeface has almost no gap or spacing between sentences or characters. This tight presentation feels anxious and alarming. Something important is being said here.

This one is also a bold sans-serif typeface but what makes this different is how the characters overlap each other in a playful whimsical manner. It suddenly softens the type. It also has rounded corners which continues to support the playful narrative.

Lowercase softens a message but adding wide spacing between lowercase letters can also make it feel tired, slow and lazy.

You might have seen type posters that stretch traditional ways of presenting type. It may be sideways, diagonal, vertical or even letters forming words, but scattered all over a given area.

Nostalgic

Nintendo DS BIOS by David

What is nostalgic can be different for every generation. For me, it’s the pixelated typefaces I saw frequently when I played the original Nintendo. It brings back fuzzy warm feelings as I gaze at its familiar jagged edges.

If typefaces had personalities...

INTENSE happy confident relaxed carefree unsure flirty CALCULATED  serious oddball idealistic daydreamer playful perfectionist stable sassy fancy pleasant youthful ALARMIST rigid sensible Reserved innocent Purposeful Bebas Neue Regular

Aniuk Bold

Azo Sans Uber Regular

Henriette

Fave

DIN Condensed Bold

Al Fresco Bold

Minion Variable Concept

Komrade

Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book

Antique Olive Bold

Baskerville Poster PT

Azo Sans

Amatic SC

Futura

Helvetica

Lust Script

Abril Display

Bree

Fairwater Script Regular

Termina

Mokoko

Retiro Std

Retiro Std

Cubano

Coquette

ANXIOUS Dharma Gothic C

FORMAL REBEL Retiro Std

Gin

Each personality has a purpose in your design. As we studied before, typefaces have unique qualities and flairs that make them one of a kind. Doing a detailed study of the same letter across similar serifs and san-serifs can illustrate this beautifully. Make sure you establish the desired personality or emotion you want to portray in your design while picking your typeface choices. Do you want to be dramatic? Sassy? Playful? Daring? What kind of message are you communicating to the viewer? For example, imagine you are selling a high-end perfume. You decide this perfume needs to be seen as classy and dramatic. When you think of dramatic you think of high contrast between the thickness of the line strokes in the characters. You may also want seek out a display type that has over-exaggerated features.

Lust in a bottle

Typography communicates through size, shape and space. Take for instance this headline for an intense personal fitness program for men. The version on the left uses a typeface that is slightly slanted, giving it a feeling of motion. It looks as if it wants to jump into action, a desired sensation we want to generate with a service that encourages men to move.

the smaller yellow type that rests in the middle of the figure.

The one on the right is all caps, too, but has a more understated sizing compared with the prominence of the photo. Because the photo has a heavy background with consistent dark hues, it directs the focus towards

Which version do you think works best? The answer? It depends. If this is a social media ad, the one on the left will work better to grab our distracted attention. The one on the right has a more dramatic emotion attached to it because of the sizing of the figure and the typography. It might be better suited as a larger poster, perhaps where the viewer can have a few more extra seconds to digest the design.

Rift

Fat Frank

PREPARE YOURSELF

P R E P A R E

Y O U R S E L F

WORLD study your

One of my favorite things to do is check the mail. Why? Because I get to study advertising. I get to see what font, layout and photo choices the designers made when creating professional catalogs, magazines and more.

I might be one of the rare few who look at magazines for the ads. I have done this my entire career and I think it helps to see how others handle communicating messages of all types. I would spend hours at the local bookstore gazing at magazine covers, articles and layouts. We are going to spend the next couple pages looking at magazine articles and ads I found in my home. I have selected several that contain great typography examples that help to solidify the importance of type choice and presentation in bringing out the desired emotion of the viewer.

Oversized Luxury.

Restoration Hardware Catalogue - 2020

These two spreads found in a Restoration Hardware Catalog feature an extra large Modern (Didone) typeface that spans more than half of the page. Notice how the typography presentation is all capital letters. Also notice how the small detailed serifs are on full display when the typography is at this size. It brings the message to the forefront of the layout. The more thin parts of the Didone font strokes conjure up an elegant, luxurious and thoughtful experience.

Typography can bring things into focus. This ad for a Meningitis B vaccine had the goal of encouraging young people to get the vaccine without sounding overbearing. You can see the soccer player’s name is ROBERT. The headline uses a bright yellow underscore in place of the B, which represents the B of the Meningitis B vaccine. Upon further inspection, you realize the young man lost his leg because he did not have the vaccination. For this ad it is all about the position of the type and directing your eye to the right places for maximum impact.

Personality tweaks. This ad fills in the bowls and closed counters of the characters to add a youthful punch to their display. The characters have a haphazard structure which makes it perfect for a kid-focused product. Not all typefaces are perfect for the job in their original characteristics. Sometimes you have to customize display type to give it the right pinch of pizzazz.

The baseline shift. To add a dramatic flair to this display type, used for a Food Network Television show, they shifted a sans-serif typeface off of the baseline in opposite directions. This shift adds a bit of depth to the typeface, complementing the show’s premise of fixing restaurants that seem beyond repair. Notice how the typography adopts the subject matters idea?

Strength in ALL CAPS. Removing germs from your mouth is serious business. This ad promotes a mouthwash that is highly effective at doing just that. The type is all capital letters throughout the entire ad and it feels strong just like the ending phrase in the headline “Finish Strong”. Important, short messages can work well in all capital letters to give a sense of confidence.

Font Pairing to soften the impact. This tourism ad for the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel, Florida, features two typefaces. One uses an outlined stroke and the other uses a casual script typeface. The script softens the impact of the more rigid outlined sans-serif typeface giving it a nice balance. Not all headlines need to use just one typeface. Sometimes font pairing is necessary to communicate headlines that need to be both attention-grabbing but also relaxed.

section three //

COLOR

COLOR //

Unlike written language, color touches everyone instantly with a wide range of feelings, emotions and messages. If typography is the mouth that communicates through sounds and words, then color is the eyes. Along with typography, color adds the next layer of rich context. Color can mean different things to different people. Yellow may bring up memories of your mother’s bright yellow mixing bowl she used when she baked cookies. Blue can remind you of a sad memory, perhaps the blue of a worn scarf from a lost loved one. Culture can shift how we view colors, too. In China for instance red is lucky, prosperous, full of good fortune, while red in some countries can mean bloodshed or violence.

One thing is for certain, color touches us all. Color is a designer’s secret weapon to help us tell our stories. This section will go over several critical Color Theory aspects like the psychology and emotion of color harmonies and how to properly use color in practical projects. Color can make the difference in whether your design is seen as drab, calm, energetic, harmonious, motivational, somber or tired. Finding the right color choices can seem daunting, until you learn a few tricks to help narrow down a million choices into one.

INTRODUCTION

Color has no language barrier.

Red le Pur p

r wa

ge an Or

Color Wheel Basics

m

e Bl u

ol

Ye llo w

co

This is the color wheel. It should not be something entirely unfamiliar to anyone who has taken even the very basic of art classes.

Green

A color wheel tries to make sense of millions of different colors by organizing them in logical way. You will see six main colors represented on the wheel. These are called hues and they consist of just one color and nothing else. So a blue hue is just blue, a red hue only contains the color red. No black, white, or gray added.

JUST RED

You will notice that warm colors are in the right half of this color wheel above and consist of Red, Orange and Yellow, while the cooler colors, Green, Blue and Purple are on the left side of the wheel.

JUST BLUE

HUES

The three primary colors are Red, Blue and Yellow. They are primary because you cannot create them by mixing any two colors together. That leads us to secondary colors, Purple, Orange and Green. You can mix two primary colors to create secondary colors.

Red

e Blu

Pur p

le

ge an Or

ow

Ye ll

Green

P R I M A R Y

C O L O R S

S E C O N D A R Y

C O L O R S

FIGURE A

Red

ge

Pur

ple

an Or

Blu

e

Ye llo w

CREATING SECONDARY FROM PRIMARY COLORS You can see in the figure how you can take any two of the three main primary colors (red, blue and yellow) to create secondary colors. In this case yellow and blue (both primary) come together to create green, and red and blue come together to create purple.

Green We can slowly create more and more colors by mixing both primary and secondary colors together. In figure B we are mixing red (a primary color) and orange (a secondary color), producing a color in-between those, depending on the ink mixtures of red and orange. FIGURE B

Red

Red-Orange

Orange

There are not huge differences when you mix a secondary and a primary color together but they do create a much wider variety of hues.

This allows the full gamut of colors. The mixing of a primary and secondary color is called Tertiary Colors. Our color wheel is becoming more complex and rich with color options. Being able to pick the right combination of colors now becomes a daunting task. Color harmonies ease this task by creating specific methods in picking colors based on where they land on the color wheel.

With enough color mixing you will end up with an endless amount of color options with the only limit being what is out of range for the human eye to see.

COLOR WHEEL INCLUDING TERTIARY COLORS

Hue, color, shade, tint: which one is which? Have you ever heard someone use the term “shade” when talking about the paint color they picked out for their living room? There might be a good chance they are using that term incorrectly. But, there are so many names for different variations of color that you cannot blame them. The main terms you need to focus on are Color, Hue, Tint, Shade and Tone. The term color is the broadest description of the entire color spectrum; any variation of color can use the overarching term color as its description. As you get more narrow in description you get the term Hue. As

we saw earlier, a hue is a single color without any additional inks or colors added. So red would be a pure hue. Hues that have white, black or gray added to it can no longer have a hue as it loses its purity. When we have a blue, for example, and we want to make it a light blue we can add white to blue. When we add white to a pure hue like blue it is called a Tint. The opposite is true with adding black, that is called a Shade. Lastly, adding gray to a pure color hue will make it a Tone of that hue.

COLOR

This term is used to describe any color we see whether it is a hue, shade, tone or tint.

HUE

This is the general color family our color belongs to. You will notice the absence of grays, blacks and whites; this only includes color.

TINT

A tint is the presence of a hue with only white added to it. The more tint or white you add to the hue the lighter it becomes.

SHADE

Shade is just the opposite with the addition of just black to a single hue. This tends to make hues appear darker.

TONE

Tone is the same thing as tints and shades but is a hue with the color gray added to it.

FULL SATURATION

MAIN HUE ADDING WHITE

ADDING BL AC K

TONES

SHADES

A D D I N G G R AY

TINTS

You can see the wide variety of color options that become available once you start to mix neutral colors with a solid color hue.

NO SATURATION

Hue Cube

Most modern software includes a color selection option called a “Hue Cube”. They allow you to see and select color variations that slowly add more gray, white and black to your main hue selection.

HUE SLIDER

ADDING BL AC K

Y A R G G IN D D

In this case we have a pure purple color hue. From the left we are slowly adding more and more white to each color swatch. The right side starts with the main blue hue and slowly adds more and more black to each swatch. We also add more gray to each swatch moving downward, decreasing the saturation of that hue.

ADDING WHITE

A

I created this graph so we can see what different tones, tints and shades might look like for one color hue.

Value

Saturation

You may have heard of the term Value before and it is the measurement of the brightness of a color. So for instance, yellow has a higher value compared to blue. Some people use the word “lightness” interchangeably with the word value. You may also have seen the term Intensity used for value.

HIGH VA LU E

LOW VA LU E

To find out how much value a color has, convert your colors to black and white to find out how dark the gray tones go.

When you add gray to a hue, we call those Tints and Shades, respectively. What do we call the variation we see when this process happens? We call this saturation and it describes the brilliance of a color. If value describes the lightness of the color then saturation describes the strength of a color.

HIGH SATURATION

LOW SATURATION

As we slowly add gray to the pure purple hue in the first square we slowly see the saturation decreasing. The saturation or strength of the hue is becoming less vibrant or dull.

As you can see, blue has one of the darkest values while yellow has one of the lightest. When you strip all of the hue out of a color you are left with something called Grayscale, which only contains black at certain levels.

When we look at photos that have a lot of yellow hues in them we tend to think, “wow, that is bright!” Yellow actually reflects more light, giving it a much higher value. Compare that to cooler colors which reflect less light. It is also a reason why yellow tends to be reserved for call-to-actions or important elements and text while cooler colors tend to work better in larger areas.

In Adobe Photoshop I went to Adjustments then to Hue/Saturation and reduced the saturation by 50 percent. This adds gray to the hues in the photo to give it a more toned down look. You may have heard of the term “toned down” before, which is the act of adding gray to a color which calms the intensity of a hue.

Bold color hues When you use the six main primary and secondary colors as full hues they can give designs a distinctive “Pop Art” look. Andy Warhol made this style famous with his use of vibrant, fully saturated hues. They can make bold statements and draw a viewer’s eyes to your design. Andy Warhol got his start as an illustrator in the advertising world. His attention-grabbing aesthetic was most likely influenced by having to create eye-catching illustrations for products and services.

Judy Garland, Andy Warhol

The power of color mixing smithhouse

smithhouse

smithhouse

smithhouse

Primary and Secondary colors can be very restricting and it is why further color mixing is needed to put together a wider, more versatile color palette. Take for instance the bright color palette using just primary and secondary colors for the logo here (to the left) for a financial institution. It’s great for grabbing your eyes, but horrible for establishing the right mood and tone for the company!

We can take the pure blue hue here (below) and mix it with either gray, black or white to get a full range of complex colors. This bodes well for a softer more professional look needed for the company’s industry. White, black and gray are all neutral colors, so when mixed with a powerful strong hue they achieve a nice balance of color.

smithhouse

When we start to mix simple hues with more complex hues like orange-red, maroon or lilac, along with a neutral, we start to get overwhelmed with the amount of possible color choices for our projects.

smithhouse

The palette featured here is very harmonious because all three colors in the palette are derived from the same primary blue hue.

smithhouse

Color Harmonies How do we start to create and mix colors together to make effective color palettes? There are millions of color choices to make and knowing methods, and finding a starting point, helps in paring our selections down. Color harmonies are an array of different color techniques. There are six main color harmonies commonly used in design. Although there are many others, these six are the most helpful. ANALOGOUS

These colors are close to each other on the color wheel. There is little contrast between the colors, giving them a softer look. One of the most versatile color harmonies outside of monochromatic.

TRIADIC

These colors are evenly spaced out along the color wheel in a triangle pattern. You may have noticed that the three primary colors are triadic colors, as well as the three secondary colors.

COMPLEMENTARY

SPLIT -COMPLEMENTARY

Complementary colors exists on opposite sides of the color wheel. They have the most contrast of any two colors, giving them a dramatic look.

Split-complementary colors takes the high contrast complementary colors and lessens the dramatic contrast by splitting the difference on the opposing side.

TETRADIC

MON OC HROMATIC

A bit harder to use, tetradic forms a rectangle or square around the wheel to form a color palette that has no one dominant color. These are great for creating big pops of color that exist throughout your whole palette.

Monochromatic colors are just variations of one single hue. These variations can be created by adding white, gray or black to the base hue to create a wide variety of different shades and tints. This one is the easiest color harmonies to work with.

Color palette selection example.

ANALOGOUS

Let’s say we need to develop a color palette for a new company. Let’s say we settle on the color blue. PURE HUE

We look toward analogous colors to find nice, closely related pairings to the color blue and we find a deep purple a blue-green color. Using pure hues can make creating designs from those pure hues difficult because they all have the same saturation and strength.

PURE HUE

ADDING WHITE

We can add white, gray or black to any of our analogous colors to gain a wider workable color palette.

We have established some great cooler colors using a analogous color scheme. But, what if we wanted to add a punch of color to our palette? We can take our analogous colors and find corresponding complement colors for each one. This creates a dynamic pop as it has higher contrast. We can even find various shades, tints and tones of our colors to expand our complement color set. This yields a great set of analogous colors but also complement colors in that set. This is a great example of how understanding different color harmonies can give you a huge head start in pairing colors together. It can be one color harmony or a combination of several that helps form your color choices.

ADDING BL AC K

COMPLEMENTARY PURE HUE

PURE HUE

ADDING WHITE

PRIMARY COLORS

SECONDARY COLORS

NEUTRALS

Having such a huge color palette like this when creating design work can be daunting and unnecessary. We need to pare down our palette to select individual colors that have a purpose.

Neutrals are anything that has low saturation. The ones shown here are in a pure grayscale, without any original hue remaining. (Neutrals can still have hues in them, just not very prominent.)

Primary colors are the most used colors in a designer’s toolbelt for any given project. These will take up larger spaces and be featured more often as prominent colors.

I like to include at least one or two neutral colors in any color palette. Without neutrals you only have access to swatches that have obvious hues, giving you less choices when it comes to typography color and other design elements.

Secondary colors are used less frequently and are alternatives if a primary color is too bright, too dark or too light for a given area or if a situation warrants something outside of the original primary color palette.

Make sure to test out your color palette on practical projects. You will discover changes, tweaks and new swatches that need to be added to maximize the harmony between your selected primary and secondary color choices.

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Contrast is king. Having the right amount of contrast between your colors is essential for effective design. The highest contrast available to you is white on black (or black on white). Text is the most legible when it is black on a white background. Our eye establishes the white as the background and the black text as the foreground. It is easily seen and read.

High Contrast

Low Contrast

The low contrast example makes the text look less obvious and more subtle. This make readability an issue, but can also make for great subtle messages when you don’t want your text to be the first thing that stands out. The fast food ad to the left uses complementary colors on the color wheel (red and green). Because they have great distance from each other on the wheel, it gives them a high contrast. It is effective in drawing your eye to the headline. You may also notice purple and cooler tones dominate the background so it does not compete with the red and green headline color. There is high contrast in the headline and low contrast in the background; they work together to bring the most important items to the forefront.

HIGH CONTRAST HEADLINE

LOW CON T R A S T BAC KG ROU N D

In some cases, contrast can increase the effectiveness of an ad, such as a social media ad (see right). The ad on the top will produce more interest and clicks because of the higher contrast colors used for the 10 percent off promotion, the most important part of the ad.

%10 OFF

Organic

Contrast can help sell.

the only all natural lotion.

The ad on the bottom will most likely be glanced over by busy viewers because the green blends in with the green dominated background.

BUY NOW BUY NOW

Color is just one way to add contrast to a button. This could be done by adding a border or being different in some way compared to the nearby type and size of the other objects on the page.

HIGHERR CONTRAST

HIGHERR CONTRAST

BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW

LOWER CONTRAS T

LOWER CONTRAS T

BUY NOW

the only all natural lotion.

BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW HIGHERR CONTRAST

BUY NOW

Higher contrast buttons tend to convert better.

%10 OFF

Organic

BUY NOW

Call-to-action buttons on website landing pages and display ads need to be obvious and quickly found.

LOWER CONTRAS T

BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW

The background and other colors in the layout can make a difference in the contrast of your button. Darker backgrounds will encourage the use of lighter colors, while for lighter backgrounds you will want to use darker colors to stand out.

Designer Warehouse

Designer Warehouse

LOW CONTRAS T

HIGH CONTRAST

Low contrast can be used to reduce tension in your design and soften the look. These two posters feel very different yet they have the same layout, typography and structure.

The color contrast in the version on the left is very low, matching not only with the nearby photo but also looking light against the light tan background. The example on the right feels heavy with it’s dark black typography on top of a light background.

LOW CONTRAS T C O LO R PA L E T T E EXAMPLES

NEUTRAL COLORS

MON OC HROMATIC

Monochromatic color harmonies make excellent lower contrast color palettes. Neutral colors lack saturation, so when put together they have a common, unifying characteristic.

a softer look

lower contrast

WEIGHT Weight is just as important as contrast. You will notice that, even though the black circle is only half the size of the lighter circle, it dominates the space because it has a higher weight. This weight comes from the high contrast it has against the white background.

LIGHT

H E AV Y

This means that high contrast colors can help you decide which object is heavier, therefore gaining the most attention in a design. Let’s change the colors. Now we have a higher contrast white color against the darker beiges. This high contrast suddenly makes the larger circle more dominant and heavier, while the smaller circle is barely noticeable.

H E AV Y

H E AV Y

LIGHT

LIGHT

Finding inspiration in photos. There are millions of fantastic color palettes locked inside photos of people, nature, cultures and the world.

It could be that you source inspiration from a series of related photos for a branding project (example below).

Take your inspiration from photos by sampling various darker and lighter hues in a photograph.

This color palette from a sushi restaurant branding effort was sourced from a series of raw fish photos.

Start with the lightest colors and slowly work down into selecting darker color hues. That way you get a rich, diverse color variety.

The raw fish photo represents the primary item the brand serves, so it makes sense to start sourcing colors from something close to home.

Stone Gray

Raw Tuna

Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Tuna light Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Tuna lighter Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Tuna lightest Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Raw Salmon

Stone lighter Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Stone lightest Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Raw Yellowtail

Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Salmon light Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Stone light Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Salmon lighter Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Salmon lightest Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Yellowtail light Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Yellowtail lighter

Yellowtail lightest

Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

Pantone #142 C RBG: 253, 253, 33 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 Web #52054

F O O D

B U I L D I N G S

N A T U R E

L A N D S C A P E S

P E O P L E

A R T

SAMPLE 6

SAMPLE 5

SAMPLE 4

SAMPLE 3

SAMPLE 2

SAMPLE 1

20X ZOOM

Pixel Perfect Digital photos are made up of thousands of pixels. Each square represents a different hue, shade or tint. Take time to find the right blend of hues by sampling many different points of a color in a photo. You can see that one tiny orange dot on this hand painted work of art stores quite the variety of color shades, tints and tones. It takes time to figure out which one will be the right choice for the desired orange color hue. You will be making the same decisions for the color hues you select to be a part of the overall palette. If you are choosing bright vibrant hues then going for some of the lighter pixels might yield better results.

When picking the final color hues from this photo I made sure to select the brighter and lighter pixels from each color hue selection so the color palette seems united with a similar theme.

the anatomy of strong color palettes

USES A COLOR HARMONY

HAS CONTRAST

This one specifically uses a triadic scheme by seeking out color choices that extend across the color wheel.

You need at least one of your swatches to have contrast against the others or your color palette will not be versatile enough to use in different situations. This one features at least one lighter swatch and one darker swatch.

CONTAINS AT LEAST ONE N E U T R A L S WATC H If your entire palette has high saturation how would you be able to use contrast in your work? Choose at least one swatch to have a little less saturation from the others. This can be a gray, white, cream, tan, or a subtle color.

FLEXIBILITY

example

example

example

example

example

example

example

example

example

example

A solid color palette can have many different workable combinations of swatches. These combinations still maintain readability of the type. They offer the designer different avenues in achieving visual goals.

Alice

&

Bob Are tying the knot!

SAVE THE DATE December 28 Three O’clock in the afternoon Invitation to follow

THERE IS ONE DOMINANT COLOR In this case the pink swatch takes the lead with everything centered around it. It gives this Save the Date card a focus and a chance for other printed items to match its color.

THEY CARRY A THEME Who knew that the watercolor painting hanging in my office could yield such a diverse color palette? Strong palettes have consistent themes that are inspired by real life. It could be a nearby lake, the desert or the sunset. These themes can relate to the industry of your client or company.

THE COLORS WORK TOGETHER TO SET THE RIGHT MOOD Every color evokes an emotion. Effective color palettes function when each swatch works to elicit a desired emotion or feeling. It could be calm and focused, like the two illustrations you see here. We will learn more about how to choose colors based on emotions and feelings in the upcoming section.

psychology of

color

There is power to color in design. Emotions are summoned when we view certain colors. Colors can give you a sense of calm, can move you or spark emotions of happiness and joy. Colors can remind us of something simple from childhood or even make us hungry. How we pick and choose the colors we use in design are greatly influenced by the type of emotions we are interested in evoking. To understand the importance of color in design, I like to visualize popular brands with dramatically different colors. Let’s say the very popular McDonalds® logo switched from red and yellow to brown and pink. Not incredibly appetizing is it? We are not changing the logo, just the colors, yet that color switch can really feel like a big deal!

What about Target®? This big box retailer sells everything under the sun and uses this vivid attentiongrabbing red. What if we change it to blue? Their whole advertising campaign is built on energy and fun, and blue just zaps that energy.

ENERGY POP

ENERGY ZAP

We have assigned colors to certain brands. These colors feel comfortable to us because some of these brands have been a part of our everyday lives for many years. In this section, we will talk about eight different color categories and study how those color choices are used in advertising, branding and art to persuade, entice and to resonate with the audience.

FRIES PLEASE!

NO THANKS!

I created this Psychology of Color Chart. It lists emotions, personality and feelings commonly associated with various colors. disruptive

Common uses:

Social Media Food & Beverage Fast Food Entertainment News Media

adventurous abrasive

outspoken

alarming

fresh

confident

Orange

anger

direct romance

Re d

dramatic love

youthful

warmth

strength

Common uses: Children & Youth Non-profit Cleaning Products

happiness

enthusiasm

bold

power

friendly

Social Media Food & Beverage Teen Brands Education

Common uses:

warm

anxiety

energetic

spontaneous

overwelming

Ye l

lo w

fresh

fertility

envy

vibrance

psychology of

Pink

Youth focused Brands Feminine Brands Beauty Industry

color

maternal passion dignified

comfort

sophistication

Common uses: Healthcare Technology Hospitality Non-profit

cool

rp u P

rebellious

Blue

charming

sincere adaptable

stability

sadness trust

rational

dedicated

Common uses: Banks Technology Healthcare Social Media Industrial Transportation

growth natural

Cy an

le

compassion

romantic

Green

Common uses:

Common uses:

Organic Products Investing Companies

success frugal

organic renewal

peaceful

self-expression

cleanliness

experimental

productive subtle

Cleaning Products & Services

clarity

non-threatening independent

Common uses: Technology Start-ups Social Services Service Industry Bio-Tech

open

RED

BOLD, POWERFUL AND DIRECT

disruptive

Common uses: Social Media Food & Beverage Fast Food Entertainment News Media

going to bring more energy and vibrancy to your design, with reds being especially powerful. This is why warmer colors tend to be harder to use on large areas of designs because of the energy and draw it has, especially REDS. There could be good reason to draw eyes to your design; gaining attention amidst the noise is one thing. Red provokes alertness and is commonly used on buttons and call-to-actions to pull eyes toward that area. You commonly see it used for SALE signs both online and offline.

Reds can easily be overused. For certain projects you can easily use too much and it can drown a design in too much attention. Unless your message is urgent, use reds as directional guides to help the viewer understand important parts of your layout.

bold

power

outspoken confident

direct

strength

alarming

anger

Re d

The warm colors like reds, yellows and oranges are

abrasive

Reds tend to increase your appetite. So, there is a good reason why fast food restaurants tend to favor red in their logos and ads. As you can see here some of the most popular food chains use red as their dominate color.

Reds should be used with an intentionality and a purpose. Reds can also evoke a response of anger and fear as well, so keep that in mind when considering using this attention-grabbing color.

Red covering an entire background grabs your attention but does it keep it? This lone red triangle in a sea of black really makes it the main focal point of the design. Use red when necessary but make sure you use it with purpose.

warm

cool

ORANGE FRIENDLY, WARM AND FRESH

Common uses: Social Media Food & Beverage Teen Brands Education

As we move along the color wheel we run into oranges. Oranges keep some of the enthusiasm and excitement of red, but it also begins to combine the energy of yellow. Since they take a little bit of the edge off of red you can find more ways to use orange in your designs but also keep that same bright energy. Oranges work wonderful with cooler colors like blue. They tend to be complements on the color wheel and orange really stands out as a bright highlight in a sea of cool colors. This balance works well in design because it provides a since of contrast.

Oranges are popular on social media to add a youthful energy to call-toaction buttons and to soften the impact that a strong red would have. You do not see oranges used very frequently on buildings, signs or walls. This is great news for graphic designers who are looking for a small pop of color that has not been overused in everyday life. As we will discover with yellow as well, all warm colors have a higher value to them than cooler colors.

You will see oranges and yellows used frequently in education industries because of their friendly and approachable disposition. You will also notice beverage companies use orange frequently because it can denote freshness. Most likely because we tend to tie fresh citrus flavors with the color orange.

This brightness factor may not be the right choice for a more reserved brand. You have to seriously think about the type of energy, brightness and emotions you want to elicit in the viewer when using this energetic color.

In interior design there is a reason you do not see many pure orange couches. Orange can overtake everything else in the room, bringing undue attention to one piece of furniture. The same concept applies to orange in graphic design. The couch to the right with orange accent pillows works better with the other elements of the room.

YELLOW SPONTANEOUS, YOUTHFUL AND ANXIOUS

Common uses: Children & Youth Non-profit Cleaning Products

Moving further through the warm colors we finally come to yellow. The Energy is undeniable with yellows, but it can also be one of its biggest weaknesses. Along with pinks, yellow is the least used color in design because it can easily be considered overwhelming. It still can be a great complement color alongside other colors that can feed off the brightness of yellow.

In this social media example below we see yellow used in isolation to bring out the 20 percent-off deal. It works because it is the only yellow on the page. The eye is naturally drawn to it. When used in larger areas yellow looses this effectiveness and causes the design to look busy and anxious. Yellow is a color best used in tandem with others.

Yellow can be hard to see and read when printed, so I try to avoid using it with type unless it is very intentional and readable (like the example, below left) using higher contrasted colors.

YELLOW CAN BE HARD TO WORK WITH FOR LARGE AREAS

READABILITY IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE WHEN USING IT WITHOUT ENOUGH CONTRAST.

Yellow has a place in design but wield it carefully and sparingly. This color can evoke happiness and give off youthful vibes and might be why you see it commonly used in children’s products.

YELLOW AS AN ACCENT

ANXIOUS AND BUSY

Yellows can also evoke anxieties as well. It might be why you do not see a lot of yellow used in the healthcare industry. Purple, the complement color to yellow helps to tame its wild nature.

Most brands that use yellow as their dominant color use it alongside a high contrast color like black or purple.

GREEN

SUCCESSFUL, NATURAL, ORGANIC AND MINDFUL Common uses: Cleaning Products & Services Organic Products Investing Companies

We are now firmly in the cooler colors on the color wheel. There is a reason why Green is the color choice of many cleaning industries. Green equals clean and fresh but it also reminds us of nature. It reminds us of fresh spring days when those bright green leaves start blooming on the trees after a long, dark winter.

This landing page for a popular stock trading app targeted toward younger generations uses varying shades of green in their brand assets and marketing campaigns.

Green can also be used heavily by the financial industry to show positive gains on wealth and status. We see the stock market highlighted in green we know it was a good positive day on the market. It is no wonder why banks commonly use green in their branding. Why not remind viewers of those positive increasing stock market days? It’s no wonder that alongside blue, green is one of the most commonly used color palette choices in design. You can see below the wide variety of popular brands that use green in their logo. Whole Foods, an organic focused grocer, uses green prominently to promote their healthy, natural products. Interestingly enough, Starbucks features green as their main brand color even though the biggest product they sell is brown or tan (coffee). It would be a more natural choice to choose brown to match the color of brewed or roasted coffee beans but they decided to maintain a more vibrant color palette of green. It reinforces the feeling of freshness, purity and cleanliness.

https://robinhood.com/us/en/

Fidelity is company in the financial industry. Like a lot in this industry they have stuck with the color green for the last few decades. You might find it hard to find a financial company that uses the color red.

CYAN

(BLUE-GREEN) SELF-EXPRESSIVE, RENEWAL, OPEN AND PEACEFUL

Cyan is a unique color, not as commonly used as some of the others like green and blue but it combines green’s organic clean feeling and blue’s stability to create its own unique blend of the two. You may commonly see startups use cyan as this pleasing complex color spans multiple emotions. Mint is a budgeting app that previously used a more traditional green color. It recently re-branded itself to include more blue in its green colors producing a pleasing blue-green mix.

2 010

2 014

Student Work - Anna Kim @h.anna_designs

2 018

The mixing of green (a secondary color) and blue (a primary color) produce the Tertiary Color of blue-green.

You can see the evolution of the financial budgeting app Mint by Intuit. They started off with a predictable green and in its 2014 refresh it added a touch of blue-green, finally switching entirely away from a pure green hue in 2018.

This color stands out in a sea of green. Not a pure green hue and not a pure blue hue, these in-between colors pair well with neutral colors including golds and tans (see below).

Brown and tan rarely play well with colors, but tertiary colors tend to pair up with neutrals more than other primary or secondary colors.

BLUE

Common uses: Banks Technology Healthcare Social Media Industrial Transportation

STABLE, CALM AND TRUSTWORTHY

The Procter & Gamble Company • v

P&G’s integrated and mutually reinforcing strategies are the foundation for strong, balanced growth and value creation.

Blue is the most commonly used color for brands worldwide, and there are many reasons why because it evokes emotions like stability and calmness. Banks love to use the color blue; especially because banks have been losing trust since the 2008 recession. You also see it used by industrials and those in the manufacturing industry and the health care industry. Blue is a great color to use for large areas of a design like a background. Blue can easily stand on its own with less of a need to depend on other colors to tame it down. Blue’s calm character makes it the most versatile color on the color wheel.

We have a portfolio of daily-use products, many providing health, hygiene and cleaning benefits in categories where performance plays a significant role in brand choice.

We’re operating through

We’re creating and extending

a more focused, agile, accountable organization

brand superiority across product, package,

operating at the speed of the market.

communication, retail execution and value.

PORTFOLIO performance drives brand choice

ORGAN IZ ATION empowered, agile accountable

INTEGR ATE D GROW TH STR ATEGY

SU PE RIORIT Y to win with consumers

CON STRUC TIVE DI S RU PTION

PRODUC TIVIT Y

across our business

investments

to fuel

We’re leading the constructive

We’re driving productivity

disruption of our industry across all areas of the value chain, to win in today’s dynamic world.

improvements in both cost and cash to fund investments and improve profitability.

Page 7 of the 2020 Proctor and Gamble Annual Report us.pg.com/annualreport2020

Some of the biggest and most trusted brands in the world use the color blue. IBM is even referred to as “Big Blue”.

Did you know that the color blue was voted the most popular color for both men and women globally? We typically think of blue as being the ocean or the sky, but those two things often conjure up feelings of freedom and peace. In some cultures, though, blue can indicate mourning of a loved one. In Western culture one can sometimes be referred to as “having the blues” or “singing the blues” when one is depressed and feeling down. “Why do you feel so blue?”

Blues can be huge assets in your color arsenal because of their versatility and ease in working with other colors on the color wheel.

Some of the most popular superheros wear outfits with blue as their dominate color as they are dedicated and independent.

PURPLE

COMFORT, SOPHISTICATION AND PASSION Common uses:

Next, we move into Purple. Purple mixes a bit of the stability and calmness of blue with the compassion and vibrancy of pink. It starts to take on a bit of warm tones, giving it a little kick.

Healthcare Technology Hospitality Non-profit

Purple is commonly associated with royalty and sophistication. It’s also commonly used in the hospitality industry for that very reason.

We also see it used by healthcare as well, as that sense of love and passion mixes with the stability of trust of blue. Purple is another color that can easily be used in larger areas of a design, yet add a little more of the energy from those warmer tones. Purple is rich, silky and luxurious and when used right in a design it can feel wonderful. Purples are having a renaissance in the design world with a huge resurgence of use in youthful vibrant brands. You see purple used as duotones or gradients and as overlays over photos, giving photos a richer retro vibe. Purple and vibrant yellows are compliments on the color wheel, and you can see that combination of energy happening anytime you see these two colors together. Purple can take up more space in your design as those yellows should always play a highlighting roll, being used less often to highlight certain areas of a design.

Canva.com | Purple and Blue Annual Company Report Professional Presentation

PINK

DRAMATIC, COMPASSIONATE AND ROMANTIC Common uses: Youth focused Brands Feminine Brands Beauty Industry

Pinks are a bit tough to use because of their strong historic association with femininity, as a lot of brands who target women use pink. But do not count them out too soon as that stereotype is slowly evolving. Pinks can remind us of romance and love. If reds and purples are passionate, then pinks are compassionate; a friendlier emotion that is perfect for youth focused brands that want to have an authentic personal feeling. Pinks are similar to yellows in that they can be hard to use in large areas of a design. Lighter versions of pink tend to do better with this that those hot pinks, which have that same problem yellow has of being too strong.

Canva.com | Instagram Story Template | Pink Gym Fitness

POWERFUL

GENTLE

The shade of pink can make a big difference in the strength of the emotion it brings. Light pink is gentle, yet hot pink is dramatic.

Pink is a fantastic gender-bending color. Its charming characteristics can be used to bring a sense of fun, kindness and love.

Pinks work best in tandem with a calming counter color. Take for instance this example, where the pink draws your eye, but the color calms it down just enough to take it in. This is why you might commonly see pinks used with purples and other analogous colors on the color wheel in the form of gradients or photo filters.

Pink is the color used least often by companies for their main primary color. Lyft, a car riding service, is an example of a youthful brand that uses pink. Pink comes loaded with tons of social stereotypes but, as mentioned before, when used carefully and with intentionality it could add a lot to your design.

NEUTRALS P R O V I D E

B A L A N C E

What about everything outside the realm of the the higher saturation primary and secondary colors? When we combine more than two colors together we can get a wide range of browns, tans, beiges, grays, golds, silvers and blacks. Black and White can seem clean and professional with a serious undertone. Both white and black can be used to tame higher saturated colorful hues. They act to balance out saturation with desaturated colors.

Browns, tans, golds and beiges can be used in textures and background colors.

Canva.com | Instagram Post Template

Black and white can be cinematic and introspective.

Canva Template | Maroon and Blue Corporate people Walking Business Book Cover

Canva.com | Instagram Post Template

I took these photos upon a recent visit to a local Jeni’s Ice Cream (my husband and baby are making cameos). You will notice the matching orange chairs and pops of color. The hand painted mural can be seen almost a mile away.

A case study in the friendly power of orange. Jeni’s is an ice cream brand that has wonderfully embraced a highly saturated deep orange as their main primary brand color. Orange is rarely used by brands, but I think it really makes Jeni’s stand out. As an organic ice cream brand that focuses on premium homemade ice cream it needs to have a congenial, warm quality. They have integrated it in website graphics, their main signage at their restaurant and in painted murals on their walls.

jenis.com

When viewing this orange in person you are welcomed and greeted with a friendly vivid color.

A series of colors This example for a mock soda brand I created for one of my courses contains not just one highly saturated hue but four. Color can go a long way in helping differentiate product types or flavors and scents.

Complement colors The orange and blue complement colors bring in both warm and cool colors in close proximity, creating a pleasant tension in the design. The black neutral color calms down the tension making it less jarring and more digestible.

“1967 Point Blank Movie with Lee Marvin Advertisement Playboy November 1967” by SenseiAlan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Angry Red The aggressive properties of red really come out in this “Point Blank” movie poster from 1967. This deeply saturated red matches the color of blood which helps to echo the murderous plot of the movie.

The natural look of brown and tans. Not all advertising needs to scream with loud bold colors. This ad from Oscar Mayer advertises its natural brand of sliced deli meat. The tans and hand sketched background graphics both work together to make this product look safe, organic and “homemade”.

Vibrant Culture Do you notice that the same colors of the yellow and green come from the woman’s clothing? The little girl’s orange dress is the inspiration for the pop of color on the top and bottom ripped paper texture. This is a great example of borrowing color ideas from the photos you use.

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Luxury in cool colors. Cooler colors like purples, blues and greens do well with luxury brands. This life coaching brand gets a professional reserved feeling with its complementary gold and blue color palette.

Design for the color blind. Accessibility matters when creating your work. This section will review how color vision deficiency works and ways to be able to create design for everyone. Up to five percent of the world has some form of color vision deficiency. That is a good chunk of the population and it affects more men than women, although women can still be affected. Having color vision deficiency can reduce your ability to see different colors on the color spectrum. This is from a genetic mutation with your eye’s cone cells. We have three main cone cells: one that detects lower light wave frequencies, one for medium, and one for higher wavelength frequencies on the visual spectrum. People with these mutations have shifts in position of one of these three different eye cones, impairing the ability to see the colors in that particular frequency.

Red-green color blindness is the most common form. They will often have issues with distinguishing the difference between red and green options. For instance, a granny smith apple and a red delicious apple could appear closer in color than someone with “normal” vision would perceive them.

Absorption

There are many different forms of colorblindness depending on which of the three main cone cells are affected, shifted and, in some cases, cones can be missing entirely.

BLUE

GREEN

RED

Have you ever looked at a traffic light? Have you ever wondered why the green never really looks green? It is in fact not a pure green hue and is mixed with blue to help those with color vision deficiency see difference between the red and green lights easier.

Any shifts in the three main cone cells we have can tweak our ability to properly see the entire visible spectrum.

Wavelength

MOST COMMON FORMS

D E U T E R A N O M A LY RED-GREEN

Difficulty in establishing the differences between red and green hues.

“Simulation of Different Color Deficiencies, Color Blindness” by entirelysubjective is licensed under CC BY 2.0

TRITANOPIA BLUE-YELLOW

Rules for thinking about color vision deficiency:

1

Have difficulty distinguishing between bluish and greenish hues, as well as yellowish and reddish hues.

Never have important call-to-actions, buttons or text dependent on just color to be noticed or set apart.

You can put a special border around important buttons on websites, or use size as a way to define important headlines or type. You can also use icons and symbols to help set certain items apart from others.

RED AND GREEN COLORS CAN APPEAR S I M I L A R TO S O M E O N E W I T H D E U T E R A N O M A LY

CLICK HERE

HIGH CONTRAST BET WEEN COLORS

CLICK HERE

2

Use highly contrasting colors.

Subtle hue changes may not be as noticeable with someone with color vision deficiency. Higher contrasting colors gives your design a better chance to display your layout hierarchy.

3

Limit or modify tough color combinations.

There are certain color combinations when placed side by side can be harder for someone with color vision deficiency to set apart. The higher contrast rule can help you better use these color combos when you do need to use them. Also you can add small amounts of other hues to your pure colors to help further distinguish the colors form each other.

This factors for all variants and shifts in cone cell sensitivities. Not every person with identified color blindness will have issues with each one of these color combinations, just some more than others.

GREEN & RED

BLUE & GREY

GREEN & BROWN

GREEN & GREY

BLUE & PURPLE

GREEN & BLACK

GREEN & BLUE LIGHT GREEN & YELLOW.

ORIGINAL

4

Use a color blindness simulator to try out your design.

Walking in someone else’s shoes can give you great perspective. This vivid orange and purple t-shirt design looks fantastic to those with a normal range of vision. I can use a color blindness simulator to upload my photo and see how my design would look through the eyes of someone with various different color vision limitations. Depending on which color vision limitation they have they could interpret my bright vivid orange as pink or my purple as more grayish tone.

www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator

All light mixed together at full brightness produces white light

Color Spaces Creating consistency with color everywhere.

RGB

ADDITIVE COLOR

Our designs can appear anywhere. Mobile screens, laptops, printed newspaper, glossy business cards or metal signs. The challenge with this is our chosen color palettes may look different in all of those different places. This section will review the different ways to represent color in both the digital and print space. Knowing how each color mode works will help you to understand how best to tweak color to make it consistent across all channels.

This is called an additive color system because you add colors together to form other color combinations. For example, if a screen wanted to produce a pixel that is white, it would have all three of its phosphors (lights) on red, green and blue at full brightness. If it wanted to remain black it would have no light emission and all three light phosphors switched to off. For gray it can have all three lights on but only at half brightness. REPRESENTS ONE PIXEL ON YOUR SCREEN

RGB (ADDITIVE COLOR SYSTEM) RED LIGHT (phosphor)

Used commonly for digital design projects such as social media, website images, mobile apps etc. If you are seeing this on a digital device in the form of a pdf your computer is determining the color of the document by reading the RGB numbers and adjusting the light on your computer screen to put together those colors.

Computer screens consist of thousands of tiny lights that can show blue, green or red light in any given space. It can adjust the brightness of each pixel along with mixing the one of three color light options to give you a very huge array of color.

GREEN LIGHT (phosphor)

BLUE LIGHT (phosphor)

Red, Green and Blue at full brightness produces a white pixel

Red, Green and Blue lights turned off produces a black pixel

Red, Green and Blue lights at 50 percent brightness produces a gray pixel

For pure red, it would just have its red phosphors on full brightness and so on. To produce the color yellow it would turn both of its red and green phosphors on. It can also use brightness as a way to dull one or two of the main phosphors to create more secondary and even tertiary colors emulating various shades, tints and tones.

Less bright red and green lights produce what appears to be the color brown

Zooming in on this digital image in Adobe Photoshop at 8,000% reveals that this image is made up of thousands of tiny pixels, each representing just one color. Combined together they can form complex photos, shapes and colors.

Interestingly enough, brown light does not exist. When you look at the visible color spectrum (a rainbow) you cannot see brown light. To create browns in the RGB space you actually use a combination of red and green and various brightness to create brown.

HEX (USED FOR WEB DESIGN)

RGB is used in all digital devices that use light to produce color. It does a great job of representing the total visible colors to the human eye, but it cannot show all visible colors.

Hex codes are standard when creating stylesheets for web and mobile applications. Being able to produce these Hex codes for developers and for online use is vital in making sure your color can be displayed consistently online.

The colored triangle area are colors visible in the sRGB space. The gray areas represent what the human eye can see.

COLOR GAMUT

Hex codes consist of 6 alphanumeric characters that produce a wide range of colors using a browser. There are three sets of numbers in a hex code. The first two digits represent the color Red, the second, Green and the third Blue. The combination of these colors is the Hex code, producing a final mixed color. The scale moves from 0 (the darkest) to F (lightest) so a hex code number of #000000 would be black and #FFFFFF would be pure white.

#4198C7

#4198C7 RED GREEN BLUE

All modern design software gives you a chance to select a RGB color and see its comparable Hex code number.

WEB SAFE COLORS Web Safe Colors are 216 Hex code colors that can be shown consistently across most 8-bit devices. Improvements in screen displays have made web safe colors a bit less useful as screen limitations are pushed higher. Web safe colors do have more consistency across multiple screen types, so it can be helpful in finding more consistent color matches across screens.

Image Source: htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart

sRGB and Adobe RGB are popular color spaces you can use in modern design software. sRGB covers only 35.9% of the total visible gamut while Adobe RGB is slightly better at 52.1%. As screen technology gets better, we are able to push those numbers higher and higher giving us wider color gamuts. There is a consistency problem with RGB as your design will be shown on possibly hundreds of different screens, monitors and phones. The color of red may look different on my husband’s old Dell laptop compared to the latest iPhone. Constantly test your design on multiple screens and sources to help tweak some of the bigger discrepancies. Fortunately, as technology improves we will see less and less difference between screen color representation.

#FFFFFF

} } }

A color gamut is the breadth and reach of how many colors can be represented on any given device. If a color is outside of the gamut of that device it will be shown as the nearest available color in that gamut. This is why having a high quality screen and device with a wide color gamut can improve the range of colors that can be represented on your screen.

#00000

CYMK (SUBTRACTIVE COLOR SYSTEM) Used for professional print projects.

We covered digital devices but what about printed items? Most professional printers print using four main ink colors represented by CMYK or (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and K for Black). The K stands for Key and black ink is used to add a more rich darkness to the other three inks. Without using a pure black ink you could get brown muddy colors trying to produce black by mixing all of the remaining three colors. Four metal plates are created in the printing process for any design. The first plate will include only the areas that will print with cyan, the second plate yellow, the third plate magenta and lastly a plate that will include black ink to help to saturate or darken the other areas. When seen separately these colors seem really restrictive and limited. But when printed over top of each other the colors work together to create lots of colors in between.

A metal printing plate (CYAN) www.printrunner.com/blog/what-are-printing-plates

A GCR four-color separation of File:Barns grand tetons.jpg, assuming SWOP uncoated inks at 25% dot gain, with maximum black, created in Adobe Photoshop by Jacob Rus, 2008-09-02.

All inks placed on a white paper absorbs light to show up as black

All light mixed together at full brightness produces white light

RGB

CYMK

ADDITIVE COLOR

SUBTRACTIVE COLOR

RGB is an additive color system, meaning we add colors together with light. It starts off with a darkened black pixel and has light and color added to it. Light forms colors differently than inks do. With reflected light a pure white piece of paper reflects the most light and black absorbs the most light. CMYK is a subtractive color system in that adding all of the colors together produces black and in RGB or additive color mode we add all of the colors and brightness to form a pure white. Because the RGB color mode uses light and the additive color system, it can produce the most colors in the visible spectrum. CYMK only consists of inks and the reflective quality of light. CMYK has a much more limited color range and this is a big problem in design.

0.9

520

RGB

CMYK

540

0.7

560

0.6

CYMK Color Gamut

MANUAL COLOR CORRECTION

Adobe RGB 1998

To help with this, you can manually select the closest matching colors to try to maintain the vibrancy. You will not be able to match it to RGB perfectly but you can get a little bit closer than what the automatic RGB to CYMK conversion algorithm can get at times.

500 0.5

580 600

0.4

620

0.3 0.2 0.1

For example, I have a bright logo here that looks great on my computer screen. It contains vivid, highly saturated colors. When I convert this to the CMYK color mode for printing on a poster, I am dismayed on how the colors become more dull. This is very common and it is a natural struggle we face everyday.

Unprintable Colors

0.8

y

As designers we need to be able to produce the same design for both the print and the digital spaces. That means we need to use CMYK and RGB on the same design and somehow make it look as close as possible.

480

460 0.0 0.00 .1

0.20

.3

0.40 x

.5

0.60

.7

0.8

One thing we can do is switch into the CMYK color space to see how our colors convert from RGB to CMYK. This will give us an idea of how it might change in appearance when we get our item printed compared to how it looks as a social media post. There is one way to increase the possible colors displayed using printed ink and that is by using what are called Pantone colors.

PANTONE COLOR:

Pantones are special color inks that have special formulas that show the color the same way each time it is printed. So Classic Blue and Living Coral will look the same each time. In the printing process we use the four metal ink plates to overlay each color together. When you use a Pantone color a new metal plate is created for where that particular color we be used. With each new Pantone color that is used a new metal ink plate is created. This also makes Pantone colors a bit expensive to use as it costs additional money to add each new ink plate. Some companies may save on costs by producing a large annual report using only one or two of their branded colors using Pantone inks. With only two ink plates needed for the entire project it saves money. Pantone colors are not just one solid color either. You can take this classic blue color and reduce the percentage of ink coverage to produce many different shades of that color.

100 percent ink coverage

80 percent ink coverage

60 percent ink coverage

40 percent ink coverage

20 percent ink coverage

You can even order a Pantone swatch book to reference different colors and see how it might look printed. These are helpful when working with larger companies who frequently use Pantone inks. Pantone has tons of different color options and some include metallic colors and swatches that can add a visible shine to your printed inks.

You can purchase Pantone color books in different types depending on the type of paper coating you are going to print with. Some are “coated” Pantone colors which are for papers that are glossy, semi-gloss, or matte finishes. There is also “uncoated” which is less common and is paper that is more porous and absorbs more of the ink, therefore the need for slightly tweaked colors for uncoated paper. Types of uncoated paper include art books and natural recycled papers.

section four //

PHOTOS

4

4

“

Photography is the story I fail to put into words.” D E S T I N S PA R KS

A design needs a strong narrative. Some of our favorite books from childhood invest more space in photos rather than text. If you’ve ever heard the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words”, then you know exactly where I am headed. Photography and illustrations have the power to simplify complex messages. And if you are involved in the marketing process, simple messages are more effective than complex ones. Take for instance this vintage ad for life insurance (right). It features a young boy saddened because he has to leave his home because his widowed mother can no longer afford it. It tugs at your heart strings doesn’t it? Would this ad be as effective without the fitting narrative illustration? Most modern visuals, advertisements and social media posts have mere seconds to grab your attention. Photos and illustrations are proven scroll stoppers. In the mid 2000’s, Apple came out with a revolutionary

ad campaign that features silhouettes of dancing people holding their signature iPod product in their hand. These ads were unique because they displayed just the Apple logo and usually a very short headline. The photo communicated the product and what the product was intended to do: to help you enjoy music. Combined with its bright color palette, this made for a very effective and versatile ad campaign without the use of wordy product descriptions.

"Star Wars posters by Olly Moss" by ShedBOy^ is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Framing helps to tell the story. Framing is the isolation of a subject in a photo through the use of a shape. This allows the main subject of the photo to become the main focal point, but it also helps to tell a deeper story. A great example of framing is this simple landscape photo to the right. Instead of using a simple unobstructed landscape photo, this photographer chose a window as a frame for the landscape. This gives the photo a more intimate perspective of what the photographer is thinking or feeling, and it lends itself to a more rich and intriguing story. In the illustration at the top of the page, we see a different interpretation of the original Star Wars movie posters. The designer used framing to turn an ordinary illustration into two storytelling opportunities. The frame, or silhouette, is the character who plays the biggest role in that film, while there is a second story being played out in the illustration inside the frame.

Cropping for emotion. Your photo choices, as well as how you crop your photos, can shift the emotional impact of your design dramatically. The wide shot of this baby holding a yellow blanket is calm and relaxing. The viewer might focus more on what the baby is doing with their hands and perhaps what they are holding. A tighter cropping, with a focus more on the face, helps the viewer focus more on the emotional side of the photo. The cropping on the upper left might be great for a product based photo, while the one of the right will work better if you are looking to make an emotional connection. In the second example to the right, the top photo includes some foreground weights as well as some background elements behind the subject. This type of cropping allows us to get more involved in the subjects environment. The photo underneath has a more tight cropping and allows us to focus more on the man and his thoughts rather than the environment. This one feels more contemplative and introspective.

This billboard makes a great effort to show the emotional excitement of a win. It might have a totally different feel to it if it was a zoomed out wide shot of the entire team on the field. Notice the upward gazing position of the eyes and the close proximity of the type. The headline and the type are able to play off of one another with little detraction.

“If your pictures are not good enough you are not close enough.” RO B E R T C A PA

“Lionel Messi Poster for Copa America - Buenos Aires - Argentina” by Adam Jones, Ph.D. - Global Photo Archive is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The eyes are windows to the soul. Both photos above feature a happy, smiling woman. Humans have a wonderful quality called empathy which allows us to share and understand the emotions of others. When looking at the photo to the left, we have what feels like an instant connection with this woman. It might be because her eyes are looking directly at us, almost with the expectation that we should respond to her gleeful gaze. The photo on the right has the woman still smiling but looking away with her eyes closed. This still allows us to share in her happinesses but more in the role of observer. There is not really a sense of response here and in some ways the emotional connection will be tempered.

“

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” ANSEL ADAMS

Photos + typography as one. Typography and photography can interplay nicely to help bring short messages to life. This can allow us to free our photos and allow them to exist outside of a boxed or framed area. Readability is a big issue with this method and that is why this works well with concise, simple phrases.

Photos can give context. What do you read when you first glance at this poster’s headline? Most likely it is the word DANCE. There is no set order to how the letters D-A-N-C-E are spaced and there is no clear baseline in which the bottom of the letters rest. Even though the A seems out of order, we still read this quickly as the word “dance” most likely because the subject matter is acting out the words, helping us to determine a clear outcome. The diagonal shape that separates the dancer between foreground and background also allows the design to adapt a greater sense of movement.

3

2 1

Using multiple photos in narratives. In the magazine layout above there are three total photos being used, each with a specific purpose. The larger photo acts as the main attraction using a tight shot and direct eye contact. The key to using multiple photos is not to use photos with very similar presentations. If I were to use a second photo with similar cropping and direct eye contact it would take away from the leading photo, making it less unique. Instead, with the second and third photos, we achieve focus on the products without using faces. This balances out the photo usage and allows us to tell the narrative with photos from different angles and perspectives.

Like the example above, these three photos chosen for a sushi restaurant ad all have a different purpose. Photo number one is the emotional draw while photo two focuses on the activity of eating sushi and photo three gives a hint at the environment of the sushi restaurant. One for the product, one for the activity and one for the place.

1

2

3

“

Your photo choice can make your design go from good to great...

...It can also make it go from worse to misunderstood.”

L I N D S AY M A R S H

section five //

COMPOSITION

Composition gives the designer complete control over the design. Layout is the combination of photos, typography and color to produce a guided view of your design. It allows you to be in the driver’s seat. What if your design is an experience you curate for your viewer? What if you could sit down next to them and point to what is most important first and make sure they understand all the information presented? Layout gives us this ability and opportunity to craft experiences for the viewer that are effective at pushing our main goals for the design. Is it to sell a new car? Promote cleaning services? Raise awareness of a charity? Inspire a great reading experience for a novel? There are so many ways

the layout of a design is essential in creating the right experience. One of the main issues about layout is there are so many viable options for the same design. I hope this section will provide you with tools and methods to help you discover the right layout for your projects. We will discover the power of using grids in design and take a look at lots of great examples of solid layouts. We are going to first review some basic layout terms as well as layout best practices like hierarchy alignment and balance. Once you master typography, color and layout, you have all of the necessary knowledge to become a great designer. So, lets get started!

Basic layout terms General Layout Terms

Leading

Headline goes here.

The spacing between lines of type.

Sub head goes here.

Pull-quote

Drop Cap

Quotes can break up large blocks of text.”

Body Text

Ragged Lines Uneven lines of a right of left margin of a block of type.

36

Folio Orphan A line of text with just one word. Try to avoid orphans when possible.

Whitespace and Margin

The page number identifier. These can also include dates, section title or webpage.

Ample whitespace in your margins can look clean and professional.

Call to Action They encourage the viewer to take some sort of action. It can be a click now button on a paid digital ad or a line of text that encourage them to purchase tickets on a website.

Buy Now

Margins

Objects in the Margins

Margins border the entire layout. This ensures that you keep vital text and objects within the acceptable viewing space.

Remember, feel free to extend unimportant items off into the margins like parts of photos and non-text design elements. This will help the piece feel less boxy and feel more alive.

Go vertical Going vertical with some text can add contrast with other horizontal elements. You can use the grid as a guide for placement.

Hero Image (focal point) Supporting image

Layouts work better if one element stands out as the main focal point.

This image supports the main focal point photo. It is not as large and complements the theme.

Columns Columns run vertically downward from the top of the margin to the bottom. Very helpful in magazine and editorial layouts to find placements for paragraphs, headlines and text. This one uses a 4 column layout.

Overlapping Elements Another way to break up a boxy layout is to overlap elements using the grid, like this quote box overlapping the yellow photo.

BLOCKING Blocking is the planning and organization of a design before the graphics are applied.

HEADLINE

Every design needs a good plan. The art of blocking helps one to establish the final content needed for a design. It also assists in solidifying the main mission or goal for the design. Once both are set, you can start to block out a basic structure. Content or design elements can be represented with white or gray boxes, circles and shapes. These rough outlines give you the blueprint you need to manage the required content of a design. This way you can design layouts with purpose.

PHOTO #1

PHOTO #2

Let’s say you are required to use three photos in a given design for a full-page advertisement. You are also given some text, like a short headline and some body copy, that you need to work into the design. There are several different layout combinations that can work.

PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT This layout might be the winner for us if we wanted to focus more on one photo over others and include a quick call-to-action and information at the bottom.

Ask yourself, “What is the main goal of the design? How is my layout supporting this goal?”

HEADLINE

PHOTO #1

PHOTO #2 HEADLINE

PHOTO #1

PHOTO #1 PHOTO #2

PHOTO #1

HEADLINE HEADLINE

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3 PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT

PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3

HEADLINE

BODY TEXT

HEADLINE

BODY TEXT PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3 PHOTO #1

Collage style. Great for emotional impact.

A non-predictable layout, good for grabbing attention.

PHOTO #1

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #1

Headline first, photos at the bottom. Suited for events.

BODY TEXT

HEADLINE

Magazine style experience. A focus on readability.

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #1

Equal emphases on body text and photos.

PHOTO #3

No focal point. Providing information.

A focus on photos, less on information.

HEADLINE

PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT

A headline-driven narrative. Pairs well with great copy writing.

HEADLINE

COLOR festival

PHOTO #1

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3 JUNE 12TH 2022 FOOD TRUCKS

|

COLOR RUN

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KIDS ACTIVITIES

A rough plan is better than no plan. The act of blocking your design works wonders in reducing the time it takes to produce a finished layout. Imagine working through all of those various layouts on the previous page with the final graphics.

TICKETS $20

BODY TEXT

C O LO R F E S T 2 0 21. C O M

COLOR festival JUNE 12TH 2022 FOOD TRUCKS COLOR RUN KIDS ACTIVITIES VENDORS FAC E PA I N T I N G HOT AIR BALLOONS AND MORE

$20 LO

M

T GE

UR TICK

TS

C

O

O

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Y

R F E S T. C

O

The content decides the layout. What if we needed to list more than just a few activities for the event? Perhaps our layout might change to make sure the list of activities has the room to breathe and list all the proper items. In this case, we switched the layout so the main goal was to focus more on the list of activities. Our original photo may not work in a vertical space as well as it did in the first layout, so sometimes finding the right photo and cropping is key.

VISUAL HIERARCHY

You will read this message first. And this one next As you can see something called type hierarchy is in action here. Bigger, more bold typography, photos and design elements are seen first and increasingly smaller, less important ones are seen second, third, fourth, etc. Without proper type hierarchy, all text competes with each other, giving a design a complicated hard to digest feeling.

Without a system Nothing stands out as special. A lot of type elements are the same size. My brain is having a hard time finding out where to start processing the information.

With a system On this sample menu categories are at least twice the size of the food listings. Also, the words at the top are larger, indicating that it is an important block of text to read first. There is a system, therefore there is order.

Before

After

This template I found for a surf shop graphic at first glance looks chaotic. The name of the surf shop is hard to locate. The headline is scattered among three content areas with three different photos. The website, which would normally be very important, is small and out of the way.

I made some tweaks to this template to assure the headline became a bigger visual priority in the hierarchy. The size did not change, but because they are placed closer to each other the headline becomes one larger element and has a bigger weight. I chose a new photo, one that features a face, in order to increase the connection with the viewer and to maintain the photo’s dominance by making it much larger. Less important items are reduced and items are grouped together based on relevance. This does not mean you cannot use multiple photos that are the same size in a design or that you cannot break a headline into smaller parts. There are plenty of situations where they could be the best layout choice. But this exercise simply demonstrates that without using size, color and weight to differentiate your elements they becomes less effective.

Size = Importance The large “AM” on the top of the left page in the example (left), is dominant in this editorial spread. It is large compared to any other element on the page. Secondary to this is the smaller Arctic Monkeys headline. Smaller still, the detailed information at the bottom. Notice the gradual step down of type sizes.

Visual Hierarchy with a Purpose

In this recipe book I created I made sure to have ample sub headings for both the ingredients and the preparation lists. I can easily identify the headline in each column because there is contrast in size, color and font choices between the headline and the body text below. There is also a much larger main headline text that helps to sort through the recipes, making it easier to find when flipping through the book.

FOCAL POINT

Focal points provide direction. When you look at the top left image is there something that stands out to you first? Which direction does your eye go? I think each of us might have a different spot we look at first. This means there is an unpredictable viewing order in this type of layout where most items are around the same size. Now compare that to the image on the top right. What is the first thing you notice? I bet it was the two larger butterflies in the center and even more so the top one.

This single large circle provides order to the layout, helping to group the three smaller content circles together as one unit. The second layout struggles to find a focal point which makes it feel disorganized and scattered.

1 2

3

4 Disorder

Order, Flow and Structure

The image on the left (above) does not have one clear focal point, but five different areas that draw my attention. This is because the design elements are roughly the same size.

This magazine cover does a good job at drawing the eye in with a main photo that acts as the focal point. From there I can slowly begin to read the largest article headline and then move on to the smaller article sizes. The designer has full control over this layout and has guided me like a map throughout the cover design.

Photos + Type This fast company magazine cover draws your eye to the little girl on her phone. Directly below the phone is the main article featured in that month’s magazine. The headline and the photo work together to become one focal point.

“Fast Company magazine cover: April 2010” by Karen Horton is licensed under CC BY 2.0

OPTIMAL READABILITY Optimal Line Length

Your eyes shift from one line to the next when reading. This length has been proven to be the length of choice, creating an easy reading experience for the reader.

JUST RIGHT

Me nus ne provit at qui dolupta non eseque pla nobit venima volorum

TOO LONG

50-60 characters per line has been shown to be optimal for readability.

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Expanding your text across a standard sized page creates viewer fatigue and can frustrate the reading experience in longer reads.

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Column Width

Line Breaks

Short line lengths are fine for short photo descriptions and small type. Avoid using shorter widths for longer text areas.

Too many or too few line breaks in longer paragraphs can make type unbearable to read.

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NEEDS AT LEAS T ONE PA R AG R A P H B R E A K

TOO MANY BREAKS MAKE FOR A CHOPPY READ

TOO LONG

SHORT AND TO THE POINT

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One inch or 25.4 mm

Typographic Units Type size is measured in something called “point size”, abbreviated by the two letters “pt”. One point is 1/72th of an inch in character height, so 72 points equals one inch. That means a 12 point sized character equals roughly 1/6 inch in height and a 144pt character measures two inches in height. So what is the optimal text size I should use for readability? The answer is not always clear, as it can depend on the font choice and the medium in which it will be viewed. For example 8-12 point (pt) font sizes are recommend for longer blocks of text. As you can see below, anything below 8pts can be difficult to read. Small print used for disclaimers and copyright information that is 6pts in size is seen as acceptable.

T 12pt

72pt

If you find it hard to read this short paragraph or you 12pt have to squint to read it perhaps making it a larger size will help.

In digitized fonts there is something called an “em box”. This em box contains a glyph or a character letter. Some fonts decide to place the characters in different parts of the em box, so it is almost impossible for 12pts to be the same visible height across multiple fonts. It is close, but not perfect, therefore making it hard to recommend the perfect readable font size for all situations. Placement is also an issue. 12pts on a printed page is standard for most written papers for universities, but 12pts on a magazine article can seem a bit clunky and large. The same goes for digital screens where 5pts, which is almost unreadable on print, might be more legible in a brightly lit screen. As you can see, testing out the readability of your text with others is critical.

6pt

If you find it hard to read this short paragraph or you have to squint to read it perhaps making it a larger size will help.

144pt

8pt

If you find it hard to read this short paragraph or you have to squint to read it perhaps making it a larger size will help.

4pt

If you find it hard to read this short paragraph or you have to squint to read it perhaps making it a larger size will help.

TT This is 12pt sized font. This is 12pt sized font.

Helvetica 12pt

The thin weight appearance in Eurostile and Helvetica light could make 9pt size a better read than 8pt.

T

T

Montserrat 12pt

This longer block of text can have a minimal acceptable reading size of 8pts. But 8pt size does not always read as well for every single font.

This longer block of text can have a minimal acceptable reading size of 8pts. But 8pt size does not always read as well for every single font.

This longer block of text can have a minimal acceptable reading size of 8pts. But 8pt size does not always read as well for every single font.

Futura 8pt

Eurostile 8pt

Helvetica 8pt

AA

AA A A

A A AA

6 7 8 9 10 12 14 16

18

21

24

28

32

All of these are measured using the point system labeled pt.

36

AA

A AA A

A AA A

42

48

55

63

The typographic scale Similar to the golden ratio, the typographic scale uses a formula that scales type sizes into increasingly larger sizes. These have been used through history as a scale that tends to work harmoniously with each other. You will notice the first few in the scale increase in size by one point and start to increase by two around the 10pt mark and increase by wider gaps as you move up the scale. The word scale is borrowed from music, in a similar way to how music notes can exist along a scale. Musical scales sound better when played compared to random notes. It is the same with the typographic scale as they pair well together when used in an established system. Below we can apply this scale to our typography sizes to create a simple type hierarchy where headlines are larger, sub headings are smaller, body copy is even smaller, and so on.

72

96

5 Typographic Scale In Practice

2

I use magazine covers a lot as examples because they can be very tricky to navigate. To make sure a sense of hierarchy is established, even with large amounts of text, a typographic scale is applied.

4

The designer uses a very large pt size for the number 100, so when combined with the photo it becomes the focal point.

1 3

Secondly, the font size steps down 60-70 percent to have a second headline size for the magazine title. It continues to step down sizes for less important information with the next size being the headline article, the fourth being the secondary articles and lastly the tagline of the magazine.

ALIGNMENT & JUSTIFICATION Alignment Which column looks better to you, the first or the second column? The second column, which uses left alignment throughout, has consistency, but the first column would make anyone with OCD quiver. Alignment (also known as justification), when used properly, can be a designer’s secret weapon, allowing us to align content in a layout that ties those elements together.

Left-Alignment

Center-Alignment

Right-Alignment

Good Use: Smaller or medium length paragraphs.

Good Use: Great when used consistently through a design.

Good Use: Used interlaced with left alignment to direct the flow of the design and to provide balance.

Large Headlines Bad Use: For short columns or long columns of text

Bad Use: For larger areas of text.

Slightly off... The three boxes above and the three boxes below have great distance between them. Without the arrow to remind us of the misalignment happening here we might not notice this right away. We may feel as though something “seems off” about the layout. These small misalignments are usually what makes a design feel messy or seem disorganized.

Big headlines command attention.

Left alignment is the most common alignment found in design. This is because we mostly read from left to right so it is natural to have your left side be anchored.

Big headlines command attention.

Big headlines command attention.

The left alignment of the smaller body text does not match up with the center alignment of the headline. This can make a design seem inconsistent.

Right alignment is harder to use for type. This fights against our natural tendency to start in the upper left and read toward the right. Notice when reading the headline that the ragged edges are on the left, making it hard to find your place when you read the second and third lines.

Alignment Commitment This finished menu that was featured earlier for a sushi restaurant adheres to a left alignment for the first column. You will also notice the top paragraph in the red box also lines up with the left-aligned column of menu items. This gives the viewer a consistent line of sight when reading this menu. The alignment serves as a guide in following the viewing order. Not everything in a design needs to have the same alignment. The circle (featured on the lower right of the menu) is its own element and has the ability to have a center alignment without interfering with left alignment dominated design. Grids are a huge in helping us figure out proper spacing and alignment, which we will talk about next. This movie poster for the Jennifer Lawrence movie Passengers commits to a center alignment throughout the poster.

You will find center alignment very popular with logo symbols (logo marks) and their corresponding company names (logo type).

The Balancing Effects of Center Alignment Center alignment can create strong anchors that hold designs and illustrations together. Take for instance this logo design (top left) for a Popsicle Food Truck. There are equal amounts of typography on the left and right sides of the middle popsicle. This creates unity in the design between the illustration and the type.

The same is the case for this 1922 Life Magazine cover, which features an illustration that has a strong, balanced center focus with a center aligned title above. The date and the price are equally weighted on either side of the title. The illustration name toward the bottom also aligns in the center along with the magazine title.

‘The Flapper’ (1922)

When do you use right alignment? A less common right alignment can still be used effectively to fit around photos or when used with shorter headlines and blocks of text. Notice this magazine uses a mix of alignments with the magazine name and the “On The Edge” article title center aligned with one another, while the other articles are using a right alignment. This helps to frame the girls in the center as they remain the focal point and the main visual draw.

Awkward Moments... Right justification can create awkward empty spaces. The space is the same for left justified, but for some reason those extra spaces seem more natural, mostly because we see these spaces everyday when reading left to right. There is also a space needed for punctuation at the end of a right justified sentence which makes the entire block of type feel like it is no longer completely flush with the right edge. It is awkward already, so be very careful with right alignment for punctuated sentences (although there are settings in the software to mitigate this issue).

Choose an alignment that feels natural in its space.

We see the same method applied to art prints. They use

WHITE SPACE & SPACING

what is called frame mats to give it padding between the frame and the art piece.

What a lot of people get wrong you can get right.

it a luxurious, professional look.

I S H

Y O U

|

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White space is the empty spaces between design elements. White space lacks any particular draw or uniqueness. It can be seen as a waste of precious design real estate in your layout. I believe this is why people feel the need to fill their layouts with unnecessary elements like extra photos or text.

space added to this poster give

E

I have seen some incredible student work in my years as a design instructor. I do find that if there is one layout principle or idea that is misused and misunderstood it is the use of white space.

The extra wide margins of white

But there can be beauty and substance in white space. In the absence of design elements you can actually find something there. This extra breathing room changes how the existing elements feel and it can change a layout’s impact.

No.

22

The Goldilocks Scenario Searching for balance in a world of extremes is true in design as well as life. In design there is a Goldilocks scenario with spacing. Goldilocks, in the famous tale, had to try both the hot soup and the cold soup first to discover that her desired temperature of the soup was “just right”.

TOO WIDE

TOO TIGHT

Looking at the lower right example, we see too much spacing can limit the function of the design. A letterhead needs to accommodate specific word counts to be effective. Having this extra white space reduces the ability to put longer letter lengths into the space.

JUST RIGHT

The letterhead on the right features wide, clear margins and lots of whitespace between design elements. The letterhead on the bottom left has very tight spacing between elements and creates an anxious, uneasy feeling.

T I G H T S PAC I N G BA L A N C E D S PAC I N G

Presentation Matters In this logo presentation I can make the logo extra large and extend it all the way to the edges of the given space. The logo suddenly loses its professional quality, as the drastically reduced whitespace no longer gives the logo a buffer with the project document. The second version seems more balanced. There is even whitespace around the margins and it no longer feels limited or confined by the document borders.

G E N E RO U S S PAC I N G

The smallest logo has ample whitespace. As long as it is readable in the given document size, this small presentation could give off a delicate, refined feeling.

Law of Proximity Earlier we examined several Gestalt principles. Particularly, the law of proximity states that items that are close together are seen as belonging to one another. In Figure A, to the right, we notice a thin area of whitespace that separates the headline and body text. This whitespace is fairly small and so both the headline and the body text are seen as relating to one another and so are grouped together.

Headline Right here FIGURE A

FIGURE B

In Figure B, we see the whitespace is reduced to almost zero. We overcompensated our proximity and it risks being difficult to read. In figure C, we see too much separation or whitespace. These elements are not seen as being related to each other making the headline seem like it is pointlessly floating on its own.

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Holiday Treat Recipe #1 Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan dignam es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist, eossit aut fugit derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam ipit quae nulpa sima secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt qui cum rem que nos dias essum es quam rerum quodis quo conemol uptatem quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Holiday Treat Recipe #2 Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan dignam es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist, eossit aut fugit derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam ipit quae nulpa sima secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt qui cum rem que nos dias essum es quam rerum quodis quo conemol uptatem quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Holiday Treat Recipe #1 Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan dignam es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist, eossit aut fugit derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam ipit quae nulpa sima secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt qui cum rem que nos dias essum es quam rerum quodis quo conemol uptatem quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Holiday Treat Recipe #2 Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan dignam es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist, eossit aut fugit derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam ipit quae nulpa sima secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt qui cum rem que nos dias essum es quam rerum quodis quo conemol uptatem quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Spacing with Typography In this editorial layout, about a series of holiday recipes, you will notice the equal and deliberate spacing between elements of the design in the bottom example as compared to the top. Also, the dividing lines between the recipe titles and the body text give the bottom version additional spacing and helps the eye to further differentiate between title and written text. It is amazing what happens when a little attention is paid to small details like spacing and establishing set margins around your design.

The spacing between your sentences can impact the mood. Wide spacing gives text a dramatic flair

And tight spacing can help your headline read nicely as one unit.

in headlines.

There is always a balance you have to strike in design. Too much spacing can make something feel very disjointed and tiring to read, especially with longer blocks of text.

If the spacing is too tight it feels very unpolished and feels just plain amateur.

Spacing between characters is a huge deal too. T Y P O G R A P H Y Large spacing between characters (sometimes referred to as tracking or kerning) in all capital or uppercase characters can feel elegant and high-end.

t y p o g r a p h y On the other hand, wider spacing between lowercase letters can make the characters feel less connected because lowercase characters have different character heights. This makes it harder for the eye to join them together as one word.

As you can see, how we present our typography makes a big deal in how we communicate to the viewer.

REPETITION & DESIGN THEMES

Continuity Throughout Your Design. Repetition is often found in music. Have you ever listened to a song and forgot the lyrics? But when the chorus is sung, suddenly the lyrics seem to come to you easily? A song without a chorus can be fairly hard to remember or resonate with. Having those same lyrics repeated several times throughout the song makes it memorable and unique.

Design themes existing across different pages. This business card features a slightly diagonal slant to all of its shapes and graphics. The front and back can never be viewed at the same time, but because the diagonal theme carries over it maintains continuity.

This website landing page mock-up features an abstract circular cropping of the main photo. This same abstract circular shape is also used as a subtle background shape so as not to overpower the main image. You can see how it continues in the illustration below and in the icons. No matter where the user scrolls throughout the website, they will also feel like they are browsing the same webpage. Repetition can be used in small ways through the use of similar type choices, size, color, shapes, images, spacing and cropping to make a design seem unified.

INTRODUCTION TO DIFFERENT LAYOUT TYPES Editorial Layouts The magazines you see on the newsstand use editorial style layouts including spreads (pictured top left), article layouts and cover designs.

Spread

Magazine Cover

These layouts tend to be more photo driven with larger areas of text. This also includes traditional book covers, inside layouts and newspapers. Book covers do best with a layout that encourages a story driven narrative enticing the viewer to read the book.

Book covers and inside layouts

The book cover to the right features a simple title intertwined with a photo that depicts coral which is also reminiscent of the veins of a heart.

This Life Magazine cover uses photography to play up certain emotions. The cover sets the stage for the entire article inside.

This can be through the use of photos that relate directly to the book’s characters or unique typography presentations of the book title that support the genre of the book.

Social Media The sizes vary wildly for social media posts depending on where it will be placed. They tend to feature a more prominent single focal point with some sort of viewer goal, like “buy now”, “check us out” or “follow us”.

YouTube video thumbnail

These can be the most restricting layouts because of limits set on size and text amounts by social media platforms. Facebook paid posts restrict the total area of type, forcing the design to be more photo heavy.

Paid Skyscraper Display Ad

R E S P O N S I V E L AYO U T S Responsive layouts are layouts that can easily respond or adapt to a variety of sizes. You may have heard this term when talking about responsive website design. A layout should condense down to a small size and still remain relevant and effective. This travel ad starts off as a longer horizontal display ad and as the sizes get smaller the layout shifts slightly to allow the most important thing (the offer) to be highlighted even at the expense of the photo.

The most effective social media layouts focus on the viewer and not the company. They are outward focused, usually provoking an interaction or response with a question or comment.

Large Format Layouts This includes anything larger than a standard paper size. This can be posters, billboards, signage and banners. These layouts have to be simple because the average viewing distance for these projects is significant. Imagine driving down the road and seeing a huge billboard. That billboard has about two seconds to be seen by drivers so that the drivers remain safe. Think about how basic that message needs to be.

Posters have a better chance to be seen for longer time frames but sometimes they are still at greater distances than most other types of designs. This means text needs to be large, simple and easy to read. The concept needs to be quickly understood and have photos that feature less complexity.

Package Design Composition for package design has its own set of challenges as it has to be appealing to consumers and look eye-catching on store shelves. Package design layouts tend to focus heavily on the company or product name, as well as any descriptions that may further explain the function of the product. Most of

There may be legal or additional information that is required on some food and product packaging that can reduce your layout options.

the time package design may come in sets of different product types. In the example above, this comes as a series of four soda flavors, each with its own color. The series needs to look cohesive and carry a strong design theme throughout.

Bar-codes or shipping information need to remain clear on product packaging.

Apparel, Accessories & Other Tangibles These types of projects have a unique quality in that they are not always printed on paper. They can be designs on cotton, nylon, metals, cardboard or plastic. There is an added layer of texture that needs to be considered. How does it feel in my hand? How will the ink print on this material? These layouts usually have a single purpose and can be used multiple times. The composition of the design has to support this main function. For example, this lanyard design in the above photo, it needs to feature a clear, large assignment title so that the staff can easily identify if that guest is allowed in certain restricted areas.

section six //

GRIDS

6 Grids have been used throughout history, though

The Guide to Grid Systems.

mostly never called “grids” as such. Look at some of the first printed books and you will see a series of columns dividing the text into blocks. Look at any line of printed text in a book to see one of the earliest forms of griding in the form of a baseline

Grids can change your entire workflow. Have you ever stared at a blank screen and wondered how on earth you were going to find the right position for all of the elements for your design? You may have a layout plan already established, but where on this blank artboard are you supposed to place everything?

that aligns the bottom of the text together. Grids are the building of a matrix of intersecting vertical and horizontal (and sometimes diagonal) lines to form a grid system. Using grids, designers can make sure elements are aligned properly but also find opportunities to align certain items together to form unity. Grids can be used on just about anything. Some special types of grids exist just to provide a template to design aesthetically pleasing icons, for example.

This is a standard icon grid which consists of a series of intersecting 45 degree lines to form a center point. Designs that adhere to this basic grid form tend to be more orderly and symmetrical.

Basic Grid Terminology We are going to review several different grid types throughout this section. They all have similar characteristics and feature the following terms (see below).

Manuscript Grid a.k.a. Block Grid or Single Column grid This grid is great for books and long, continuous placement of text. Manuscript layouts consist of one center block that divides up the page and creates a clear margin, text area, header and footer. This is the most basic form of a grid and found in word processing documents as basic guides for creating margins. Margins that are naturally created by the intersecting grid lines

Space created for the headers and titles.

Column Grids Perfect for magazine layouts and spreads or anything that has a mixture of photos, quotes and text. Column grids allow you to create space to break up type and photos. These can be 2, 3, 4 or even 12 columns depending on the complexity of your layout.

Newspapers may feature many narrow columns. This example of a newspaper ad I helped to layout early in my career is called a “double truck” ad. It consists of two consecutive full pages of content each containing five columns. Using grids to form my column widths helped me to make sure each column was the same width throughout. The lines created from the columns can also provide guides for where to place photos and other elements to keep the design orderly.

Modular Grids The most flexible grid available, modular grids allow for lots of mixing of type, photos and design elements. You can have a variety with which modules are chosen for element placement. These are great for posters, flyers, magazine covers and designs that require more creative arrangements. They can also be used for arranging a list of items or photos that need the same spacing or have the same order.

The spacing, or the gutter, between columns and rows can be generous or tight. In figure A the spacing is tighter. In figure B it is much more loose and provides more padding between spacial zones.

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FIGURE A

FIGURE B

Notice how both layouts try different arrangements. Also notice the visual hierarchy, with one leading photo followed by a smaller secondary photo.

Hierarchical Grids These are mostly used for the web, where fixed grid layouts will not work. The gutters and margins can change in size throughout depending on the space of the browser. Hierarchy comes from a Greek word meaning “superior”, “ranking” or “order”. These grids follow an order of importance, with the most important items larger and toward the top and with less important items further below and smaller in size. This kind of grid is a perfect fit for a website layout or mobile app design where the most important items need to be shown higher up in the layout.

bbc.com/news

Notice the featured news item shows a bigger importance by not only being bigger, but being shifted to the upper left side of the web page, an area that has greater visibility than the lower right.

Combining Grid Type Composite Grids Using modular and column grids elements. Create “plans” for your layout by using grids before any final photos or text is placed in your design (this is called Blocking). This ensures there is order and a reason for each element placement. This can also help you decide which elements are more important than others, how much room you may have for photos and final text, and for determining how many photos you may need to find.

Blocking our layout using a tight (no gutters) modular grid and creating our column grid using our modular grid as a guide.

In most design programs you can go to VIEW-> then go down to GRIDS to turn on a modular basic grid. You can edit your grid spacing in the main settings or preferences area of the program.

Specialized Grid Types Isometric

“497131080” by verkeorg is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Using modular and column grids elements. Isometric grids are “axonometric” projections, 1

which, simply put, are used to represent 3D objects

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in a 2D space. This means there is no vanishing

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point or distortion when looking at an isometric

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grid. This makes them perfect for engineers who

0.2

want to create maps, plans and buildings and be

0

able to view angles equally. They also make them

3

great for visualizing information like the graphic

2 3

1 2

0

1

-1

0 -1

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seen here to the left. Isometric grids have become really popular in design in recent years mostly for illustrations but also for layout and product mockups.

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Even though the bottom square feels closer to the viewer, it still maintains the same size as the square that is further back in the grid. This is because there is zero distortion with this angle relative to location. This makes isometric grids great for comparing sizes across large areas.

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How isometric grids are constructed. Isometric grids are fairly easy to create. They consist of equality spaced vertical lines. You can replicate those lines and then rotate that grouping by 60 degrees to create the first intersecting series of lines. Lastly, you duplicate the lines you rotated by 60 degrees and rotate that set by 60 degrees to form the third set of intersecting lines. All three of these lines come together to form the isometric grid you see above.

Icon Grids Icons need a center balance. Icons mostly exist as a set or series of small graphics that are required to fit into a dimensional small space. A grid has been developed that goes a step further than a standard grid to help an icon be centered and balanced. Adapting an icon set to the same grid can also help you create consistent cohesive icons that look like they belong together. The spacing between the circles and lines are determined by the Golden Ratio. That subject we turn to next.

The Golden Ratio

The golden ratio, or the golden mean, is a simple ratio that states if one side of a rectangle is 1.618 then the opposing side is 1. You can see in the example (left) the two different shaped rectangles it creates, with one side being a bit longer than the other. This is a simple ratio that can be seen throughout nature including the nautilus creature seen above. The golden ratio echoes throughout its repeating ridges on its shell. Euclid, known as the father of geometry, studied this ratio in detail and his principles revealed how nature applies this simple ratio into spiral shapes, circles and more.

WRITTEN CONTENT

WRITTEN CONTENT

The golden ratio in its simplest form can be seen in both of these examples. Using the golden ratio helps strike a balance between the main visual and the remaining content elements, such as text. This allows a balance and naturally pleasing division of elements.

Quarter-circle arcs AKA: Fibonacci spiral

137.5 degrees

222.5 degrees

Applying the golden ratio beyond rectangles.

Golden Ratio Angle

We can continue to expand this simple ratio out to other

You can also take this spiral and apply it to layout

shapes and angles to find an almost infinite amount of

design. When the golden ratio is repeated over

ways to apply the golden ratio to our layouts and our

and over, you get a series of rectangle shapes that

designs.

become focused in a particular quadrant similar to the nautilus shape seen earlier. We can place our

We commonly see the golden ratio applied to logo

highest priority content in the tighter portion of the

designs by using the golden ratio in circular form which

spiral. This allows the balance of the design to be

is created using the golden ratio spiral.

shifted toward this ratio. We can also use the spiral to help shape the framing of our photos.

THE SERIES 1

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MAX INLINE

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BLOG

Beyond Running.

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1. 618 1

1

1.618

A P P L I C A T I O N

1 : 1.618

The Ratio Repeated

The golden ratio is a naturally pleasing ratio and consists of two divided halves. The first being 1:1 and the other side being a multiple of 1.618 of the first size.

Repeating the ratio and fitting those two halves inside the biggest half will create the golden ratio grid.

The Golden Spiral

Golden Ratio Circles

When you draw an arc from one corner to the opposite corner and continue to do so through increasingly smaller golden ratio rectangles, the result is the golden spiral.

If you create circles in the golden ratio grid boxes, you will be able to convert the ratio from a rectangle to circles.

A Basic Structure for Logos

Overlaying Circles

These golden ratio circles can be used to help you create a wider variety of shapes and curves.

Overlap these circles of different sizes to create your shapes. This is most useful for simple curvy illustrations, icons and symbols.

I N

Two divided halves

L O G O D E S I G N

I created this penguin illustration using the golden ratio. Entirely new shapes are created when the circles of different sizes overlap. This allows me to create concise curves and a well balanced graphic.

Using it to find nice proportions for typography sizing or type scale. In the example below we have a type size at 12pts. We can apply our 1:1.618 ratio to figure out that if 12 is the first half of the ratio, then 1.618 x 12 = 19.5pt (rounded). You can go the other way and find a smaller size by dividing your pt size by 1.618. So a size one step below would be 12 divided by 1.619 = 7.5pts (rounded).

19.5pt 12pt 7.5pt

This is a headline that will be 19.5pts in size. The body copy below is 12pts in size and pairs nicely with the headline font size above. Another step down in type size according to the golden ratio was figured out by dividing a given point size by 1.618.

Using Grids A simple social media graphic. This is a simple modular grid with margins. I am using the grid not just to find out where to place elements but where to frame certain parts of elements, like the central part of the logo or a person’s face. In this case it all about finding the right balance. We have equal weight on both sides with the face and Popsicles commanding similar attention. Because of their close proximity they work in concert to become one focal point.

Marsh Museum of Modern Art

Marsh Museum of Modern Artt

Grids in Logo Design Create spacing rules. Establish the spacing between elements of the logo but also the spacing recommended for the areas outside of the logo. 2x

For example, this logo has 50 pixel whitespace around the logo required to maintain a clean look for the 1x

brand. Also the same spacing is required between the logo mark (the icon) and the logo type (the company name).

Ah Authentically ut et ilca lP yePrepared pa ed d How do I know how much spacing to use? You can apply grids to any design project including logo designs to find the right spacing between your logo type and mark.

Create a mock ad and test out spacing between the photo, logo and other design parts. This can help you see how much whitespace might be required to give it the look you desire. 

Grids for Web Layouts

For Desktop. Above you will see a classic 12 column grid layout with a small gutter. This is traditionally seen with desktop website layouts. This grid is a default grid in an Adobe app called Adobe Xd, which is commonly used for website and mobile app layout design and is slowly replacing Photoshop as the app of choice for this task.

Grids for Mobile Layouts. To the left you will see a common 4 column grid layout for a mobile app design. These columns can help guide the placement of button, photos and other design elements. They can even assist in helping you know the placement of multiple columns of information like in this example to the right. The ends of the buttons line up with the shopping information above.

Diagonal Grids Who says grids have to be left, right, up and down? What about diagonal?

Grids in Editorial Layouts Grids are most helpful when creating editorial layouts and spreads. Not only do they keep both sides of a spread cohesive, they also keep even spacing between gutters and provide a professional organization of large amounts of information.

The grids here were created by using guides in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. Photoshop also has this option. To use guides simply go to view--> Rulers. This will show you rulers on the sides of your document. Click anywhere on the ruler and drag outward to create a guide line. Now elements can easily snap to your guides making it easy to line things up.

Breaking the Grid Grids are great but not always necessary for every situation. Have you ever heard of Jackson Pollock? He was an early 20th century painter who decided that modern simplistic design popularized by German schools of art during that time (think Bauhaus) was too rigid and stifled creativity. He became known for these almost random splatters of paint in his artwork. It challenged all known methods to become a refreshing take on artistic expression. All creative arts are connected and the same goes for graphic design. There are times when grids are extremely helpful, but there are times where they can hinder our ability to do something a bit out of the box. Choose the times when you feel grids are needed. Fluid movements, curves and shapes where you want a bit of unpredictability will most likely be best to form without the use of a grid.

Jackson Pollock Painting - Year Unknown

Putting It All Together Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be. You are now

I want you to take this knowledge several steps

equipped for the epic battle, ready to defeat the

forward. Create as much as you can. This can be

enemy that is creator’s block. I believe a lot of

practice projects, sketches, social media posts, or

people have the misconception that creativity is

just simple combinations of typography, photos in

something you are born with. I happen to believe

interesting compositions and layouts.

that we all can be great creators. We can only get better through experimentation and As you read in this guide, there are so many methods,

practice. It takes years to become a brilliant painter

tools and systems in place to help you know how to

or sculptor and graphic design is no different.

be creative. Hopefully you have seen the veil lifted and have caught a glimpse of the inner workings of

With the basic foundations in place go and create

design.

something you are proud of!

“

The biggest limitation to your future success is doubt.

With doubt lifted you may try things you never thought you could do.

Design is not just meant for the creative minds.

Design is for those who see the limits as walls to be broken down.

So, go break down L I N D S AY M A R S H

some walls...”

AA

T Suggestions? Since this is a digital guide, it means new sections and pages can be added to make it even better. Would you like for me to discuss something related to design theory that was not covered in the guide? Or was there something you want to have more in-depth detail? Just reach out and let me know! I am active on many social media websites including: Instagram: @LindsayMarshDesign Facebook: @LindsayMarshDesign YouTube: @Lindsay Marsh