EmilyS, Author at Go Fish Digital

Graphic Design Basics You Should Know

EmilyS — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 15:00:37 +0000

When thinking about design, what it looks like is much less important than how it functions for the user. An effective design should focus on making things easier for the people who are interacting with it.

For example, imagine a pair of earbuds that play music clearly, don’t ever get tangled in your pocket, and stay in your ears through the entirety of your workout. You might think to yourself, “Wow, these were designed really well!” And they are – not because they’re your favorite color, but because they serve their purpose well. THAT is the fundamental and primary function of design.

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It’s important to find ways to make a design as user-friendly as possible. This can include making it easier to read, navigate, find, digest or understand. It can be hard for a beginner or a non-designer to know the differences between strong and weak design. Luckily, there are a few quick and basic rules you can learn to help you get there!

Pick Current and Complementary Fonts

There are three fundamental rules for choosing fonts:

Limit your fonts
Keep it simple
Make sure they match your design style

Another rule that I believe is just as important is to make sure you’re not dating yourself when you’re picking fonts! Fonts come in and out of style just like anything else. Here are just a few examples of fonts that have fallen out of style. (Papyrus, Curlz and Comic Sans).

To avoid this faux-pas, make sure that you’re keeping up to date with the latest design trends. It’s easy to do this by following great designers on sites like Behance, Dribbble, and Instagram. You can also read a ton of great articles on sites like Medium, Invision, and Creative Bloq.

Again, when using more than one font, keep. it. simple. You rarely need to use more than two fonts for one project, especially when using “fun” fonts. Don’t get me wrong – fun fonts have their time and place. But, sometimes the time and place is never and in the trash (I’m talking to you, Curlz). Though if you do want a font with some flair, make sure your secondary font is straightforward, easy-to-read and definitely unembellished.

Pick Colors That Contrast Well

Good use of color will seem effortless and will attract people to your design just as easily. But a bad use of color will jump out at your viewers and can even turn them away. Finding the right color combinations can be difficult, especially given that we see so many in our day-to-day life. Well, I’m here to tell you a couple of hard truths. Red and green may look great on your Christmas tree, but not on your Holiday flyer. Red and blue look perfect on your jersey, but not in your logo. That all-white look might seem pretty and cohesive on your Insta-feed, but it will not go over well when your clients can’t read your business cards.

As with anything, however, a good understanding of how colors work well together comes with practice! A few tools I like to use are Adobe Kuler, and ui Gradients. For an even easier solution, you can simply type “color schemes” into Pinterest and you’ll get a ton of results that can help you along!

Use White Space as a Tool

A good use of white space is fundamental to great design. White space relaxes and guides the eyes, so when it’s used effectively, your audience should be able to find your important information with ease.

To that end, don’t be afraid to use white space as a way to avoid cluttering your designs. Even if you do have a lot of content, simply try to separate it into groups and sub-groups with plenty of white space in between so it’s easily digestible.

Whatever you do, don’t get into the mindset that white space = empty space. White space helps your viewers get a better look and understanding of your design. The space you decide to leave out is just as important as the elements you include.

Scale Appropriately

For the sake of the sanity of graphic designers everywhere, never stretch or resize typefaces or images to something other than their original, intended height and width.

Great typefaces were created with incredibly close attention to detail, helping with legibility and of course to add style. To stretch and transform them out of their intended shape essentially ruins them.

If you need an image to be a specific size, use the crop tool, not the transform tool. Also, know that images cannot get bigger than their original size. Make the size work or get new images. If your audience sees wonky or pixelated images on your website, they’ll immediately hit the back button.

Simplicity

Graphic design is a tool that helps us guide our audience. Artists are graphic designers but graphic designers are not artists. Every designer has made the mistake of creating designs that appeal to their own tastes and preferences before realizing that it doesn’t serve their intended audience. Unlike a work of art, a design is never the star of the show. The content is always what is most important. So, keep your designs simple and to the point. Your clients will be happy, and so will their users.

The job of a graphic designer is to make life easier for the user with the additional benefit of making their designs look beautiful. If you follow the key points I outlined above, you’ll be creating effective and attractive graphics in no time.

What are some of your tips on making a design user-friendly? I’d love to read through them in the comments below!

Graphic Design Basics You Should Know is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

4 Simple Reasons Why Good Design Matters

EmilyS — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 13:52:26 +0000

Let me ask you a few questions. Do you stop in your tracks when you see beautifully-executed typography? Do you breathe a sigh of contentment when scrolling through a cohesive and effective website? Did you spend way too much time analyzing the latest logo redesign?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re not alone. If you didn’t, that’s okay too. Even though these things might not have the same appeal to the untrained eye, that doesn’t mean that people don’t react to good design.

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This post is for the business owner that doesn’t know why they need a website. It’s for your aunt who just designed her logo with Curlz. It’s for the guy who stretched his font almost to the point of unreadability. And it’s a PSA for those who don’t understand why “exposure” will no longer be accepted as currency for good design work. Good design is invaluable and it can make all the difference between growing your business and staying behind the curve.

Good design goes beyond just looks.

Good design will work for your business by being alluring and beautiful and just as importantly, uncomplicated and user-friendly. User-friendliness can encompass the readability of your print material, how easily your website can be navigated, and the cohesiveness of your online presence. Along with that, a great design will be able to bring your visions, dreams, and business objectives to life and effectively communicate who you are to your audience. No longer will the aesthetic of your brand or the approach of your business be unclear or hard to explain. Your brand’s style will do it for you.

Good design creates consumer trust.

Consumer trust is priceless. How much would you pay to get your audience to trust in your brand as much as you do? Your consumers don’t see your sleepless nights and the blood, sweat, and tears you put into your business. They see you for how you present yourself to them, starting from their very first interaction with you. Imagine you’re interviewing a potential employee. Whether they show up in their yard work clothes or a button-up shirt will immediately give you insight into how much they care about the job. The exact same principle applies to how your brand looks on the outside. It can make a world of difference on how others will perceive you and is crucial on whether they will trust you enough to buy whatever you’re selling.

Good design motivates people to take action.

Having dull content can easily translate to having a dull product. Believe me, consumers are scrolling right past that boring, unattractive, least call-to-actiony blurb you threw together on your pirated version of photoshop. It’s hard for consumers to “click here” or “purchase now” when what they’re looking at doesn’t even grab their attention for longer than the amount of time it takes for their cursor to x-out of your ad. Your designs need to be compelling enough for them to want to take action again and again. And not only will good design motivate consumers to purchase your product, it increases your shareability. When consumers share your content via social media or word of mouth, that means they care about what they’re buying. That’s FREE advertising! And when they care about what they’re buying their friends and followers will be influenced to do the same.

Good design will enhance the perception of your brand.

Whether your company is a brand new start-up or has been in business for a century, good design will set you apart from your competitors. It creates a solid first impression and has the potential to create lifelong brand loyalty. Think of items you almost exclusively buy from a specific brand – Nike sportswear, Coca-cola drinks, Crest toothpaste. Some people don’t even know why they choose the brand they do. It looked good on the shelf or on someone else and they’ve been buying it ever since. This concept is the same for people providing a service over a product. If someone looks you up on Google and your website is a messy array of disorganized pages, poorly taken photos, and 12 different fonts, or you have no website at all, you better believe they’re clicking that back arrow looking for someone that actually cares about their business. Like it or not, the consumer world is online. Consumers depend on Yelp reviews, Facebook likes, and Instagram references to even give you a chance these days. And in a moment of indecision with the option of two equally functioning products, a good design might be the only thing you have that will separate you from your competitors.

Now all things considered…

If you scrolled through the 4 bolded subtitles and are looking for one key take away from this post, it should be this – how you present yourself to your target audience can be the difference between being overlooked and gaining a lifelong customer. Good design is what starts a relationship built on respect and trust. And it’s what will keep them on your website, make them walk through your door, or pick your product up off the shelf.

4 Simple Reasons Why Good Design Matters is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.