The Tribune

With graphic design becoming increasingly more accessible as a career, breaking the rules could be viewed by some as forward-thinking. Nonetheless, most newcomers to the profession are unaware of certain rules, especially the ones that are important and should never be broken. By not following these rules, the end result can be visually jarring, resulting in your target audience losing trust in your ability or competence.

To assist with creating more successful designs, I have created a list of commonly-broken graphic design rules. Let’s dive in.

Design with consistency

Consistency is graphic design rule number one. Maintaining consistency across all design elements and materials allows your target audience to clearly recognise that the brochure or flyer is an extension of the same brand seen on your website. Be consistent with the following:

• Colour palette: Use no more than five colours (including shades) in your branding (limiting it to two or three is probably best)

• Typography/web fonts: Try not to use more than three fonts, or stick to one font family. Use similar elements throughout, and ensure all marketing material looks the same. You want all your branded materials to look like they belong to a series.

Avoid poor legibility

Legibility is of utmost importance when choosing fonts, and this applies to both web and print design. No one wants to be annoyed by difficult text. Legibility can also be improved by adding an overlay of contrasting colour, or white against black (and vice versa), which always equates to better legibility.

Avoid colour discord

Colour is a powerful tool, so ensure you choose colours that complement each other to avoid creating colour discord. The light-on-dark scheme helps to alleviate vibration or colour discord.

Prevent non-proportional scaling of graphics and text

Bad design always catches the eye and distracts the reader from a message. Be sure to maintain the same proportions while scaling. To put it simply, never stretch images as it looks unprofessional. Small images, especially, do not scale well.

Stay away from raster-based images

Oftentimes, newcomers will use raster-based images in their design. Whenever they enlarge or reduce the size of a raster-based graphic, it results in the image becoming pixelated. Fortunately, Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based application, so any icons created in Illustrator will not become pixelated when resizing. Particularly avoid raster-based images like the plague.

Maintain alignment

Put the thought in first, or you will end up with a design that distracts your audience with its bizarre text arrangement.

Choose three fonts

I really want to emphasise this one because it is violated so often. No matter what you are designing, limit yourself to no more than three fonts and make sure your fonts are appropriate for your industry.

Establish a visual hierarchy

Establish some type of visual hierarchy to emphasise one item over another, and draw the viewer’s eye to a certain item above others. Weighting different elements by importance, and using colour and size to either draw the eye or let the eye wander, is important. Without clear visual hierarchy a viewer will be unable to determine the order in which the information needs to be read.

Grammar, spelling and punctuation

The truth is that you can really hurt your relationship with a potential client if your marketing materials are riddled with errors. A few typos every now and then are no big deal, but it can cause a problem before it even begins. Always take a little extra time to proof-read and never be afraid to ask for help.

Embrace white space

This is one of those graphic design rules that can make the viewer disoriented. White space is the negative space of your page that has nothing on it, which can add to a greater sense of professionalism and also allow the viewer a moment of eye rest.

Now that you understand a few basics of graphic design, the rules are yours to break or follow. Have fun. Until we meet again, fill your life with memories rather than regrets. Enjoy life and stay on top of your game.

NB: Columnist welcomes feedback at deedee21bastian@gmail.com

ABOUT COLUMNIST: Deidre M. Bastian is a professionally-trained Graphic Designer/Brand Marketing Analyst, Author and Certified Life Coach with qualifications of B.Sc. and M.Sc. She has trained at institutions such as: Miami Lakes Technical Centre, Success Training College, College of The Bahamas, Nova Southeastern University, Learning Tree International, Langevine International and Synergy Bahamas.