6 Golden Rules Of Layout Design You MUST OBEY

in today's a toy graphics graphic design tutorial I'm gonna teach you the golden rules of layout design so you can make professional and effective graphic designers so welcome back to the toy graphics and in the first and golden rule for layout design we're going to take a look at negative space which is sometimes referred to as white space now this simply is just the areas on your design they're not taking up by actual design assets or graphics it can be used to separate sections of your design define certain areas and also allow your design to have room to breathe now in the first design I've made sure to make some common mistakes that designers do embark on and that is to try and fill out the negative space as much as possible by scaling up my text at the bottom here also I've used a layer of sort to fill the top half now doing this makes the design appear too busy and unorganized having a clear separation allows the viewer to look at the design more comfortably and also obtain the information very very easily but let's take a deeper look at my revision so firstly the logo is neatly added in the top left and it doesn't fight for attention and evil crowd the design the blue area is left with a lot of negative space which does look neat and also organized below that the text is still legible when printed out on an a4 document yet there is a lot of space to the bottom rights which gives the design and the text some more room to breathe allowing your design to have negative space like this clearly creates areas for specific parts of your design and this makes a viewer feel more at ease when viewing your design and trying to gather the information from the design itself so finally the design uses negative space to create the shapes and going diagonally from the top right to the bottom left so be sure to pay a close attention to the negative space on your graphic designs just as much as the actual graphics themselves if not more so negative space in local designing is often strictly around optical illusions and creating shapes with negative space if you want to see more about negative space and local designs I have a video linked at the end of this one but secondly we're now moving on to why proximity is such an important aspect of layout design and proximity basically suggests that design elements that are linked in some way or have a relationship should be grouped together aspects of your design that do not have a link or a relationship should not be linked together in most cases when used correctly proximity will structure your design as well as indicate to the viewer certain cues and information so here is a landing page design and firstly you can see a clear divide from the left to the right the right section here basically has the illustrative artwork displaying context to the design itself you will not find any key information or call-to-action buttons here aside from the toolbar at the top of course now on the left hand side the title and the text content is grouped together in a neat manner using good use of proximity now below that there is a call to action which has its own space and is left alone which basically frees it up to make it easier to be seen by the viewer and thus clicked and finally all of the social media icons are below in their own groove on this left hand side we have three different groups that all use needs and valid proximity proximity and negative space do have a connection and both should be taking into account when designing something in terms of the layouts my repetition is a key aspects of not only layout design but just graphic design in general it helps the design have more continuous theme or look and feel repetition can be seen in things like the color scheme used throughout your design or the use of similar shapes and graphics and here is another landing page design and what kind of repetition can you see in this example now firstly the most striking thing probably would be the color scheme the color scheme is seen throughout the entire design from the illustrations into the typography and even the call-to-action button also in the design you noticed that this style of the illustrations and the graphics are of the same kind of style throughout you don't randomly see a gradient style or 3d graphic the illustrations are flat and somewhat rustic in nature all themed around the topic of travel repetition is not just about using the same graphics throughout but think about the same use of typeface the same use of color and the same style in general this will unify your design and make things flow and appear more professional as a whole the next golden rule for layout design is contrast and this is something I've mentioned before in this channel but let's take a quick look to reaffirm the understanding and the importance of it contrast simply refers to two design elements or aspects that are different in appearance in nature to create contrast you can experiment with color typeface shape and size contrast is very useful for creating a focal point as well as giving objects greater visual weight and balancing the image the first aspect of this design that utilizes contrast is the typography at the very top now I have the word Satori in a thicker version of the typeface as opposed to the type saying graphics this creates interest in the visual aspect of the title and the next use of contrast is the bottom text here and this is where the use of red and black is seen which are two contrasting colors as well as again having different thicknesses in a typography itself and in terms of shape the cellular icons at the bottom are a contrast to the straight edge line shapes and I found elsewhere in the design giving them intrigue and a chance to stand out to the viewer the actual image in the middle of the design is slanted on a tilt which is a stark contrast to the level straight lines that are horizontal and found throughout the rest of the design and of course finally the entire design utilizes a very contrasting color scheme of black and red and also ye thrown into the mix contrast is a great way to create interest and intrigue on your designs but also it grabs attention and it directs the viewers eye onto certain aspects of your design now the penultimate golden rule for layout design is alignment in graphic design we should always be mindful of alignment if it's for texts for imagery or design elements in general you should always look to align your work professionally and not make the rookie mistake of neglecting alignment on my example the first port of alignment is the future text in the central focal points now you can draw a vertical line and see that this text is centered properly and next to the bottom the text information is situated neatly along a horizontal line and away from the print edge by a decent amount of space and this is to keep the design neat and visually appealing now also running up the left and the right hand edge I've adjusted things so that the linear graphic in the background now levels up to these text contents on the sides however the white circle with a price tag and I've left this not aligned properly and this is to make it stand out more it's okay to break the rules in some sense as long as the majority of your design does follow the basic layout rules the design is still aligned well despite the price tag of being the odd one out and that's just another form of contrasts the last and golden rule of layout design is to use focal points and I've touched upon focal points many times in the past so I'm not going to go to detail today however a focal point is used on a design to a pinpoint the start of a viewers journey and it's the main hot spot to grab attention and to lure them into your design itself it's almost like a kind of paint if you want to think of it that way now a focal point can be a shape it can be an image or even just typography itself and on this example here what do you deem to be the main focal point of interest firstly it's a stark contrast in terms of color it's a dark blue set against a color scheme of oranges and yellows which are the complementary colors and the total opposites in the color wheel also as a design asset it's very large taking up a lot of space on the design I notice how the wing itself is pointing to the title and the text in the sense which again demonstrates how the viewers can be directed and controlled you start looking at the wing at the bottom and then you move your eyesight up to the words the text this is a classic use of focal points in graphic design so just remember focal points are areas of dominance and they do not have to be the main dominant feature focal points our areas of interest emphasis or a difference within a composition that capture or hold the viewers attention so that was today's golden rules of layout design and there is another one that I could have thrown in there and that is hierarchy and I did use hierarchy a lot in my graphic designs but I've touched upon that so many times I didn't add it in today but yeah if you want to keep learning essential skills as a graphic designer make sure to subscribe to my channel for weekly graphic design content and of course until next time have a great day and design your future today peace

Channel: Satori Graphics

Views: 823,575

Keywords: layout design, layout design in illustrator, layout design rules, layout design tips, graphic design layout ideas, graphic design layout tutorial, graphic design layout tips, graphic design layout rules, golden rules of graphic design, 5 golden rules of minimal graphic design, graphic design golden rules, satori graphics, satori graphics illustrator, graphic design rules, poster design

Id: EFf9jBs2yfU

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2019