Introduction

Welcome to the section about design principles. It is the last section (out of three) for the course on Graphic Design.

Design principles are ideas about how multiple elements can best be combined into the final design. It’s by far the longest section of the course, because it’s also the most important and varied concept.

There are infinite ways to combine ideas and visual marks. And, as opposed to the previous sections, this is at the core of graphic design. So it couldn’t be split into multiple other sections or courses. There aren’t other disciplines that share these ideas, they are uniquely useful to graphic design.

This section talks about what the human eye likes to see. How it reacts, automatically, to specific situations. A well-known example is something like “alignment”: by placing elements along a predictable line, they become easier to read and group. (It uses those implied lines about which I was so enthusiastic earlier in the course!)

But there are many more interesting ideas.

And now, let me repeat the general idea you should always keep in the back of your mind.

Visual design is about identifying the message you want to send, and then using the best visuals to send that specific message.

With every principle you learn, keep this in mind. How would this help a specific message? How, if used carelessly, would this destroy your design? Given a specific purpose, which principles would I use to achieve that goal?

Let’s get started!