Basic design principles

Impact
Get the reader’s attention. Anchor the page
with a dominant visual element.

Create Impact with:

• Type size
• Weight
• Color
• Graphics
• White Space

*Sometimes a strong, well-played photo is all

that is necessary for impact.
 Basic design principles

Impact
Get the reader’s attention. Anchor the page
with a dominant visual element.

Create Impact with:

• Type size
• Weight
• Color
• Graphics
• White Space

*Sometimes a strong, well-played photo is all

that is necessary for impact.
 Basic design principles

Poor Impact
• Photo does not tell the story
• Large images will not necessarily give
  you impact
 Basic design principles

Strong
Structure
Orderly pages make reading look easy. The
reader should immediately know where to start
reading or which elements are related. Set
priorities for the reader.

Create strong structure with:

• Alignment
• Spacing
• Rules
• Boxes
• White Space
 Basic design principles

Poor Structure
• Elements should align with each other
• Too much variety in widths
• Learn how to properly break from the grid
 Basic design principles

Storytelling
with Visuals
Say something with pictures. Good visuals
communicate information before reading
even begins. The visuals and headlines must
support each other.

Use visuals that:

• Tell pieces of the story, show its drama
  or document its occurrence
• Take readers places they’ve never been
• Surprise the reader
• Have movement, unusual composition,
  personality
 Basic design principles

Poor Visual
Storytelling
• Cliché images
• Posed portraits may be interesting to family
  and friends, but readers will be bored
 Basic design principles

Well-written
display type
Communicate quickly, and reinforce visuals.
Readers look first at dominant visuals, then to
adjacent headlines to make sense.
 Basic design principles

Poorly-written
Display Type
• Ambiguous language
• Message should be straight to the point
 Basic design principles

Tight Visual
Editing
Nothing extraneous, nothing left out. Make the
presentation of a story as thoughtful as the
story itself; avoid holes and redundancies.
 Basic design principles

Poor Visual Editing

• Too many photos competing for attention
• No impact, dominant story
 Basic design principles

Contrast
Mix up the look. Contrast – dark and light,
big and small, horizontal and vertical – invites
readers into the page.

Create contrast by:

• using horizontal photos with verticals
• Shift the weight or size of headlines
• Use a large photo with a small one
• Add white space for emphasis
• Balance light and dark areas of the page
 Basic design principles

Poor Contrast
• Images are the same size
• Dominant headline is not dominant enough
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