There are 4 concepts in visual design that ensure your graphics will look not only presentable but maybe even professional! Why is this important? Isn't design the same as art? Can't I be creative?

Design is NOT art, design is about communicating very specific and clear ideas and concepts in a visual way...READ MORE

Art is open to interpretation, design is not. If you design a flyer for a sale for your business, you don't want people interpreting it any way the feel like - you want them to know DEFINITIVELY what the sales is about and how they will benefit.

Good solid design will do this for you. Art will not. (Unless of course your designer's name is Art...)

Creativity? All for it, but creativity in design is all about getting the right message out in a visually appealing and meaningful way. if you incorporate the 4 principles of CRAP into your designs you will actually become MORE creative - because you'll be thinking about how to solve the communication tasks at hand, rather than just choosing colours, fonts etc at random or because you LIKE them.

In this "cut-to-the-chase" guide you'll learn these concepts so you can be a DIY design master!

OK. Here are the four things a good design needs to have - these are the CRAPpy concepts of good design.

• CONTRAST
• REPETITION
• ALIGNMENT
• PROXIMITY

Lets look at this CRAP more closely...

CONTRAST

Contrast is a great way to make things visually interesting. Contrast is a way to make things stand out or to create hierarchies of information.

The important thing to remember with contrast is to make it obvious. If 2 things are not exactly the same, make then different, but really different

For example, you can pair very large fonts with small fonts; you can pair muted colours with one bright one; a smooth texture with a rough one.

But the key is make it obvious contrast is what you're after - if it's not obvious it will look like a mistake!

REPETITION

To make a design coherent, it needs to have elements that repeat throughout the entire piece. The repetitive element may be a font, a fancy bullet, a colour, your logo - anything that someone will recognise as being repeated consistently throughout your design.

I like to think of repetition as CONSISTENCY - psychologically people like things that are consistent. You go to your favourite restaurant all the time because you know what to expect, and you probably order the same dish all the time not only because you like it but because you know what you are getting. That's consistency in action! People like to know what they are going to get.

In design repetition, consistency and unity not only give your viewer as sense of stability (they know what to expect) it make it easier to understand - more coherent. More understandable mans you make more sales!

ALIGNMENT

A sure sign of an amateur designer is the way the elements are placed on a page. Most times these are placed wherever there is space, with out regard to any of the other objects on the page or to all important white space which.

This creates a disorderly and messy look. Not what you want when you're trying to convey a clear message!

The principle of alignment says that nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily - every item should have a visual connection with something else on the page.

When things are aligned on a page it creates a strong orderly appearance with a clear message. There is an invisible but clear line that connects your design elements.

This principle is so important that designers often use a grid to keep their layouts aligned - it makes it quicker to create a powerful design, and they know that their layout will be organized, easy to understand, and beautiful!

GOOD EXAMPLE (image on the right)

http://www.blackestate.co.nz/

BAD EXAMPLE

PROXIMITY

Proximity means how close things are to each other. In design it means that we must group related items together. They should be physically close so they are understood to be a cohesive group.

This helps organize your information and makes it easy for the reader to UNDERSTAND.  The partner of Proximity is WHITE SPACE.  Most people who have no design training make the mistake of filling the entire page with stuff, leaving NO white space. Text butts right up against images, with no margins, and often it's impossible to find a one inch square ares that doesn't have something in it.  This makes for a confusing jumble of elements.

White space make it clear that your elements are grouped accordng to some criteria and that elements that share the critieria are close to each other - strengthening the relationship and enforcing the idea. 

All your address info could be grouped together, all your sale products could be grouped together. your call to action could stand apart from everything else, with a good measure of white space to indicate the groups.  Here's a great example from a book you must get if you are going to do any design related work on your own website.  Here's the example.

AVOID....

1. Avoid too many separate elements on a page
2. Avoid leaving the same amount of space between all elements unless reach groups is part of a set
3. Avoid confusion by having clear headlines that look like headlines
4. Avoid creating relationships that don't belong together - if the things are not related don't put them in proximity of each other.

BEFORE (Mouse over to see the AFTER)