So, I’ll start by saying I am sorry. The last few weeks have been absolutely insane. I’ve been studying like crazy for my art history final, then getting myself ready to come home for the holidays. I’ve had just about zero time to do anything at all, but I’ve been doing my best to get the contest winners (they have all been notified) prizes out to them. Thanks to all who entered the contest as well! Now on to the good stuff.

This is the first of a new series I am going to be writing, all about design. I’m taking good design. You’ve probably seen a few posts on my blog and countless posts on bad design and what not to do, but when do you ever get tips on how to be better? Well I am going to do just that. I’m going to boil down all my experiences, education and tips into some easy to use “guides” if you will. I’m going to keep it simple so you can easily take away some points and really pump up your designs!

Oh crap, crap, CRAP! We need more of it. Yes I am sure of that. No, I am not dealing with some weird post-exam craziness. I mean we need more C.R.A.P. in today’s designs.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that you’re probably wondering what the heck C.R.A.P. is all about. Well wonder no longer. C.R.A.P. is an acronym for a simple set of guidelines for good design. We’re talking the most basic of basic in visual design. It makes my inner designer sad that I even have to write about this—if only everyone came pre-programmed with C.R.A.P. Enough babbling about C.R.A.P. (I am rather enjoying having a good reason to say C.R.A.P. in a blog post!)

C.R.A.P. stand for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity.

Top: Complimentary Contrast, Middle: Texture/pattern contrast, Bottom: Scale contrast.

Let’s start with contrast. Contrast is what makes design interesting. Look at any good piece of artwork or any good design and you will find contrast. It draws our eyes in, and is very useful in making people look where you want them. Just take some basic coloured plains with text. You make everything similarly coloured, you’ve got no contrast. What does that mean? You’ve got a boring design that will have no impact and get no attention. That is exactly what you need to avoid in any design.

You might understand what contrast is, but how do you get it? Oh boy, can I tell you (I just finished a colour theory course on this!). You’ve got a few simple options. You can contrast with complimentary colours (Red-Green, Purple-Yellow, Blue-Orange, etc), you can get contrast with texture/patter/details (Lots of detail vs. flat color), and you can get contrast with scale (A big red dot vs. a small red dot)

Good use of contextual emphasis with contrast.

Now, you can’t just go waving your new magical contrast stick at everything. The point of intentional contrast is to use it to highlight things of importance. If you’ve got a poster, for example, you aren’t going to want the highest contrast on the price of the event (unless that is the big selling point). Chances are you will want to highlight the title or the main big features of the event. So you use more contrast where you want interest. Contract = attention. Simple.

So you think you have it made now that you have contrast down. Just a minute. You’ve got a way to go still.

Top: Too many fonts create chaos and dis-organization. Bottom: Repetition of fonts create a stable, balanced design.

Repetition. If you have any art class experience you’ll probably know about unity. That is exactly what repetition is about. You simple use the same image, style or idea throughout a piece to make it seem unified. For example, you design a little bulletin board flyer. You find all these cool fonts (I will leave this rant for another day) and think you’ll throw in 8 different fonts. Bad. You want to use your repetition and use the same font or two throughout the entire piece to make it feel unified and like one solid design. It really takes something from looking amateur to looking pretty slick.

So we’ve got some good basics down, lets get more into the nitty gritty.

Top: Little to no organization creates tension. Bottom: Clear grid gives stability and completeness.

Alignment. This may sound silly, but make sure things line up! I’m going to stay brief and go into much, much more detail in the next articles. Essentially, you need to have imaginary lines. If you have lots of text, make sure it all lines up at one side along these “imaginary lines”. What about when your text is centered? Line up the point where the text is centered but I have to insist, do not, I repeat; do not center text unless you have a REALLY good reason.

The same idea of lining things up on imaginary lines or “grids” applies to everything. You have a bunch of photos? Line em up somehow. I’m not saying stick to vertical lines of text/images, just make sure that everything in your design lines up with something, on purpose! It makes designs look 10x neater, more organized and stable. All good things that help take a bad design up a few notches.

Top: Awkward spacing creates tension and makes the design hard to look at. Bottom: Extra spacing and breathing room allows the eye to rest and gives a lighter, less intimidating feel.

You’ve got your C.R. and A. now, but what about proximity? That’s a fancy way of saying how close things are to each other; or how you use space. Space if your best friend as a designer and most people don’t use enough. Empty space allows the eye to rest and helps to reduce tension in a design. Just an extra ¼ inch of space can really pump up your contrast, make the design easier to look at and even help get information across! As a general rule when explaining how important negative (a.k.a empty) space is, I say to try and use more space—then double the empty space. People almost always under appreciate empty space, and it comes through as a busy, unorganized and overall poor design.

So there you have it. C.R.A.P. Remember it well and your designs will be better! It’s a simple and tidy way to help you if you are stuck with a design, and if you continue to think about it, you will eventually start using it without even thinking.

Now, I know some of these point were brief of hard to understand, that totally makes sense. This is a brief overview of some very simple design practices. I’ll be going over most—if not all—of the points again in the series (only in much ore detail). So don’t worry if you didn’t get some of it! There is always time to learn more!