Small choices add up

when creating strong

design.

nice. not so nice.

Concise, orderly and structured Random, busy and lack of consistency
That is the reason I created
this single essential source
-- to help you understand
design theory foundations
and to help you apply it to
real world practical projects.

Index

04 Introduction 98 Color Palettes

06 Gestalt Theory 106 Psychology of Color

24 Gestalt Examples 120 Color Accessibility

32 Typography Introduction 123 Color Spaces

34 The History of Typography 128 Using Photos in Design

50 Anatomy of Typography 138 Composition & Layout

61 Font Pairing 168 Different Layout Types

70 Psychology of Typography 173 Introduction to Grids

82 Color Theory Introduction 185 The Golden Ratio

84 Color Wheel Basics 188 Using Grids

91 Color Harmony
section one // DESIGN FOUNDATIONS
Strong foundations
build the best houses.
When you build a home there are basic materials
and methods you need to use to build a proper
structure. No matter what type of house you
build, you will need a roof, flooring, windows,
appliances, plumbing and insulation. You will
also need to have qualified people install those
materials using tried and true methods that have
stood the test of time.
Graphic design is the same way. Graphic design
projects span the entire spectrum of both digital
and print projects. No matter which project type
you are doing on this massive scale, you
need to have the proper materials (software)
and knowledge to put all of those materials
together.
We are going to talk about terms and
theories that you might have heard of
before. Everything we go over in this first
section will be ideas, methods and concepts
you can apply to ALL design projects, big or
small, digital or print.
 Gestalt
Gestalt Origin: German
Noun An organized whole that is

Theory perceived as more than the sum of its

parts.

“
Have you ever played the game when you look
up at the clouds and try to find people, animals
or things? Your brain is always subconsciously
finding patterns, shapes and meaning to

The whole
everything you look at to try to make sense of
the world.

This is the basic foundation of Gestalt theory,

which stems from Gestalt psychology, a theory
of thought that originated in Germany in the
is other
early 20th century.
than the
sum of the
We will review some of the laws associated with
Gestalt psychology and talk about how it relates
to design. When we understand how the human

parts.”
brain processes and categorizes a series of
elements, we can use that understanding to help
us craft easy to digest visual messages.

Gestalt theory is really just trying to explain Psychologist Kurt Koffka

how we visualize and organize information.
Organizing this information is the very core of
what we do as graphic designers.
We group like objects together
regardless of where they are placed.
In this case, we group these circles
based on color, not by location.
Similar Objects are
grouped together by
color, size and shape.
The human brain loves to categorize things. When We can do that by making it a different color (see
you look at the following random assortment of below).
squares and triangles, what do you see? Better yet,
how do you see them?
SALE

BUY NOW

There is a likely chance that your brain is deciding to

group together the triangles like in figure A (below),
or it has decided to group the squares together as a
group in figure B. It is working hard to make sense of
the different shapes presented.
In figure C and D below, we have two layouts. Each
shape represents a photo, text or element in the
layout. In figure C we are using similar shapes in
our layout. This helps everything feel like it belongs
together. Figure D features different shapes of
photos and content which does not allow the brain to
categorizes all the different information presented,
causing confusion.

Figure A Figure B

The principle of similarity also applies to color,

texture, shape, position, origination and size.
Knowing how the brain works here comes in handy
as a designer. We can use this principle to shape
how we develop our layouts.

We can bring attention to an important element

in the design by making it different than the rest. Figure C Figure D
Close objects are
grouped together.
Your car console uses the idea of proximity to make
it easy for you to find and locate related controls.
You may notice all of the air conditioning and heater
dials located in close proximity to each other. You
may also see the radio controls put tightly together
in relation to the other unrelated controls in the car.
This is a helpful concept to keep in mind when doing
layout design. We can group related items in the
layout together so they feel like larger cohesive
groups that share a goal. This helps the human brain
to organize large amounts of information.
Just Right
In the illustration above, the logo on top is a good
example of the principle of proximity in action. The
logo on the top has the words of the company ”Travel”
and “Loop” spaced rather closely. I am able to read
this logo as one company name, “travelloop”.
In the logo in the middle, you see a wider gap between
the two words and they start to read as separate words,
but also start to feel disconnected from each other.
The same goes for the example on the bottom. The
tagline of the company feels like a different item all
together and does not feel a part of the logo like it
does in the first example.
The same principle applies to layout design. In the
social media post below we see a layout that groups
related event details together by using proximity.
Event
Name
M U S I C F E S T I VA L
FREE
ADMISSION
APRIL 22nd 2022
FROM 2PM-6PM
AT THE COLOSSEUM
DOWNTOWN MIAMI
The event name and a descriptor line are grouped
together in the same area. You can also see related
date and location items grouped close together.
This allows the viewer to group related items together
so they can easily understand the information.
Imagine if we placed all of the information into one
area without any sort of separation? It could be
messy and intimidating for the viewer to look at.
We break down
elements into the
simplest forms possible.
From the shapes we see on the previous page, we
see the image on top as one, complex shape with
curves and lines. Instead, what our brains try to do
is break that complex image down into something
easier to handle and we suddenly see three simple
shapes instead of one big complex shape.
One thing to always ask yourself when creating a
design is “Can I make this more simple?” You can do
this by reducing unnecessary elements, graphics and
even combining texts that are saying the same thing.
Simplification can make your message appear more
clean and concise.

We see the principle of simplicity applied to icon
design all the time. Icons need to be seen in
very small sizes. If we were to have a detailed
illustration for a small icon it would not always
be easy to tell what it was. We instead simplify
illustrations down to icons that can be identified in
many different of sizes.
Ask yourself another question, “Is this graphic or
element adding value to my design?” As designers
we typically feel we need to show off our creativity,
but remember your design’s overall message is
always the most important. Make it clear, concise
and rewarding to look at.

When reduced down

The layout to the left is busy and complex with many different
to a smaller size this
sized elements and structures. Simplifying our layout to focus
simplified icon fairs much
on our main photo, idea or focal point can help a viewer “cut
better than the complex
through the noise” to have an enjoyable experience.
illustration.

Using simplicity makes complex objects easier to understand. The

goal is to reduce it down to the point where it still retains its core
meaning and use. This clock is still understood as a clock even
though it is just a circle and one bent line.
 We instantly try to
figure out what is in the
background and what is
in the foreground.
This is very important for our brain to process quickly
and it goes back to our hunter/gatherer days. We
needed to quickly determine what was the animal we
were hunting and what was the background. This can
sign up for
be tough if you are looking for a brown lizard in a sea
the newsletter.
of brown sand. Our brain looks at color and contrast
differently to find and assign objects as either in the
foreground (in front) or the background (in the back).

This principle is evident with the classic Rubin’s vase

experiment. Look at figure A. What do you see? Did
The focus is now
you see a vase first or two faces? on the foreground

In the example above we have a website landing

page. We have a pop up box where a user
can sign up for the newsletter. You can help the
viewer better determine the focal point, the most
important item, by darkening all the unrelated
items. This darkened area now becomes the
background and the lighter becomes the
foreground.
Figure A Figure B
Without giving
the user
What if we switched the colors (see figure B), are you cues to help
now able to see both? sign up for determine the
the newsletter. foreground or
the background,
Among darker colors, lighter colors tend to stand out
it can make the
more as foreground elements. This is true with figure viewer lose focus
B. The bright orange vase really stands out compared on what is most
to the darker purple faces. The opposite is true for important at any
figure A. given time.
Your mind tries to achieve
balance and establish order
with everything it sees.
What do you see when you look at the graphic put them together it achieves a natural symmetrical
below? balance. Looking at the example below, there is a
much better chance that the two symmetrical halves

[] [] []
on the left will be grouped together as one unit as
opposed to the asymmetric parts to the right.

In reality, they are just six brackets -- three facing

to the left and three facing to the right. But when
you place the left and right brackets together, the
mind naturally tends to seek completion, in this case
making the form of a rectangle.
This logo below for a sushi restaurant features a
letter of equal width on both the left and right side
of the logo. When you put both letters together on
the left but do not balance it out on the other side
the logo looks lopsided and unbalanced.

When we talk about balance in design we are mostly

talking about Symmetry and Order at work.
In the graphic (above left) we have two uneven
triangles. When we make them the same shape and
You will see magazine covers use the same tactic,
making sure to balance the article titles on both
the left and right sides, instead of listing all of them
down one side.

The McDonalds Magazine Magazine

logo features Name Name
a symmetrical
Article Article
logo. It achieves One One
a proper balance Article Article
of the left and Two Two

right sides. Article Article

Three Three

Article Article
Four Four
We like to fill
in the gaps.
Take a look at the square and the circle below. Even
though they have gaps in their strokes, we have no
problems filling in the rest of the shape to complete
it. The circle could really just be two curved lines,
but we still like to see it as a complete circle.
Below is a classic example of how our brains fill in
negative space. We fill in the open space between the
E and the T and form the letter A. The letter A is not
anywhere in the active positive space, but only exists
in the negative space that exists between positive
spaces. The same is true for the O that is formed by
the shapes created by the positive space T and N.

In the series of shapes below, what do you see?

In reality there are four pies with one slice missing
from its shape. What our minds like to do is fill in
the gaps and view this as four circles and a square,
because it is the simplest explanation.
Retro Corporate Logo Goodness_00084” by jordan_
lloyd is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
A practical use of the principle of closure in design
is the use of negative space in logo design.
The shape below looks like two opposing arrows, but
in fact it forms a D for direction.

Retro Corporate Logo Goodness_00081” by jordan_

lloyd is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
We use past
experiences to try to
interpret new ones.
If you are reading this, then you have learned how That would seem extremely odd and not in sync
to identify each character in the English alphabet. with our expectations from past experiences.
The letter A can be presented to us with out its
distinct center crossbar and it is still viewed as the With magazine articles we are expected to read from
letter A. We are assuming it is the letter A based on the left page to right page, not start from the right

A
our past knowledge with how the letter A is formed. and read to the left.

What is really interesting is that we can use this

principle of experience to do something unpredictable
to bring more attention to our design. It could be
adjusting our main headline typography go up and
down instead of the predictable left to right. This
could cause viewers to stop and pay attention to
something that is unexpected.

Remember our example of finding animals, people

and objects in clouds? The only reason we are able
to do this is through our past experience of observing
the world around us.
take a look
Stop and

We all have certain expectations when we view or

interact with a design. For instance, when we are
on a website and want to know if a link is clickable,
we know from our past experience that underlined
words typically tend to be active links. If the text is not
underlined, sometimes it is bolder or has a different
contrasting color used for the text. If we decide to
make our active links on our website dramatically
different than what is expected we risk confusing the
visitor.

The same rule applies to layout design. Based on past

experiences, if we typically see company contact
information at the bottom of an advertisement,
then doing otherwise would seem strange. Have
you ever seen the fine print of an ad at the top?
We prefer to follow
smooth curved paths over
inconsistent rigid ones.
In the graphic below (Figure A), you see two
intersecting lines. According to the principle of
continuation, your brain will continue to follow
smooth curved lines even if there is separation or
another intersecting line. In this case, your eye
follows the black line all the way past where the
green line intersects, following a smooth path.
Your eye usually does not tend to follow the black
line, then veer off in a dramatic tangent (like you
see in figure B), rather it continues on the smooth,
direct path regardless of the color change.
Figure A Figure B
In the example below, you see two intersecting
paths. You will most likely follow either the green or
the black path all the way through until completion.
We can use this principle of continuity to act as our
sign posts along the road to guide our viewer’s eyes
toward our desired message.
A very simple illustration of this is displayed in the
magazine spread below. The model is glancing
toward the top right of the page, guiding the
user to the next page with the advertisement
headline. Once again, the viewer’s sight is pulled
downward to the photo of the product on the chair.
If we were to tweak this slightly and have the model’s
eyes looking the opposite direction, the natural
smooth flow of the design world be broken.
COMFORT
& LUXURY
CAN GO
TOGETHER.
COMFORT
& LUXURY
CAN GO
TOGETHER.
Let’s see Gestalt principles
applied in real world
projects.
Gestalt principles are great guides to follow as designers. We are going to review
several print advertisements, logos, movie posters, and other projects you might see in
the wild, so we can study how multiple principles are at work in strong design.

Fenwick
Pythons logo
You will notice the law of
continuation used to guide the
viewer’s eyes from the top of
the F, down through the rest of
the word, to the tip of the leg in
the K. You also notice the law
of symmetry and order used to
balance the left and the right
sides with equal weight in the
extended tails.

“Fenwick Pythons Logo Design” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Silk Road
Cycles logo
If you look long enough, you
will start to see the letters
SR, an abbreviation for the
company name “Silk Road”,
that also forms the chassis of
the bicycle.

The Law of Experience allows us

to see both the letters, but also
discern the shape of a bicycle,
because we have seen this
same bicycle shape many times
in our lifetime.
“Silk Road Cycles Logo design” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.
Happy Logo
Design
Simplicity is at play here. We
read this word as the full word
“HAPPY” even though there is
a curved line that is substituted
for the H. The Law of Experience
also indicates that this slightly
curved line represents a smile
which then makes the word
have the intended meaning of
happy.

“appy logo design” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Harp Logo
Design
Closure allows us to see the A
shape created from the safety
pin. There is no crossbar in the
A, but we still are able to see
this as the letter A.

“Retro Corporate Logo Goodness_00097” by jordan_lloyd is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Carmel Cloud
Logo
What seems to be a random,
messy accident of shapes
ends up representing a cloud.
Our brains are marvelous at
locating everyday objects in just
a pile of goo.

“Caramel Cloud logo” by SoftFacade is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Gestalt principles
never age.
Here we will encounter a series of advertisements, mostly from the
1960s and 1970s, that proves that classic design and layout never gets
old. This is largely because the way our brain organizes and handles
information does not change.

Jaguar XK-E
Advertisement
1964
This ad represents a time
in advertising where subtle
messages spoke louder than
large headlines.

It was an understated approach

and was a unique, new way to
present products.

Figure and Ground is applied

here with the dark, black
color creating an obvious
“background” while the car
and white text functions as the
“foreground.” This high contrast
helps the product (the car) to
be the main focus of the ad.

The Law Simplicity graces itself

with a headline that focuses all
of its attention with its small size
and clear background.

“1964 Jaguar XK-E Advertisement Newsweek February 10 1964”

“1972 Ford Pinto - Maverick - Mustang Advertisement Hot Rod Magazine May 1972”

Ford Pinto 1972

The Ford Pinto may have been an awful car, but
the advertisement does work well to draw your
attention through the use of continuation. The
Tobacco Ad
striped lines runs through the entire ad, directing
In this old Russian ad we see the legs of the
the focus first on the headline, then on the cars
gentlemen create letters that spell a word.
and finally down to the final ad copy.

“Old Advertisement of tobacco” by paukrus is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Bell Telephone
Ad 1974
We see the headline use
continuation to completely
move the viewers eye from
one page to the next, with the
headline ending with attentional
ad copy.

“1974 Bell Telephone System Advertisement Readers Digest October 1974” by SenseiAlan is licensed
with CC BY 2.0.

Oldsmobile
Cutlass Salon
Ad 1973
As we reviewed before,
we tend to group like items
together with the law of
similarity. This ad groups like
items by color. It pairs the red
square of information with the
red car and the yellow box
of information with the yellow
car. Because of color we pair
the right car with the right
information.

“1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Sedan and Coupe Advertising Road & Track November 1973”
 Disney Pixar
UP Movie
Poster
Movie posters really have
to grab our attention. This
one also uses the law of
continuation to move you
from the movie title all the
way down to the different
characters in the movie. This
provides the viewer with an
experience that entices them to
find out more about the movie.

“up-creative-movie-posters” by jdxyw is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.with CC BY 2.0.

Thor
Movie Poster
Adaptation
In this movie poster,
which was a creative
deviation from the official
one, uses the law of
symmetry to commit to a
balanced, center-focused
design with equal weight
to the left and right side
of the ad.

Book
Cover
Figure and Ground. Is it
two red faces? Or the
thor movie poster” by theNerdPatrol is licensed with CC BY 2.0. smoke from the rocket? “Laszlito, Poética para Cosmonautas (entry for the 50 Watts’ Polish
Book Cover Contest)” by 50 Watts is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
type.
photos.
layout.
color.
The four main elements
of great design.
good
design
requires
multiple
disciplines.
In the next few sections we will study
typography, color and composition in great
detail. Each of these are like actors in a play;
they are dependent on each other for the
dialog and to complete the scene together.
And just as actors gain energy from one
another and support each other, in the same
way these foundational design elements build
upon and are a support structure for each
other.
I recently put together a one thousand piece
puzzle of a beautiful landscape. It took me
days to finally get all of the pieces together. I
am not sure if this has ever happened to you,
but as I was about to complete the puzzle,
I discovered there was one piece missing. I
looked everywhere and never did find the
missing piece. The puzzle felt incomplete
even though just one piece out of a thousand
was missing. You would think 999 would be
close enough, but the empty hole left by the
piece was glaring.
I believe design is the same way. Without
understanding all the tiny little details we
can still place our puzzle pieces together,
but the likely result will leave you unsatisfied
or unhappy. It may look okay at first, but
something is just not quite right.
Typography needs color. Color needs
composition. And composition needs
typography. These are the core values of
strong design and they will form the outline
for this guide moving forward.
 section two // T Y P O G R A P H Y

The 3D type graphic you see here was

created using a 3D Adobe program called
Adobe Dimensions. A very approachable
and easy to learn program, it is great for
graphic designers for creating mock-ups.

Why is
typography
such a big
deal?
Typography is used to communicate
messages. How you use it becomes
part of the message.
When you look at the world around you
and study communications coming from
companies, what do you see? You see forms
of communication like banners, flyers, e-mails,
social posts, posters and advertisements.
One thing they all have in common is type.
Type, typography, text, words, they all
are communicating something with written
language.
Can you have a design without the use of
photos or other visual ads? Yes, it is possible.
T Y P OG RAP HY //
INTRODUCTION
But, can you have a design without any
written words or language? If graphic design
is the art of communication, then what is it
without typography?
Of all the main elements that build design
projects, typography is the core factor that
helps communicate the message. This is why
I will focus first on the study of typography
and introducing the evolution and history of
typefaces, basic anatomy, font pairing and its
practical uses in design. So, let’s get started.
T YPOG RA PH Y // H I S T O R Y

A brief history of typography

The printing press changed history and was the true
beginning of graphic design as we know it today. We no
longer had to write everything with pen and ink; we now
had a way to use movable metal letters to print ink onto
paper so we could replicate the same words over and over
again.

In the same way the printing press changed the world, in

our age the digital computer transformed how we can see
and read language.
 Typeface
T YPOG RA PH Y //

Classifications
CLASSIFICATIONS

Serif Sans-Serif Script

ABC ABC abc

abc abc abc
Old Style (Minion)
Transitional (Baskerville)
Didone (Didot)
Slab Serif (Archer)
Formal - Bickham Script
Grotesque (Helvetica)
Calligraphic - lucky turns
Square Sans (Eurostile)
Blackletter - FF Brokenscript
Geometric (futura)
Casual Scripts - BrotherFree

Decorative Hand Lettering

abc
Slab-Serif

ABC
abc ABC abc
abc
Slab-Serifs are a special
type of serif typeface that Amatic SC (above)
has thick consistent chunky Homemade Apple Pro (Below)
serifs like the example below.
A special subset of script hand

ABC
All Rights Reserved (top)
lettering takes on a more custom
Monoton (bottom)
authentic feeling.

Museo Slab 1000

 Old Style
T YPOG RA PH Y //

The first printed typeface was

a serif: Oldtype.
HISTORY

The thicker appearance of each letter ensured that

the ink could properly adhere to the paper and
remain legible. This was out of necessity.

As printing presses became more widespread,

//

Italian book printers were looking for a typeface

SERIF

that could be very legible for printed books. They

were looking for something that could be printed
at a much smaller size. This typeface style became
known as Old Style Typefaces, also known as
Humanist typefaces.

Garamond A page from the original Gutenberg Bible, one

of the first books printed using a printing press.

Minion

A
Calson
Serifs
Goudy Old Style
They have these little accents at the end of some
of their strokes which enables and enhances
reading from a distance. Readers are able to
establish the main letterform by getting cues from
these little accents.

Calson
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
 yy
Transitional
As print quality increased Old Style Transitional
so did the demand for more
detailed, stylized typefaces.
The contrast
between stroke
So along came transitional typefaces. These thickness
became greater
started to appear in the mid-18th century. They in transitional
tended to have more contrast between the typefaces.

stroke thickness, giving them a more dramatic

appearance. Instead of more harsh, sharper
serifs at the end of the strokes, transitional
typefaces tended to have more rounded caps
called ball terminals. Transitional typefaces
were less influenced by handwritten type and Notice the transition from sharper,
handwritten endings to more rounded
therefore had less calligraphic flow.
softer endings.

E E OO
Old Style Transitional Old Style Transitional

Old Style fonts were inspired by hand
drawn strokes while transitional were more
calculated and precise with sharper edges
more reminiscent of modern fonts we see
today.
The vertical stress in the bowls tend to be on
an axis that is closer to 12 o’ clock rather
than tilted like in the old style typefaces.
Other Popular Transitional Typefaces

Bookman

Baskerville
Times New Roman
Georgia

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdef ghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
Modern or Didone
More expressive stylized
typefaces were developed.

As we move forward in time, typefaces continue

to become more dramatic with even greater
contrast between the thickness and thinness of
their strokes.

Modern typefaces are very elegant and delicate

because of this quality. They tend to work better
as large headlines because they become harder
to read when they are book type size.

ff High fashion magazines like Vogue use a

modern typeface called Didot.

AA
High
Thick down Contrast
Ball terminals on Didone typefaces strokes Strokes
are even more pronounced and round,
forming a teardrop shape.

Bodoni
Big Calson
Monotype
Abril They feature heavy down strokes and have a huge contrast
between the thickness of their strokes.

Didot
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R ST UVW XY Z
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
Slab Serifs
Readable bold headline
fonts.
As we will study a little bit later, display fonts
are fonts intended for larger sized headlines
and for displaying urgent messages. One
type of display fonts are Slab Serifs. The best
example of the first uses of Slabs are 19th
century wanted posters from the Wild West.

Slabs feature unbracketed, thick, chunky

serifs and have very low contrast between
the thickness of the strokes. This was a huge
deviation from the Didone style from before.

Because of their attention-grabbing, bold

characteristics they started to be used heavily
for print advertising.

Rockwell
Arvo
RW
The serifs on slab serifs tend to be more
prominent features and are less detailed

Josefin Slab and intricate.

Museo Slab bold

headlines
Rockwell
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
 Sans-Serif
T YPOG RA PH Y //

Minimalistic
letterforms take over.
HISTORY

The popularity of the Sans-Serif exploded in the

mid-20th century as a desire for a more geometric
//

grid-based letterform took center stage.

SANS-SERIF

The advent of digital computers continued to

speed up the adoption of Sans-Serifs as a usable
typeface for all applications. This is because
San-Serifs are easier to read and reproduce on a
digital screen than its Serif counterparts.

They started to be seen as the new modern

typeface choice because it has modular
construction using basic shapes like squares,
triangles and circles, giving it an orderly
appearance.

This was appealing to those wanting to emulate

popular art and design trends like Art Deco, Mid-
Century Modern and Minimalism with its clean
simple lines.

Just like with Serif typefaces, Sans-Serifs went

through a period of transformation from its
humble beginnings.
 MM
Grotesque
An ugly start?
There was a reason why some of the first Sans-Serif
typefaces were put in a group called Grotesque.
People had a hard time accepting Sans-Serif

MM
typefaces and considered them hideous and hard
to look at.

The early Grotesque Sans-Serif typefaces were

more crude than their modern counterparts and
featured imperfect geometric features and strokes.
Some designers like to think these imperfect strokes
give it a dose of personality unlike the perfect
geometric Sans-Serif history will study later.

Roc Grotesk

bu
Uneven
Monotype Grotesque Weight

Franklin Gothic

12 G Grotesque Sans-Serifs had uneven weight

34
distribution. You can see that here in the
bowl of this lowercase B. It has a thinner
The upper case G’s have presentation as you move toward the leg of
something called a spur the b, yet thicker as you move away. Some
at the bottom which give would consider this a negative attribution,
it a distinct character. while others like to think of it as unique.

Monotype Grotesque
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R ST U V W X Y Z
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
Neo-Grotesque
The rise of Helvetica.
Neo-Grotesque, sometimes called Transitional Sans-Serifs, are
some of the most commonly used San-Serifs today.

They started to lose the odd weight distribution characteristics.

aa
They started to become standard typefaces used in operating
systems like Windows and the Mac OS.

No more awkward
space distribution

Helvetica became popular in the mid-20th

century. It was heavily used in wayfinding
signage. In the example above, it is still used
today as the typeface of choice for the New
York City subway system.

Monotype Grotesk Helvetica

r rce
Neo-Grotesque typefaces have a smooth appearance
with more precise calculated movements.

Monotype Helvetica
Grotesk
They featured very tight apertures giving them Arial is another hugely popular Neo-Grotesque
a more sleek, simple appearance. typeface, perhaps the most widely used.

Helvetica
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
Geometric
Just Google it.
As with its Serif cousins, Sans-Serif went through
a similar transformation as it continued to
evolve toward a specific direction.

In this case, it kept moving more toward

perfection and grids with geometric typefaces.

Geometric typefaces adhere to elemental style
of design in which basic shapes like triangles
and circles become the core shapes of the
characters.
oe
The Google logo features a geometric typeface. It seems
as though a lot of companies that switch from a traditional
Serif typeface to a Sans-Serif typeface, to help modernize
the brand, pick a geometric typeface.

These tyepfaces came out of the Bauhaus Avenir

Movement; an early 20th century shift in how
we view art and its importance on society. It
focused on combining simple forms together
that challenged traditional design.

GG
Neo-Grotesque Geometric
In Avenir, another very popular geometric
typeface, you can see almost zero contrast in the
stroke width throughout the characters.

LOVE
Avenir

In geometric typefaces you can really see the

basic element shape of the circle begin to
be applied here. The capital G almost fully
adheres to a perfect circle shape.

This simplicity makes geometric typefaces great

choices for logo design.

Futura
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
123456789?!#$%&+-<>
Scripts
Expressive typography
at its finest.
Formal Scripts
Inspired by written scripts from historic
calligraphers, these typefaces seek to emulate
the personality of calligraphy without the use of
ink and a pen nib (the sharp metal tip used in
formal pin and ink letter writing).
Casual Scripts
Casual scripts vary more in their stoke thickness
and have less traditional letter endings or
terminals. They tend to emulate brush strokes as
opposed to pen nibs and ink.

Snell Roundhand SignPainter

Not really suitable for larger blocks of text, they
They feature continuous strokes like you would see make for great accents and small short headlines.
in the handwritten versions.

formal casual
Decorative typefaces
Used mostly for ornamental purposes, these
typefaces become the design themselves with
their unique textures, shapes and curves. Great
for headlines but horrible for smaller readable
body copy text.

Cheap PINE
Battery Park
Modak
The future of typography
Variable Fonts
The history of typefaces is an interesting one.
There are constant changes that happen
throughout time and we need to expect similar
changes to typography in the future. The
emergence of handwritten typography was a
surprising one, but more are to come.
The future of typography is a digital one. With
everything shifting to digital and away from
analog, new fonts have to be developed that
are better suited for many different screen sizes,
operating systems and digital displays.
Fonts traditionally come with a wide variety of
font weight options that give us choices between
thinner or thicker presentations.
BEFORE
Roboto
A A A A A A
Thin Light Thin
AFTER
Variable font Roboto Flex
This makes things a bit difficult for coding websites
and mobile apps. Now we are required to have
several fonts loaded to display a wider variety of
font weights.
The way variable fonts function is to contain all of
the font weight options in a single file, reducing
the overall load time and data required to display
the font.
Variable fonts have an axis on which you can
change the thickness of said axis. This allows the
designer to change the thickness quickly and on
the fly.
This means there are now thousands of different
varieties of font weights instead of just the ones
that were part of the original font family.
Regular Bold Black
identify
typefaces
in the
wild.
Knowing your typeface history
can go a long way in establishing
yourself as an educated designer.

Every poster, flyer, billboard and sign

will now be opportunities to test your
typeface knowledge.

Which classification is it? Which

subcategory does it belong to?
Which typeface family is it in? What
weight? The game is endless.
 Display Type
T YPOG RA PH Y // D I S P L A Y T Y P E

Display Type are special typeface sizes (usually over 14pt in size) that are meant to be
used for large headlines like the examples below. They are bold and more detailed,
have lots of character and are not meant for larger bodies of text. Most often they have
lowercase lettering or italic options. They can be Serifs, San-serifs, Scripts or Decorative
typefaces. When reduced in size these typefaces have a hard time being read and are not
recommended as text type, or type used for bigger blocks of written text.

Display Type are special typeface sizes (usually over

For example this display font
called Poiret One looks great on
the graphic below in a large size,
but reads horribly when made a
smaller text type.
14pt in size) that are meant to be used for large
headlines like the examples below. They are bold
and more detailed, have lots of character and are
not meant for larger bodies of text. Most often they
have lowercase lettering or italic options. They can be
Serifs, San-serifs, Scripts or Decorative typefaces. When
reduced in size these typefaces have a hard time
being read and are not recommend as text type, or
type used for bigger blocks of written text.

LOVE
TRUMPS
HATE

Font used: Poiret One

fonts.google.com/specimen/Poiret+One
 BIGGER
BOLDER
HEADLINES
Font used: Staatliches
fonts.google.com/specimen/Staatliches

THE
DISCO
Font used: Monoton
fonts.google.com/specimen/Monoton
T YPOG RA PH Y // A N A T O M Y
 T YPOG RA PH Y // T E R M S
Basic Typography Terms
It is common to see these terms used incorrectly or used
interchangeably with one another. The most common
issue is confusing a font for a typeface and a typeface
for a font.

& 6 ib
Glyph
These are symbols and shapes that
represent a given character. There can
be many ways to represent a single
character using glyphs, as you can see
here. These can be more than just letters.

AA A a A
Letterform
These are a type of glyph which are the
basic shapes that form a letter. These are
the basic core strokes that help make a
letter distinct from another letter.

Character ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
These are the most simple forms of a
language and can be more than just abcdefghIjklmnopqrstuvwxyz
letters but also can be punctuation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 @ # * < > ( ) $ % & !
marks and numbers.

Typeface Helvetica
Is a collection of characters that exist
with specific characteristics.
Times New Roman
Abril Fatface
Font
A specific way to represent a typeface
in different formats (roman, italic, Helvetica Bold
bold etc.) Fonts exist as just part
of the overall typeface. Fonts are Roboto Light
the program that is installed on
a computer to represent a given Bookman Old Style Italic
typeface but are not the typeface
themselves.

Font Family Helvetica Bold

A collection of fonts for a specific Helvetica Regular
typeface.
Helvetica Oblique
Helvetica Light
Anatomy Terms
There are hundreds of descriptors for various parts of type
characters in typography. These are the ones that are most
frequently used in the industry. Never feel like you have to
memorize them all, but they will help you to identify certain
parts of a character when talking specifics about a typeface.
You will notice a similarity with human anatomy terms.
 Stem Crossbar Shoulder Cross
Stroke

Closed
Counter Arm Bowl Leg

g g r a
Ear Loop
Ball
Terminal Tail

Counter
(not closed)
nSerif
 
Ligature
This is the joining of two letters (commonly fi, ff, fl, fj) to help
the letters have more readability. Some typefaces have this
while others omit this feature. A lot of modern designers
decide to omit ligatures because of style decisions.

E+T = & & & &

& & &
The Ampersand is one of the oldest forms of a ligature.
It is the formation of the Latin letters “e” and “t” to
form the word “et” meaning “and”. As you can see,
there are so many different styles to an ampersand.
 Typography Structure
Typography structure varies from typeface to typeface, but basic elements are
always the same. The baseline refers to the resting place of the bottom of the
capital letters. The cap height refers to the height of the average capital letters.
Knowing these basic structure guidelines can help you determine the small
difference between similar typefaces

Cap Height

Ascender line
X-height

Baseline
{
Descender line

X-Height

X-Height is the average top height of the lowercase letters in a typeface.

Ascenders

Anything that exists above the X-Height area is called an ascender.

Descender
Anything that is below the baseline is considered a descender.
 “’A good tpyeafce mkaes ahnytnig eeisar to raed’ Type Poster in
Helvetica” by The Logo Smith is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.
Specimen - Helvetica
 From thickest to thinnest:
Ultra (Uber)

Font weights Black

Extra Bold
Bold
Font weights come in so many different flavors. I enjoy using Regular
typefaces that have a wide variety of font weight options. Book
This gives me more flexibility when I put together my type Light
hierarchy and typographic systems. Thin
Hairline

Fieldwork Baskerville Linotype Didot Playfair Display

Fieldwork Baskerville Linotype Didot Playfair Display
Fieldwork Baskerville
Fieldwork
Linotype Didot Playfair Display
Baskerville
Fieldwork Playfair Display
Baskerville
Fieldwork Baskerville Playfair Display

Roboto Slab Arvo Spartan Open Sans Lato

Roboto Slab Arvo Spartan Open Sans Lato
Arvo
Roboto Slab Spartan Open Sans Lato
Arvo
Roboto Slab Spartan Open Sans Lato
Roboto Slab Spartan Open Sans Lato

Josefin Slab Mokoko Futura Bree Quatro

Josefin Slab Mokoko Futura Bree Quatro
Josefin Slab Mokoko Futura Bree Quatro
Josefin Slab Mokoko Futura Quatro
Futura
Bree Quatro
Josefin Slab Mokoko
Mokoko Futura Bree Quatro
Quatro
Raleway Quicksand Merriweather
Raleway Quicksand Merriweather
Raleway Quicksand Merriweather Some fonts only come with one font
Raleway Quicksand Merriweather weight and style option. Most of the
time they are display or decorative
Raleway Merriweather
fonts. These can still be used when doing
Raleway Merriweather special effects, headlines or something
highly customized.

Abril Fatface Pacifico AMBOY

 T YPOG RA PH Y //
The fonts you
choose can

FONT CHOICE
make or break
your design.
This is why we study the
characteristics of each
character in a typeface.

Fun Fact:
A Typophile is someone who
is obsessed with the details of
typography and typefaces.
Small details matter.

typography g


typography g


Even among serif typefaces

there can be details that make
big differences on a typeface’s

g
perception and style.

typography

 

typography g


Among these serif “G” Characters you can

see that the typeface Didot has a completely
g ggg
aaaa
closed counter in its lower loop but Libre
Baskerville has an open loop. 


The ball terminal at the end of the lowercase

A character has more of a teardrop shape
in the typeface Abril Fatface but has a more

tttt
flattened ball terminal in Didot.


The thickness of the stem in the lowercase 
letter T in the Bodoni 72 typeface is wider
compared with that of Abril Fatface.

 
The terminal of the lowercase T character
in Didot has a bowl shape while Libre
Baskerville has a more sloped appearance.
 Typefaces can have different
X-Heights, Ascender and
Descender Line points.

Wow Wow
 
Ascender line

X-height

Baseline
Descender line

WW
 
Unique
Personalities
In contrast Avenir
In Alata Regular the has a very flat
peak in the center of peak in the center
the Character W has a of the W.
sharp edge.

Wow Wow
 
  

Ascender line
X-height

Baseline
Descender line

Wow Wow
 
  

Overlap to
see the differences.

Wow
Overlap two serif or two San-
serif typefaces to see that some
have more dramatic differences
than others.
 aa a
 


   

There can be game-changing differences

in some characters.
For example, in Alata Regular the lowercase A appears as a round
closed counter with a strong straight stem on the right side while both
Avenir and Sathu both have teardrop closed counters with a shoulder.

i i i

  




   

Square and round dots are

personality quirks.
Round is softer and square is more organized. You can start to assign
personality traits to typeface characters. When it comes to logo design
these little quirks can have a big impact.

kk

 

 

 

Lowercase K differences seen here.

This is a very popular example of how some characters are treated
differently in different typefaces. The K leg joins at a totally different
point in the character.
T YPOG RA PH Y // FONT PAIRING
font pairing
T YPOG RA PH Y // F O N T P A I R I N G

1
NOW SERVING
BRUNCH
Sifonn
Outline

Sifonn

WEEKENDS | 10AM-3PM Sifonn

BREAKFAS T S PECIALS • K IDDIE GAMES

& GOOD MUSIC

2 Trocchi

4 CAFÉ

Alonso
Yellowtail

Template Adapted from Canva.com | Cafe Alonso

Pairing two or more
typefaces together in the
same design piece can
give it a rich character.
MARSH CLOTHING CO.
As you can see in this flyer (left) for Cafe
Alonso, the typeface Sifonn is used here
using multiple font varieties, weights Come to our
and sizes including an outlined version.
Spring Super
You can tell this is the same typeface by
studying the structure and characters of the
Sale!
letter R. They match perfectly, with the R
presenting a long closed bowl and short legs. All items are 60% off!
Clearance items are 80%
This typeface is a sans-serif, without serifs at off!
the end of its character arms, stems or legs. From May 15 - 30
Visit www.reallygreatsite.com for a sneak
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You also see this second typeface being used
called Trocchi. Trocchi is a serif typeface
and it pairs well with a sans-serif typeface.
Serif’s have lots of character and detail, so it As with anything in design there is a proper balance
we have to achieve when pairing different typefaces.
complements the lack of detail on the sans-serif
If we decided to use 5 or more different fonts in the
typeface, giving the design nice complexity
same space it starts to feel inconsistent and messy.
and variety.

character
Serif

simple
Sans-Serif STUDENT WORK: Carina
Rodriguez @nuanced_gd
The key to font pairing is
having enough contrast
between typefaces.

MYFITNESS.COM

Use simple typefaces paired

with detailed typefaces.
The Sports
Package
The package with
Henriette the most savings.
Find out more below.
Detailed Typefaces
With Simple Typefaces Add to Cart
Raleway
(Regular)

Use typefaces with thick

19
Recipes
characters paired with one that
has thinner characters.

French Chunky Serif Abril Fatface

COOKING Slab Serif Typeface Josefin Slab

DESSERTS & PASTRIES

A thick serif typeface with a
regular weight sans-serif
also pairs well together.

Chunky Serif Abril Fatface

 Myriad Variable Concept

(Regular)

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You can even pair

different fonts in the Thick Sans-serif Azo Sans Black

same typeface family. Light Sans-serif Azo Sans Light

Pairing two different typefaces together is
like dating. You will find some fit together
like a glove while others are disastrous.
The best way to find which fonts pair well together is to follow some basic rules,
some of which are the same rules we follow in design as a whole like contrast,
repetition and balance.

Good Sample Pairings:

Opposites attract. Bree Bold

Helvetica

hello there
My date above is pretty
fancy with its high
A
Didot Bold
Big Calson
Lato Regular

A
contrast strokes. POIRET ONE
Gill Sans SemiBold
I’m just a simple guy with
consistent thickness in my
strokes. and no serifs or Avenir Book
Arvo Bold
fancy details. Cambay Devanagari

wonder Helvetica Bold

Mokoko Regular

wonder
Montserrat Bold
Bree Bold
Not having enough differences
between your choices can make
the two compete with each other,
making your design lose focus.

These are both Didone style typefaces. It is hard to even

tell the difference, and that is the problem.

This One
Didot Regular

This One
Baskerville Poster PT
The differences are really tiny.
Like the way the serif is treated
in this lowercase N.

OO n n
Cap Height

X-Height

Baseline

Examples of font pairings that have little contrast

Futura Bold Henriette

Antique Olive Alfa Slab One

Helvetica Regular Benton Sans Regular

Roboto Medium Arial Regular
 Good Sample Pairings:

Disorder with Order Primont

Soleil Semibold

Script A
Lust Script
Laca Book

My date is carefree and fun. Her Al Fresco ParkSide

A
characters have big gaps between
the cap height and X-Height lines. Ballinger Bold

I am glad I have more average

spacing between mine so I can Cortado
balance her out. Laca Book
Quatro Book

This is Strange Cap Height

X-Height

Baseline

Cap Height

Play by the rules X-Height

Baseline

Try to avoid pairing two strong scripts or decorative typefaces together. A good example of pairing an expressive
typeface with a simple one.

Vikor Script Liza Disaply pro

Al Fresco Coquette
Lust Script Cortado
Fave Condensed One Pro Battery Park
Rules were made
to be broken...
sometimes.
There are instances where having disjointed
font pairings can be a creative expression.
This could be by using more than four
different fonts in one design piece or fonts
that vary wildly from one another.

“Life Quote typography poster - Life is like riding a bicycle - Retro-style quote art
print A3” by Wicker Paradise is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
How does ofatypography
The psychology typeface make
you feel?
The best way to find which fonts pair well together is to follow some basic rules,
some of which are the same rules we follow in design as a whole like contrast,
repetition and balance.

This sounds like a question from the therapist’s differences between typefaces that can change
couch, but it is one you should ask yourself often our perception of the message.
as a designer.
Take for instance this phrase, below.
Different typefaces come loaded with varying
perceptions. It is why the phrase below reads so
differently when put into two different type choices.
PLEASE HURRY THE
OFFER WILL NOT LAST
I have a gift LONG!
Fat Frank Heavy

waiting for you!

Another Danger
Please hurry the
offer will not last
long!
I have a gift Laca Book

waiting for you!

Abril Display
Both are sans-serif typefaces, but one is better
suited for a phrase that needs to communicate a
sense of urgency. The Fat Frank spurs action with
its chunky sharp angles and its tight presentation,
while Laca Book calms with its thinner weight and
The all-capital tightly packed characters in the

h
slightly curly terminals.
typeface called “Another Danger” makes it feel
like the gift involves a knife and is not a gift you
want to receive. The second typeface choice,
“Abril Display” uses lowercase characters and has The slight curve to the
soft whimsical ball terminals that make this feel like terminal on the h seen here
something wonderful awaits. softens the message.

Those two typefaces are dramatic examples

to illustrate my point, but there can be smaller
Typography presentation
The psychology of typography

matters just as much as

The best way to find which fonts pair well together is to follow some basic rules,
some of which are the same rules we follow in design as a whole like contrast,

the typeface choice.

repetition and balance.

Line breaks, all caps, wide gaps, and tight spacing

can all be tools you can use to communicate
your desired emotions and feelings with your
typography. This one is also a bold sans-serif typeface but what
makes this different is how the characters overlap
each other in a playful whimsical manner. It suddenly
The ten graphics on the previous page all represent
softens the type. It also has rounded corners which
different ways we show emotion with type.
continues to support the playful narrative.

Look at the word shy. It is slightly

blurred and lowercase, fading
into the background. It is a no-
frills sans-serif without a ton of
character. It is also small compared Lowercase softens a message but adding wide
to the other elements on the page. spacing between lowercase letters can also make
it feel tired, slow and lazy.

You might have seen

type posters that stretch
This type presentation uses a very classic Didone traditional ways of
or Modern style serif typeface. There is even the presenting type. It may be
formality of a period at the end. It is a thicker, sideways, diagonal, vertical
bold weight and does not surprise or shock or even letters forming
anyone in any way. words, but scattered all over
a given area.

This thicker sans-serif

typeface has almost
no gap or spacing
between sentences
or characters. This
tight presentation
Nostalgic Nintendo DS BIOS
by David

What is nostalgic can be different for every

feels anxious and generation. For me, it’s the pixelated typefaces
alarming. Something I saw frequently when I played the original
important is being Nintendo. It brings back fuzzy warm feelings as I
said here. gaze at its familiar jagged edges.
 If typefaces had
personalities...

INTENSE happy Bebas Neue Regular

Aniuk Bold

confident relaxed
carefree unsure flirty
Azo Sans Uber Regular
Henriette

CALCULATED 
Fave

serious oddball
DIN Condensed Bold Al Fresco Bold
Komrade Minion Variable Concept

Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book

idealistic daydreamer
playful perfectionist
Antique Olive Bold
Baskerville Poster PT
Azo Sans

Amatic SC

stable sassy Futura

fancy pleasant youthful

Helvetica

Lust Script

Abril Display
Bree
Fairwater Script Regular

ALARMIST rigid
Termina
sensible Retiro Std Mokoko

Reserved innocent Purposeful

Retiro Std
Coquette
Cubano

ANXIOUS
Dharma Gothic C
FORMAL REBEL
Retiro Std
Gin
Each personality has a
purpose in your design.
As we studied before, typefaces have unique qualities
and flairs that make them one of a kind. Doing a
detailed study of the same letter across similar serifs
and san-serifs can illustrate this beautifully.

Make sure you establish the desired personality or

emotion you want to portray in your design while
picking your typeface choices.

Do you want to be dramatic? Sassy? Playful? Daring?

What kind of message are you communicating to the
viewer?

For example, imagine you are selling a high-end

perfume. You decide this perfume needs to be seen as
classy and dramatic. When you think of dramatic you
think of high contrast between the thickness of the line
strokes in the characters. You may also want seek out Lust in a bottle
a display type that has over-exaggerated features.
Typography
communicates through
size, shape and space.
Take for instance this headline for an intense personal
fitness program for men. The version on the left uses
a typeface that is slightly slanted, giving it a feeling
of motion. It looks as if it wants to jump into action, a
desired sensation we want to generate with a service
that encourages men to move.
The one on the right is all caps, too, but has a more
understated sizing compared with the prominence of
the photo. Because the photo has a heavy background
with consistent dark hues, it directs the focus towards
Rift
PREPARE
YOURSELF
the smaller yellow type that rests in the middle of the
figure.
Which version do you think works best? The answer?
It depends. If this is a social media ad, the one on the
left will work better to grab our distracted attention.
The one on the right has a more dramatic emotion
attached to it because of the sizing of the figure and
the typography. It might be better suited as a larger
poster, perhaps where the viewer can have a few
more extra seconds to digest the design.
Fat Frank
P R E P A R E Y O U R S E L F
WORLD study your
One of my favorite things to do is check the mail. Why?
Because I get to study advertising. I get to see what
font, layout and photo choices the designers made when
creating professional catalogs, magazines and more.

I might be one of the rare few who look at magazines for

the ads. I have done this my entire career and I think it
helps to see how others handle communicating messages
of all types. I would spend hours at the local bookstore
gazing at magazine covers, articles and layouts.

We are going to spend the next couple pages looking at

magazine articles and ads I found in my home. I have
selected several that contain great typography examples
that help to solidify the importance of type choice and
presentation in bringing out the desired emotion of the
viewer.
 Oversized Luxury.
These two spreads found in a Restoration Hardware Catalog feature an extra large
Modern (Didone) typeface that spans more than half of the page. Notice how the
typography presentation is all capital letters. Also notice how the small detailed serifs
are on full display when the typography is at this size. It brings the message to the
forefront of the layout. The more thin parts of the Didone font strokes conjure up an
elegant, luxurious and thoughtful experience.
Restoration Hardware Catalogue - 2020
Typography can bring things into focus.
This ad for a Meningitis B vaccine had the goal of encouraging young people to get the vaccine
without sounding overbearing. You can see the soccer player’s name is ROBERT. The headline uses
a bright yellow underscore in place of the B, which represents the B of the Meningitis B vaccine.
Upon further inspection, you realize the young man lost his leg because he did not have the
vaccination. For this ad it is all about the position of the type and directing your eye to the right
places for maximum impact.
 Personality
tweaks.
This ad fills in the bowls and closed counters
of the characters to add a youthful punch
to their display. The characters have a
haphazard structure which makes it perfect
for a kid-focused product.

Not all typefaces are perfect for the job

in their original characteristics. Sometimes
you have to customize display type to give
it the right pinch of pizzazz.

The baseline shift.

To add a dramatic flair to this display
type, used for a Food Network Television
show, they shifted a sans-serif typeface
off of the baseline in opposite directions.

This shift adds a bit of depth to the typeface,

complementing the show’s premise of
fixing restaurants that seem beyond repair.

Notice how the typography adopts the

subject matters idea?
Strength in ALL
CAPS.
Removing germs from your mouth is serious
business. This ad promotes a mouthwash
that is highly effective at doing just that.

The type is all capital letters throughout

the entire ad and it feels strong just like the
ending phrase in the headline “Finish Strong”.

Important, short messages can work well in all

capital letters to give a sense of confidence.

Font Pairing to
soften the impact.
This tourism ad for the Beaches of Fort Myers
and Sanibel, Florida, features two typefaces.
One uses an outlined stroke and the other
uses a casual script typeface.

The script softens the impact of the more rigid

outlined sans-serif typeface giving it a nice
balance.

Not all headlines need to use just one

typeface. Sometimes font pairing is necessary
to communicate headlines that need to be
both attention-grabbing but also relaxed.
section three // COLOR

Color has no
language
barrier.
Unlike written language, color touches
everyone instantly with a wide range of
feelings, emotions and messages.
If typography is the mouth that communicates
through sounds and words, then color is the eyes.
Along with typography, color adds the next layer
of rich context.
Color can mean different things to different
people. Yellow may bring up memories of your
mother’s bright yellow mixing bowl she used
when she baked cookies. Blue can remind you of
a sad memory, perhaps the blue of a worn scarf
from a lost loved one.
Culture can shift how we view colors, too. In
China for instance red is lucky, prosperous, full
of good fortune, while red in some countries can
mean bloodshed or violence.
COLOR //
INTRODUCTION
One thing is for certain, color touches us all.
Color is a designer’s secret weapon to help us tell
our stories.
This section will go over several critical Color
Theory aspects like the psychology and emotion
of color harmonies and how to properly use color
in practical projects.
Color can make the difference in whether
your design is seen as drab, calm, energetic,
harmonious, motivational, somber or tired.
Finding the right color choices can seem daunting,
until you learn a few tricks to help narrow down a
million choices into one.
 Red

Or
Color

le

an
p
Pur

ge
wa
Wheel

rm
Basics

co

Ye
ol
e

llo
Bl u

w
This is the color wheel. It should not be something
entirely unfamiliar to anyone who has taken even
the very basic of art classes.
Green

A color wheel tries to make sense of millions of

different colors by organizing them in logical
way.

HUES
You will see six main colors represented on the JUST JUST
wheel. These are called hues and they consist of RED BLUE
just one color and nothing else. So a blue hue is
just blue, a red hue only contains the color red.
No black, white, or gray added. The three primary colors are Red, Blue and
Yellow. They are primary because you cannot
You will notice that warm colors are in the right create them by mixing any two colors together.
half of this color wheel above and consist of Red,
Orange and Yellow, while the cooler colors, That leads us to secondary colors, Purple, Orange
Green, Blue and Purple are on the left side of the and Green. You can mix two primary colors to
wheel. create secondary colors.

Red
Or
le

an
p
Pur

ge
Ye
e

ll
Blu

ow

Green

P R I M A R Y C O L O R S S E C O N D A R Y C O L O R S
 FIGURE A

Red

Or
ple

an
Pur

ge
CREATING SECONDARY
FROM PRIMARY COLORS

Ye
e

llo
Blu

You can see in the figure how you can take

w
any two of the three main primary colors (red,
Green blue and yellow) to create secondary colors. In
this case yellow and blue (both primary) come
together to create green, and red and blue come
together to create purple.

We can slowly create more and more colors

by mixing both primary and secondary colors
together. In figure B we are mixing red (a primary
color) and orange (a secondary color), producing
a color in-between those, depending on the ink
mixtures of red and orange.

FIGURE B
Red Red-Orange Orange

There are not huge differences when

you mix a secondary and a primary
color together but they do create a
much wider variety of hues.

This allows the full gamut of colors. The mixing of

a primary and secondary color is called Tertiary
Colors.
COLOR WHEEL INCLUDING
Our color wheel is becoming more complex TERTIARY COLORS
and rich with color options. Being able to pick
the right combination of colors now becomes a
daunting task. Color harmonies ease this task by
creating specific methods in picking colors based
on where they land on the color wheel.

With enough color mixing you will end

up with an endless amount of color
options with the only limit being what is
out of range for the human eye to see.
Hue, color, shade, tint:
which one is which?
Have you ever heard someone use the term
“shade” when talking about the paint color they
picked out for their living room? There might be a
good chance they are using that term incorrectly.
But, there are so many names for different
variations of color that you cannot blame them.
The main terms you need to focus on are Color,
Hue, Tint, Shade and Tone. The term color is the
broadest description of the entire color spectrum;
any variation of color can use the overarching
term color as its description. As you get more
narrow in description you get the term Hue. As
we saw earlier, a hue is a single color without
any additional inks or colors added. So red
would be a pure hue. Hues that have white,
black or gray added to it can no longer have a
hue as it loses its purity.
When we have a blue, for example, and we
want to make it a light blue we can add white
to blue. When we add white to a pure hue like
blue it is called a Tint. The opposite is true with
adding black, that is called a Shade. Lastly,
adding gray to a pure color hue will make it a
Tone of that hue.

COLOR
This term is used to describe any
color we see whether it is a hue,
shade, tone or tint.
HUE This is the general color family our
color belongs to. You will notice the
absence of grays, blacks and
whites; this only includes color.

TINT
A tint is the presence of a hue with
only white added to it. The more
tint or white you add to the hue the
lighter it becomes.

SHADE
Shade is just the opposite with the
addition of just black to a single hue.
This tends to make hues appear darker.
TONE
Tone is the same thing as tints and
shades but is a hue with the color
gray added to it.
 FULL SATURATION

MAIN
HUE

ADDING WHITE ADDING BL AC K

TINTS SHADES

A D D I N G G R AY
TONES

You can see the wide variety of color options

that become available once you start to mix
neutral colors with a solid color hue.

NO SATURATION

Hue Cube

I created this graph so we can see what different ADDING WHITE

tones, tints and shades might look like for one
color hue.
HUE SLIDER
Y

In this case we have a pure purple color hue.

ADDING BL AC K
A
R
G

From the left we are slowly adding more and

G
IN

more white to each color swatch. The right

D
D

side starts with the main blue hue and slowly

A

adds more and more black to each swatch. We

also add more gray to each swatch moving
downward, decreasing the saturation of that hue.

Most modern software includes a color selection option

called a “Hue Cube”. They allow you to see and select color
variations that slowly add more gray, white and black to
your main hue selection.
Value
You may have heard of the term Value before
and it is the measurement of the brightness of a
color. So for instance, yellow has a higher value
compared to blue. Some people use the word
“lightness” interchangeably with the word value.
You may also have seen the term Intensity used
for value.
HIGH LOW
VA LU E VA LU E
To find out how much value a color has, convert
your colors to black and white to find out how
dark the gray tones go.
As you can see, blue has one of the darkest
values while yellow has one of the lightest. When
you strip all of the hue out of a color you are
left with something called Grayscale, which only
contains black at certain levels.
When we look at photos that have a lot of yellow hues in them we
tend to think, “wow, that is bright!” Yellow actually reflects more
light, giving it a much higher value. Compare that to cooler colors
which reflect less light. It is also a reason why yellow tends to be
reserved for call-to-actions or important elements and text while
cooler colors tend to work better in larger areas.
Saturation
When you add gray to a hue, we call those Tints
and Shades, respectively. What do we call the
variation we see when this process happens? We
call this saturation and it describes the brilliance of
a color. If value describes the lightness of the color
then saturation describes the strength of a color.
HIGH SATURATION LOW SATURATION
As we slowly add gray to the pure purple hue
in the first square we slowly see the saturation
decreasing. The saturation or strength of the hue
is becoming less vibrant or dull.
In Adobe Photoshop I went to Adjustments then to Hue/Saturation and reduced
the saturation by 50 percent. This adds gray to the hues in the photo to give it a
more toned down look. You may have heard of the term “toned down” before,
which is the act of adding gray to a color which calms the intensity of a hue.
Bold color
hues
When you use the six main primary and
secondary colors as full hues they can
give designs a distinctive “Pop Art” look.
Andy Warhol made this style famous
with his use of vibrant, fully saturated
hues. They can make bold statements
and draw a viewer’s eyes to your design.

Andy Warhol got his start as an

illustrator in the advertising world. His
attention-grabbing aesthetic was most
likely influenced by having to create Judy Garland, Andy Warhol

eye-catching illustrations for products and

services.
 The power of
color mixing
Primary and Secondary colors can be very
restricting and it is why further color mixing
smithhouse smithhouse is needed to put together a wider, more
versatile color palette.

Take for instance the bright color palette

using just primary and secondary colors
for the logo here (to the left) for a financial
institution.
smithhouse smithhouse
It’s great for grabbing your eyes, but
horrible for establishing the right mood and
tone for the company!

We can take the pure blue hue here (below) and mix
it with either gray, black or white to get a full range
of complex colors. This bodes well for a softer more
professional look needed for the company’s industry.

White, black and gray are all neutral colors, so smithhouse

when mixed with a powerful strong hue they achieve
a nice balance of color.

When we start to mix simple hues with more

complex hues like orange-red, maroon or lilac, along
with a neutral, we start to get overwhelmed with the
amount of possible color choices for our projects.

smithhouse

The palette featured

smithhouse
here is very harmonious
because all three colors
in the palette are derived
from the same primary
blue hue.
Color Harmonies
How do we start to create and mix colors together to make effective
color palettes? There are millions of color choices to make and knowing
methods, and finding a starting point, helps in paring our selections
down.

Color harmonies are an array of different color techniques. There are

six main color harmonies commonly used in design. Although there are
many others, these six are the most helpful.
ANALOGOUS COMPLEMENTARY SPLIT -COMPLEMENTARY

These colors are close to each other
on the color wheel. There is little
contrast between the colors, giving
them a softer look. One of the most
versatile color harmonies outside of
monochromatic.
Complementary colors exists on Split-complementary colors takes the
opposite sides of the color wheel. They high contrast complementary colors and
have the most contrast of any two lessens the dramatic contrast by splitting
colors, giving them a dramatic look. the difference on the opposing side.

TRIADIC TETRADIC MON OC HROMATIC

These colors are evenly spaced out
along the color wheel in a triangle
pattern. You may have noticed that the
three primary colors are triadic colors,
as well as the three secondary colors.
A bit harder to use, tetradic forms a
rectangle or square around the wheel
to form a color palette that has no one
dominant color. These are great for
creating big pops of color that exist
throughout your whole palette.
Monochromatic colors are just
variations of one single hue. These
variations can be created by adding
white, gray or black to the base hue
to create a wide variety of different
shades and tints. This one is the easiest
color harmonies to work with.
Color palette
selection example. ANALOGOUS

Let’s say we need to develop a color palette for

a new company. Let’s say we settle on the color
blue.
PURE HUE
We look toward analogous colors to find nice,
closely related pairings to the color blue and we
find a deep purple a blue-green color.

Using pure hues can make creating designs from PURE HUE
those pure hues difficult because they all have the
same saturation and strength.
ADDING WHITE

We can add white, gray or black to any of our

ADDING BL AC K
analogous colors to gain a wider workable color
palette.

We have established some

COMPLEMENTARY
great cooler colors using a
analogous color scheme.
PURE HUE
But, what if we wanted to
add a punch of color to
our palette? PURE HUE

We can take our analogous

colors and find corresponding
complement colors for each one. This creates
ADDING WHITE
a dynamic pop as it has higher contrast.

We can even find various shades, tints and tones

of our colors to expand our complement color
set.

This yields a great set of analogous colors but

also complement colors in that set. This is a great
example of how understanding different color
harmonies can give you a huge head start in
pairing colors together.

It can be one color harmony or a combination of

several that helps form your color choices.
PRIMARY SECONDARY
COLORS COLORS NEUTRALS

Having such a huge color palette like this when Neutrals are anything that has low saturation.
creating design work can be daunting and The ones shown here are in a pure grayscale,
unnecessary. We need to pare down our palette without any original hue remaining. (Neutrals can
to select individual colors that have a purpose. still have hues in them, just not very prominent.)

Primary colors are the most used colors in a
designer’s toolbelt for any given project. These
will take up larger spaces and be featured more
often as prominent colors.
Secondary colors are used less frequently and
are alternatives if a primary color is too bright,
too dark or too light for a given area or if a
situation warrants something outside of the
original primary color palette.
I like to include at least one or two neutral colors
in any color palette. Without neutrals you only
have access to swatches that have obvious
hues, giving you less choices when it comes to
typography color and other design elements.
Make sure to test out your color palette on practical projects. You
will discover changes, tweaks and new swatches that need to be
added to maximize the harmony between your selected primary and
secondary color choices.

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Contrast is king.
Having the right amount of contrast between your
colors is essential for effective design.

The highest contrast available to you is white on black

(or black on white). Text is the most legible when it
High Low
is black on a white background. Our eye establishes Contrast Contrast
the white as the background and the black text as the
foreground. It is easily seen and read.

The low contrast example makes the text look less

obvious and more subtle. This make readability an
issue, but can also make for great subtle messages
when you don’t want your text to be the first thing
that stands out.

The fast food ad to the left uses

complementary colors on the color
wheel (red and green). Because they
have great distance from each other on
the wheel, it gives them a high contrast.

It is effective in drawing your eye to

the headline. You may also notice
purple and cooler tones dominate the
background so it does not compete with
the red and green headline color.

There is high contrast in the headline

and low contrast in the background;
they work together to bring the most
important items to the forefront.

HIGH CONTRAST HEADLINE

LOW CON T R A S T BAC KG ROU N D

Contrast can
help sell.
%10
OFF

Organic
In some cases, contrast can increase the effectiveness
of an ad, such as a social media ad (see right). The ad
on the top will produce more interest and clicks because the only
of the higher contrast colors used for the 10 percent off all natural
promotion, the most important part of the ad.
lotion.
The ad on the bottom will most likely be glanced over
by busy viewers because the green blends in with the
green dominated background.

BUY NOW
Call-to-action buttons on website
landing pages and display ads %10
OFF

Organic
need to be obvious and quickly
found.

BUY NOW Higher contrast buttons tend to

convert better. the only
all natural
Color is just one way to add
BUY NOW contrast to a button. This could
lotion.
be done by adding a border
or being different in some way
BUY NOW compared to the nearby type
and size of the other objects on
the page.
LOWER CONTRAS T

LOWER CONTRAS T

LOWER CONTRAS T

BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW

HIGHERR CONTRAST

HIGHERR CONTRAST

HIGHERR CONTRAST

BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW

BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW

The background and other colors in the layout can make a difference in the contrast of your button. Darker backgrounds will
encourage the use of lighter colors, while for lighter backgrounds you will want to use darker colors to stand out.
 Designer Designer
Warehouse Warehouse

LOW CONTRAS T HIGH CONTRAST

Low contrast can be used to reduce tension in your
design and soften the look. These two posters feel very
different yet they have the same layout, typography
and structure.
The color contrast in the version on the left is very
low, matching not only with the nearby photo but also
looking light against the light tan background. The
example on the right feels heavy with it’s dark black
typography on top of a light background.

NEUTRAL COLORS MON OC HROMATIC

LOW CONTRAS T
C O LO R PA L E T T E
EXAMPLES

Monochromatic color harmonies

make excellent lower contrast
color palettes.

Neutral colors lack saturation,

so when put together they
have a common, unifying
characteristic.

a softer look lower contrast

WEIGHT
Weight is just as important as contrast. You
will notice that, even though the black circle
is only half the size of the lighter circle, it
dominates the space because it has a higher
weight. This weight comes from the high
contrast it has against the white background.

This means that high contrast colors can help

you decide which object is heavier, therefore
LIGHT H E AV Y
gaining the most attention in a design.

Let’s change the colors. Now we have

a higher contrast white color against the
darker beiges. This high contrast suddenly
makes the larger circle more dominant and
heavier, while the smaller circle is barely
noticeable.

H E AV Y LIGHT

H E AV Y LIGHT
Finding inspiration
in photos.
There are millions of fantastic color palettes It could be that you source inspiration from a
locked inside photos of people, nature, cultures series of related photos for a branding project
and the world. (example below).

Take your inspiration from photos by sampling
various darker and lighter hues in a photograph.
Start with the lightest colors and slowly work
down into selecting darker color hues. That way
you get a rich, diverse color variety.
This color palette from a sushi restaurant branding
effort was sourced from a series of raw fish
photos.
The raw fish photo represents the primary item the
brand serves, so it makes sense to start sourcing
colors from something close to home.

Raw Tuna Stone Gray

Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C
RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33
CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0
Web #52054 Web #52054

Tuna light Tuna lighter Tuna lightest Stone light Stone lighter Stone lightest
Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C
RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33
CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0
Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054

Raw Salmon Raw Yellowtail

Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C
RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33
CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0
Web #52054 Web #52054

Salmon light Salmon lighter Salmon lightest Yellowtail light Yellowtail lighter Yellowtail lightest
Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C Pantone #142 C
RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33 RBG: 253, 253, 33
CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0 CYMK: 3,15,245,0
Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054 Web #52054
N A T U R E F O O D A R T

L A N D S C A P E S B U I L D I N G S P E O P L E
 20X ZOOM
SAMPLE 1

SAMPLE 2

SAMPLE 3

SAMPLE 4

SAMPLE 5

SAMPLE 6

Pixel Perfect
Digital photos are made up of thousands of pixels.
Each square represents a different hue, shade
or tint. Take time to find the right blend of hues
by sampling many different points of a color in a
photo.

You can see that one tiny orange dot on this hand
painted work of art stores quite the variety of color
shades, tints and tones. It takes time to figure out
which one will be the right choice for the desired
orange color hue.

You will be making the same decisions for the color When picking the final color hues from this photo
hues you select to be a part of the overall palette. If I made sure to select the brighter and lighter
you are choosing bright vibrant hues then going for pixels from each color hue selection so the color
some of the lighter pixels might yield better results. palette seems united with a similar theme.
 the anatomy
of strong color palettes

USES A COLOR
HARMONY
This one specifically uses a
triadic scheme by seeking
out color choices that extend
across the color wheel.
HAS CONTRAST
You need at least one of your
swatches to have contrast
against the others or your color
palette will not be versatile
enough to use in different
situations. This one features at
least one lighter swatch and
one darker swatch.
CONTAINS AT
LEAST ONE
N E U T R A L S WATC H
If your entire palette has high
saturation how would you be
able to use contrast in your work?
Choose at least one swatch to
have a little less saturation from the
others. This can be a gray, white,
cream, tan, or a subtle color.

FLEXIBILITY

example example example example example A solid color palette

can have many different
workable combinations of
swatches. These combinations
still maintain readability
example example example example example of the type. They offer the
designer different avenues in
achieving visual goals.
 Alice
&
Bob
THERE IS ONE
DOMINANT
Are tying COLOR

the knot! In this case the pink

swatch takes the lead with
everything centered around
it. It gives this Save the Date
card a focus and a chance

SAVE THE DATE

for other printed items to
match its color.

December 28
Three O’clock in the afternoon

Invitation to follow
THEY CARRY
A THEME
Who knew that the watercolor
painting hanging in my office could
yield such a diverse color palette?

Strong palettes have consistent

themes that are inspired by real life.
It could be a nearby lake, the desert
or the sunset. These themes can
relate to the industry of your client or
company.
THE COLORS WORK
TOGETHER TO SET
THE RIGHT MOOD

Every color evokes an emotion.

Effective color palettes function when
each swatch works to elicit a desired
emotion or feeling. It could be calm
and focused, like the two illustrations
you see here.

We will learn more about how to

choose colors based on emotions and
feelings in the upcoming section.
psychology
of
color
There is power to color in design. Emotions
are summoned when we view certain colors.
Colors can give you a sense of calm, can move you What about Target®? This big box retailer sells
or spark emotions of happiness and joy. Colors can everything under the sun and uses this vivid attention-
remind us of something simple from childhood or grabbing red. What if we change it to blue? Their
even make us hungry. whole advertising campaign is built on energy and
fun, and blue just zaps that energy.
How we pick and choose the colors we use in design
are greatly influenced by the type of emotions we
are interested in evoking. ENERGY POP

To understand the importance of color in design, I

like to visualize popular brands with dramatically
different colors. Let’s say the very popular
McDonalds® logo switched from red and yellow to
brown and pink. Not incredibly appetizing is it? We
are not changing the logo, just the colors, yet that
color switch can really feel like a big deal!
ENERGY ZAP
We have assigned colors to certain brands. These
colors feel comfortable to us because some of these
brands have been a part of our everyday lives for
many years.

In this section, we will talk about eight different color

categories and study how those color choices are
used in advertising, branding and art to persuade,
entice and to resonate with the audience.

FRIES PLEASE! NO THANKS!

 I created this Psychology of Color Chart.
It lists emotions, personality and feelings
commonly associated with various colors.

disruptive Common uses:

Common uses: Social Media friendly
Social Media
Food & Beverage Common uses:
Teen Brands Children & Youth
Food & Beverage
Fast Food adventurous Education
happiness Non-profit
Entertainment Cleaning Products
News Media
abrasive
bold enthusiasm youthful
anxiety
outspoken power alarming fresh warmth
energetic spontaneous
confident strength

anger Orange overwelming

direct Ye
dramatic llo fresh
d

w
Re

warm fertility
romance love
envy
Common uses:
Cleaning Products
Green

Common uses:
psychology
& Services
growth
Pink

vibrance
Youth focused Brands
Organic Products

of
Feminine Brands Investing Companies

color
Beauty Industry

natural success
romantic compassion
frugal
organic
le

Cy

charming cool
rp

an

renewal
u

rebellious
P

maternal peaceful
Blue
passion comfort self-expression cleanliness
dignified sophistication sincere experimental
stability productive open

sadness clarity
Common uses: adaptable dedicated subtle Common uses:
Healthcare Technology
Technology Start-ups
Common uses:
Hospitality trust Social Services
Non-profit Banks non-threatening Service Industry
Technology Bio-Tech
Healthcare
rational Social Media
Industrial independent
Transportation
 RED
BOLD, POWERFUL
AND DIRECT

Common uses: disruptive

Social Media
Food & Beverage
Fast Food
Entertainment abrasive
News Media

The warm colors like reds, yellows and oranges are bold
outspoken power
going to bring more energy and vibrancy to your
design, with reds being especially powerful. alarming
confident strength
This is why warmer colors tend to be harder to use on
large areas of designs because of the energy and draw direct anger
it has, especially REDS.

There could be good reason to draw eyes to your
design; gaining attention amidst the noise is one
thing. Red provokes alertness and is commonly used
on buttons and call-to-actions to pull eyes toward that
area. You commonly see it used for SALE signs both
online and offline.
d
Re
warm
Reds tend to increase your appetite. So, there
is a good reason why fast food restaurants
tend to favor red in their logos and ads. As
you can see here some of the most popular food
cool
chains use red as their dominate color.

Reds can easily be overused. For certain projects you

can easily use too much and it can drown a design in Reds should be used with an intentionality and
too much attention. Unless your message is urgent, use a purpose. Reds can also evoke a response of
reds as directional guides to help the viewer understand anger and fear as well, so keep that in mind when
important parts of your layout. considering using this attention-grabbing color.

Red covering an entire background grabs your attention but

does it keep it? This lone red triangle in a sea of black really
makes it the main focal point of the design. Use red when
necessary but make sure you use it with purpose.
 ORANGE
FRIENDLY, WARM AND FRESH

Common uses:
Social Media
Food & Beverage
Teen Brands
Education

As we move along the color wheel we run into Oranges are popular on
oranges. Oranges keep some of the enthusiasm and social media to add a
excitement of red, but it also begins to combine the youthful energy to call-to-
energy of yellow. action buttons and to soften
the impact that a strong red
Since they take a little bit of the edge off of red you would have.
can find more ways to use orange in your designs but
also keep that same bright energy. You do not see oranges used
very frequently on buildings,
Oranges work wonderful with cooler colors like blue. signs or walls. This is great
They tend to be complements on the color wheel and news for graphic designers
orange really stands out as a bright highlight in a who are looking for a small
sea of cool colors. This balance works well in design pop of color that has not
because it provides a since of contrast. been overused in everyday
life.

As we will discover with

yellow as well, all warm
colors have a higher value to
them than cooler colors.

This brightness factor may not

be the right choice for a more
reserved brand. You have to
You will see oranges and yellows used frequently in seriously think about the type
education industries because of their friendly and of energy, brightness and
approachable disposition. emotions you want to elicit
in the viewer when using this
You will also notice beverage companies use orange energetic color.
frequently because it can denote freshness. Most likely
because we tend to tie fresh citrus flavors with the color
orange.

In interior design there is a reason you do not

see many pure orange couches. Orange can
overtake everything else in the room, bringing
undue attention to one piece of furniture. The
same concept applies to orange in graphic
design. The couch to the right with orange
accent pillows works better with the other
elements of the room.
 YELLOW
SPONTANEOUS, YOUTHFUL
AND ANXIOUS
Common uses:
Children & Youth
Non-profit
Cleaning Products

Moving further through the warm colors we finally
come to yellow. The Energy is undeniable with yellows,
but it can also be one of its biggest weaknesses. Along
with pinks, yellow is the least used color in design
because it can easily be considered overwhelming. It
still can be a great complement color alongside other
colors that can feed off the brightness of yellow.
In this social media example below we see yellow
used in isolation to bring out the 20 percent-off
deal. It works because it is the only yellow on the
page. The eye is naturally drawn to it. When used
in larger areas yellow looses this effectiveness and
causes the design to look busy and anxious. Yellow
is a color best used in tandem with others.

Yellow can be hard to see and read when printed, so I

try to avoid using it with type unless it is very intentional
and readable (like the example, below left) using
higher contrasted colors.
YELLOW
AS AN
ACCENT
YELLOW READABILITY
CAN BE IS ALWAYS
HARD TO AN ISSUE
WHEN USING IT
WORK WITH
WITHOUT ENOUGH
FOR LARGE CONTRAST.
AREAS

Yellow has a place in design but wield it carefully and ANXIOUS

sparingly. This color can evoke happiness and give off AND
BUSY
youthful vibes and might be why you see it commonly
used in children’s products.

Yellows can also evoke anxieties as well. It might

be why you do not see a lot of yellow used in the
healthcare industry.

Purple, the complement color to yellow helps to tame its wild nature.

Most brands that use yellow as their dominant color use it

alongside a high contrast color like black or purple.
 GREEN
SUCCESSFUL, NATURAL,
ORGANIC AND MINDFUL

Common uses:
Cleaning Products
& Services
Organic Products
Investing Companies

We are now firmly in the

cooler colors on the color
wheel. There is a reason why
Green is the color choice of
many cleaning industries.
Green equals clean and
fresh but it also reminds us of
nature. It reminds us of fresh
spring days when those bright
green leaves start blooming
This landing page for a popular stock trading app targeted https://robinhood.com/us/en/
on the trees after a long, dark toward younger generations uses varying shades of green in
winter. their brand assets and marketing campaigns.

Green can also be used heavily by the financial

industry to show positive gains on wealth and status. Fidelity is company in the financial
We see the stock market highlighted in green we industry. Like a lot in this industry
they have stuck with the color
know it was a good positive day on the market. It is
green for the last few decades. You
no wonder why banks commonly use green in their might find it hard to find a financial
branding. Why not remind viewers of those positive company that uses the color red.

increasing stock market days?

It’s no wonder that alongside blue, green

is one of the most commonly used color
palette choices in design.

You can see below the wide variety of

popular brands that use green in their logo.
Whole Foods, an organic focused grocer,
uses green prominently to promote their
healthy, natural products.

Interestingly enough, Starbucks features

green as their main brand color even
though the biggest product they sell is
brown or tan (coffee). It would be a more
natural choice to choose brown to match
the color of brewed or roasted coffee
beans but they decided to maintain a
more vibrant color palette of green. It
reinforces the feeling of freshness, purity
and cleanliness.
CYAN (BLUE-GREEN)
SELF-EXPRESSIVE, RENEWAL,
OPEN AND PEACEFUL

Cyan is a unique color, not as commonly used as some

of the others like green and blue but it combines green’s
organic clean feeling and blue’s stability to create its own
unique blend of the two.

You may commonly see startups use cyan as this pleasing

complex color spans multiple emotions. Mint is a budgeting
app that previously used a more traditional green color. It
recently re-branded itself to include more blue in its green
Student Work - Anna Kim @h.anna_designs
colors producing a pleasing blue-green mix.

The mixing of green (a secondary color)

2 010 2 014 2 018 and blue (a primary color) produce the
Tertiary Color of blue-green.
You can see the evolution of the financial budgeting app Mint by Intuit. They started off with a predictable
green and in its 2014 refresh it added a touch of blue-green, finally switching entirely away from a pure
green hue in 2018.

This color stands out in a sea of green. Not a pure

Brown and tan rarely play well with
green hue and not a pure blue hue, these in-between
colors, but tertiary colors tend to
colors pair well with neutral colors including golds and pair up with neutrals more than other
tans (see below). primary or secondary colors.
 BLUE
Common uses:
Banks
Technology
Healthcare
Social Media
Industrial
STABLE, CALM AND TRUSTWORTHY Transportation

The Procter & Gamble Company • v

P&G’s integrated and mutually reinforcing strategies

are the foundation for strong, balanced growth and value creation.

Blue is the most commonly used color for brands We have a portfolio of daily-use

worldwide, and there are many reasons why because it

products, many providing health,
hygiene and cleaning benefits in
categories where performance plays

evokes emotions like stability and calmness. a significant role in brand choice.

Banks love to use the color blue; especially because

We’re operating through We’re creating and extending
a more focused, agile, brand superiority across
accountable organization product, package,
banks have been losing trust since the 2008 recession. operating at the speed
of the market.
communication, retail
execution and value.

You also see it used by industrials and those in the PORTFOLIO

manufacturing industry and the health care industry. performance drives

brand choice

Blue is a great color to use for large areas of a design

like a background. Blue can easily stand on its own ORGAN IZ ATION
empowered, agile
INTEGR ATE D
GROW TH
SU PE RIORIT Y
to win with

with less of a need to depend on other colors to tame it accountable STR ATEGY consumers

down. Blue’s calm character makes it the most versatile

color on the color wheel.

CON STRUC TIVE PRODUC TIVIT Y

DI S RU PTION to fuel
across our business investments

We’re leading the constructive We’re driving productivity

disruption of our industry across improvements in both cost
all areas of the value chain, to win and cash to fund investments
in today’s dynamic world. and improve profitability.

Page 7 of the 2020 Proctor and Gamble Annual Report

us.pg.com/annualreport2020

Blues can be huge assets in your color arsenal

because of their versatility and ease in working with
Some of the biggest and most trusted brands in the world use the color
other colors on the color wheel.
blue. IBM is even referred to as “Big Blue”.

Some of the most popular superheros wear outfits with blue as

Did you know that the color blue was voted the most their dominate color as they are dedicated and independent.
popular color for both men and women globally?
We typically think of blue as being the ocean or the
sky, but those two things often conjure up feelings of
freedom and peace.

In some cultures, though, blue can indicate mourning of

a loved one. In Western culture one can sometimes be
referred to as “having the blues” or “singing the blues”
when one is depressed and feeling down. “Why do
you feel so blue?”
 PURPLE
COMFORT, SOPHISTICATION AND PASSION

Common uses:
Healthcare
Technology
Hospitality
Next, we move into Purple. Purple mixes a bit of the Non-profit
stability and calmness of blue with the compassion and
vibrancy of pink. It starts to take on a bit of warm tones,
giving it a little kick.

Purple is commonly associated with royalty and

sophistication. It’s also commonly used in the hospitality
industry for that very reason.

We also see it used by healthcare as well, as that sense of

love and passion mixes with the stability of trust of blue.

Purple is another color that can easily be used in larger

areas of a design, yet add a little more of the energy
from those warmer tones. Purple is rich, silky and
luxurious and when used right in a design it can feel
wonderful.

Purples are having a renaissance in the design world with

a huge resurgence of use in youthful vibrant brands. You
see purple used as duotones or gradients and as overlays
over photos, giving photos a richer retro vibe.

Purple and vibrant yellows are compliments on the color

wheel, and you can see that combination of energy
happening anytime you see these two colors together.
Purple can take up more space in your design as those
yellows should always play a highlighting roll, being used
less often to highlight certain areas of a design. Canva.com | Purple and Blue Annual Company
Report Professional Presentation
 PINK
DRAMATIC, COMPASSIONATE
AND ROMANTIC

Common uses:
Youth focused Brands
Feminine Brands
Beauty Industry

Pinks are a bit tough to use because of their strong

historic association with femininity, as a lot of brands
who target women use pink. But do not count them out
too soon as that stereotype is slowly evolving.

Pinks can remind us of romance and love. If reds and

purples are passionate, then pinks are compassionate;
a friendlier emotion that is perfect for youth focused
brands that want to have an authentic personal feeling.

Pinks are similar to yellows in that they can be hard to

use in large areas of a design. Lighter versions of pink
tend to do better with this that those hot pinks, which
have that same problem yellow has of being too strong.

The shade of pink can make a

big difference in the strength of
POWERFUL GENTLE
the emotion it brings. Light pink is
gentle, yet hot pink is dramatic. Pink is a fantastic gender-bending color. Its
charming characteristics can be used to bring
a sense of fun, kindness and love.

Pinks work best in tandem with a calming counter color. Take

for instance this example, where the pink draws your eye, but
the color calms it down just enough to take it in. This is why
you might commonly see pinks used with purples and other
Canva.com | Instagram Story Template | Pink Gym Fitness

analogous colors on the color wheel in the form of gradients

or photo filters.

Pink is the color used least often by companies for their main
primary color. Lyft, a car riding service, is an example of a
youthful brand that uses pink.

Pink comes loaded with tons of social stereotypes but, as

mentioned before, when used carefully and with intentionality
it could add a lot to your design.
NEUTRALS
P R O V I D E B A L A N C E

What about everything outside the realm

of the the higher saturation primary and
secondary colors? When we combine more
than two colors together we can get a wide
range of browns, tans, beiges, grays, golds,
silvers and blacks.

Black and White can seem clean and

Browns, tans, golds
professional with a serious undertone. Both
and beiges can be
white and black can be used to tame higher used in textures and
saturated colorful hues. They act to balance background colors.
out saturation with desaturated colors.

Canva.com | Instagram Post Template

Black and white can

be cinematic and
introspective.

Canva Template | Maroon and Blue Canva.com | Instagram Post Template

Corporate people Walking Business Book Cover
 I took these photos upon a recent visit to a local
Jeni’s Ice Cream (my husband and baby are
making cameos). You will notice the matching
orange chairs and pops of color. The hand
painted mural can be seen almost a mile away.

A case study in the friendly

power of orange.
Jeni’s is an ice cream brand that has wonderfully embraced a
highly saturated deep orange as their main primary brand color.

Orange is rarely used by brands, but I think it really makes

Jeni’s stand out. As an organic ice cream brand that focuses on
premium homemade ice cream it needs to have a congenial,
warm quality.

They have integrated it in website graphics, their main signage

at their restaurant and in painted murals on their walls.

When viewing this orange in person you are welcomed and

greeted with a friendly vivid color.
jenis.com
 A series of colors
This example for a mock soda brand I
created for one of my courses contains not
just one highly saturated hue but four.

Color can go a long way in helping

differentiate product types or flavors and
scents.

Complement
colors
The orange and blue complement
colors bring in both warm and cool
colors in close proximity, creating a
pleasant tension in the design. The
black neutral color calms down the
tension making it less jarring and
more digestible.

Canva Template | Social Media Post

“1967 Point Blank Movie with Lee Marvin Advertisement Playboy
November 1967” by SenseiAlan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Angry Red
The aggressive properties of red really come out in
this “Point Blank” movie poster from 1967. This deeply
saturated red matches the color of blood which helps to
echo the murderous plot of the movie.
 The natural look
of brown and
tans.
Not all advertising needs to scream with
loud bold colors. This ad from Oscar Mayer
advertises its natural brand of sliced deli
meat.

The tans and hand sketched background

graphics both work together to make
this product look safe, organic and
“homemade”.

Vibrant Culture
Do you notice that the same colors of the
yellow and green come from the woman’s
clothing? The little girl’s orange dress is the
inspiration for the pop of color on the top
and bottom ripped paper texture.

This is a great example of borrowing color

ideas from the photos you use.

Canva Template | Social Media Post

Luxury in cool
colors.
Cooler colors like purples, blues and
greens do well with luxury brands.
This life coaching brand gets a
professional reserved feeling with its
complementary gold and blue color
palette.
 Design for the
color blind.
Accessibility matters when creating your
work. This section will review how color vision
deficiency works and ways to be able to create
design for everyone.
Up to five percent of the world has some form of Red-green color blindness is the most common form.
color vision deficiency. That is a good chunk of the They will often have issues with distinguishing the
population and it affects more men than women, difference between red and green options. For
although women can still be affected. instance, a granny smith apple and a red delicious
apple could appear closer in color than someone with
Having color vision deficiency can reduce your ability “normal” vision would perceive them.
to see different colors on the color spectrum. This is
from a genetic mutation with your eye’s cone cells. We
have three main cone cells: one that detects lower light
wave frequencies, one for medium, and one for higher
wavelength frequencies on the visual spectrum. People
with these mutations have shifts in position of one of
these three different eye cones, impairing the ability to
see the colors in that particular frequency.

There are many different forms of colorblindness

depending on which of the three main cone cells are
affected, shifted and, in some cases, cones can be
missing entirely.

Have you ever looked at a traffic light? Have you ever

wondered why the green never really looks green? It
is in fact not a pure green hue and is mixed with blue
BLUE GREEN RED to help those with color vision deficiency see difference
Absorption

between the red and green lights easier.

Any shifts in the three main cone cells we have can tweak
our ability to properly see the entire visible spectrum.

Wavelength
 MOST COMMON
FORMS

D E U T E R A N O M A LY
RED-GREEN

Difficulty in establishing the

differences between red and
green hues.

“Simulation of Different Color Deficiencies, Color Blindness” by entirelysubjective is licensed under CC BY 2.0
TRITANOPIA
BLUE-YELLOW

Have difficulty distinguishing between

Rules for thinking about bluish and greenish hues, as well as

yellowish and reddish hues.

color vision deficiency:

Never have important call-to-actions,

1 buttons or text dependent on just
color to be noticed or set apart.
You can put a special border around important buttons on websites, or use size as a way to
define important headlines or type. You can also use icons and symbols to help set certain items
apart from others.

RED AND GREEN COLORS CAN APPEAR HIGH CONTRAST BET WEEN COLORS
S I M I L A R TO S O M E O N E W I T H D E U T E R A N O M A LY

CLICK HERE CLICK HERE

 Use highly
2 contrasting colors.
Subtle hue changes may not be as noticeable with
someone with color vision deficiency. Higher contrasting
colors gives your design a better chance to display your
layout hierarchy.

Limit or modify This factors for all variants and shifts in cone cell

3 tough color
combinations.
sensitivities. Not every person with identified color
blindness will have issues with each one of these color
combinations, just some more than others.

There are certain color combinations

when placed side by side can be GREEN & RED BLUE & GREY
harder for someone with color vision
GREEN & BROWN GREEN & GREY
deficiency to set apart. The higher
contrast rule can help you better use BLUE & PURPLE GREEN & BLACK
these color combos when you do
need to use them. Also you can add GREEN & BLUE
small amounts of other hues to your
LIGHT GREEN & YELLOW.
pure colors to help further distinguish
the colors form each other.
ORIGINAL

Use a color
blindness
4 simulator to try
out your design.
Walking in someone else’s shoes can give you great
perspective. This vivid orange and purple t-shirt design
looks fantastic to those with a normal range of vision. I
can use a color blindness simulator to upload my photo
and see how my design would look through the eyes of
someone with various different color vision limitations.

Depending on which color vision limitation they have

they could interpret my bright vivid orange as pink or
my purple as more grayish tone.

www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator
 All light mixed together

Color
at full brightness produces
white light

Spaces
Creating consistency
with color everywhere. RGB
ADDITIVE COLOR

Our designs can appear anywhere. Mobile screens,
laptops, printed newspaper, glossy business cards or
metal signs. The challenge with this is our chosen color
palettes may look different in all of those different
places. This section will review the different ways to
represent color in both the digital and print space.
Knowing how each color mode works will help you
to understand how best to tweak color to make it
consistent across all channels.
This is called an additive color system because you add
colors together to form other color combinations.
For example, if a screen wanted to produce a pixel that
is white, it would have all three of its phosphors (lights)
on red, green and blue at full brightness. If it wanted
to remain black it would have no light emission and all
three light phosphors switched to off. For gray it can
have all three lights on but only at half brightness.

REPRESENTS ONE

RGB (ADDITIVE COLOR SYSTEM)

PIXEL ON YOUR SCREEN
GREEN LIGHT
(phosphor)
RED LIGHT
(phosphor)

Used commonly for digital design projects such as

social media, website images, mobile apps etc. If you
Red, Green and Blue Red, Green and Blue

are seeing this on a digital device in the form of a pdf

Red, Green and Blue lights at 50 percent
lights turned off
at full brightness brightness
produces a
produces a produces a gray
black pixel
BLUE LIGHT white pixel pixel

your computer is determining the color of the document (phosphor)

by reading the RGB numbers and adjusting the light on

your computer screen to put together those colors.
Computer screens consist of thousands of tiny lights that
can show blue, green or red light in any given space.
It can adjust the brightness of each pixel along with
mixing the one of three color light options to give you a
very huge array of color.
For pure red, it would just have its red phosphors on
full brightness and so on. To produce the color yellow
it would turn both of its red and green phosphors on.
It can also use brightness as a way to dull one or two
of the main phosphors to create more secondary and
even tertiary colors emulating various shades, tints and
tones.

Less bright red

and green lights
produce what
appears to be
the color brown

Interestingly enough, brown light does not exist. When

you look at the visible color spectrum (a rainbow) you
cannot see brown light. To create browns in the RGB
space you actually use a combination of red and green
Zooming in on this digital image in Adobe Photoshop at 8,000% and various brightness to create brown.
reveals that this image is made up of thousands of tiny pixels, each
representing just one color. Combined together they can form
complex photos, shapes and colors.
 RGB is used in all digital devices that use light to HEX (USED FOR WEB DESIGN)
produce color. It does a great job of representing the
total visible colors to the human eye, but it cannot Hex codes are standard when creating stylesheets for web
show all visible colors. and mobile applications. Being able to produce these Hex
codes for developers and for online use is vital in making
sure your color can be displayed consistently online.

The colored triangle area

are colors visible in the
Hex codes consist of 6 alphanumeric characters that
sRGB space. The gray produce a wide range of colors using a browser. There
areas represent what the are three sets of numbers in a hex code. The first two digits
human eye can see.
represent the color Red, the second, Green and the third
Blue. The combination of these colors is the Hex code,
producing a final mixed color. The scale moves from 0 (the
darkest) to F (lightest) so a hex code number of #000000
would be black and #FFFFFF would be pure white.
COLOR GAMUT

#00000 #FFFFFF

#4198C7
#4198C7

}
}
}
RED GREEN BLUE
A color gamut is the breadth and reach of how many
All modern design software gives you a chance to
colors can be represented on any given device. If a select a RGB color and see its comparable Hex code number.
color is outside of the gamut of that device it will be
shown as the nearest available color in that gamut.
This is why having a high quality screen and device WEB SAFE COLORS
with a wide color gamut can improve the range of
colors that can be represented on your screen. Web Safe Colors are 216 Hex code colors that can
be shown consistently across most 8-bit devices.
sRGB and Adobe RGB are popular color spaces you Improvements in screen displays have made web safe
can use in modern design software. sRGB covers only colors a bit less useful as screen limitations are pushed
35.9% of the total visible gamut while Adobe RGB is higher. Web safe colors do have more consistency across
slightly better at 52.1%. As screen technology gets multiple screen types, so it can be helpful in finding more
better, we are able to push those numbers higher consistent color matches across screens.
and higher giving us wider color gamuts.

There is a consistency problem with RGB as your

design will be shown on possibly hundreds of
different screens, monitors and phones. The color
of red may look different on my husband’s old Dell
laptop compared to the latest iPhone. Constantly test
your design on multiple screens and sources to help
Image Source: htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart

tweak some of the bigger discrepancies. Fortunately,

as technology improves we will see less and less
difference between screen color representation.
 CYMK (SUBTRACTIVE COLOR SYSTEM)
Used for professional print projects.

We covered digital devices but what about

printed items? Most professional printers print
using four main ink colors represented by
CMYK or (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and K for
Black). The K stands for Key and black ink is
used to add a more rich darkness to the other
three inks. Without using a pure black ink
you could get brown muddy colors trying to
produce black by mixing all of the remaining
three colors.

Four metal plates are created in the printing

process for any design. The first plate will
include only the areas that will print with
cyan, the second plate yellow, the third plate
magenta and lastly a plate that will include
black ink to help to saturate or darken the
other areas. When seen separately these
colors seem really restrictive and limited.
But when printed over top of each other the
colors work together to create lots of colors in
between.

A metal printing plate (CYAN) A GCR four-color separation of File:Barns grand tetons.jpg, assuming SWOP
www.printrunner.com/blog/what-are-printing-plates uncoated inks at 25% dot gain, with maximum black, created in Adobe
Photoshop by Jacob Rus, 2008-09-02.
 All light mixed together All inks placed on a white
at full brightness produces paper absorbs light to
white light show up as black

RGB CYMK
ADDITIVE COLOR SUBTRACTIVE COLOR

RGB is an additive color system, meaning we add
colors together with light. It starts off with a darkened
black pixel and has light and color added to it.
Light forms colors differently than inks do. With
reflected light a pure white piece of paper reflects the
most light and black absorbs the most light. CMYK is a
subtractive color system in that adding all of the colors
together produces black and in RGB or additive color
mode we add all of the colors and brightness to form a
pure white.
As designers we need to be able to produce the same
design for both the print and the digital spaces. That
means we need to use CMYK and RGB on the same
design and somehow make it look as close as possible.
For example, I have a bright logo here that looks
great on my computer screen. It contains vivid, highly
saturated colors. When I convert this to the CMYK color
mode for printing on a poster, I am dismayed on how
the colors become more dull. This is very common and
it is a natural struggle we face everyday.

Because the RGB color mode uses light and the RGB CMYK
additive color system, it can produce the most colors
in the visible spectrum. CYMK only consists of inks and
the reflective quality of light. CMYK has a much more
limited color range and this is a big problem in design.

0.9
520 Unprintable Colors
0.8 540
CYMK Color Gamut MANUAL COLOR
0.7 CORRECTION
560
Adobe RGB 1998 To help with this, you can manually
0.6 select the closest matching colors
to try to maintain the vibrancy. You
500
0.5 580 will not be able to match it to RGB
perfectly but you can get a little bit
y closer than what the automatic RGB

0.4 600 to CYMK conversion algorithm can

get at times.
620
0.3
One thing we can do is switch into the CMYK color
space to see how our colors convert from RGB to
0.2
CMYK. This will give us an idea of how it might change
480 in appearance when we get our item printed compared
0.1
to how it looks as a social media post. There is one way
to increase the possible colors displayed using printed
0.0 460
0.00 .1 0.20 .3 0.40 .5 0.60 .7 0.8 ink and that is by using what are called Pantone colors.
x
 PANTONE COLOR:
Pantones are special color inks that have special
formulas that show the color the same way each time it
is printed. So Classic Blue and Living Coral will look the
same each time. In the printing process we use the four
metal ink plates to overlay each color together. When
you use a Pantone color a new metal plate is created
for where that particular color we be used. With each
new Pantone color that is used a new metal ink plate is
created.

This also makes Pantone colors a bit expensive to use

as it costs additional money to add each new ink plate.

Some companies may save on costs by producing a

large annual report using only one or two of their
branded colors using Pantone inks. With only two ink
plates needed for the entire project it saves money.

Pantone colors are not just one solid color either.

You can take this classic blue color and reduce the
percentage of ink coverage to produce many different
shades of that color.

You can purchase Pantone color books in different types depending

on the type of paper coating you are going to print with. Some are
100 percent 80 percent 60 percent 40 percent 20 percent “coated” Pantone colors which are for papers that are glossy, semi-gloss,
ink coverage ink coverage ink coverage ink coverage ink coverage
or matte finishes. There is also “uncoated” which is less common and is
paper that is more porous and absorbs more of the ink, therefore the
need for slightly tweaked colors for uncoated paper. Types of uncoated
You can even order a Pantone swatch book to paper include art books and natural recycled papers.
reference different colors and see how it might look
printed. These are helpful when working with larger
companies who frequently use Pantone inks.

Pantone has tons of different color options and some

include metallic colors and swatches that can add a
visible shine to your printed inks.
section four // PHOTOS

4
 Photography is the
story I fail to put
“
into words.”
D E S T I N S PA R KS

A design needs a strong narrative. Some of our

4
favorite books from childhood invest more space
in photos rather than text. If you’ve ever heard the
expression “a picture is worth a thousand words”, then
you know exactly where I am headed.

Photography and illustrations have the power to

simplify complex messages. And if you are involved
in the marketing process, simple messages are more
effective than complex ones.

Take for instance this vintage ad for life insurance

(right). It features a young boy saddened because he
has to leave his home because his widowed mother
can no longer afford it. It tugs at your heart strings
doesn’t it? Would this ad be as effective without the
fitting narrative illustration?

Most modern visuals, advertisements and social media

posts have mere seconds to grab your attention.
Photos and illustrations are proven scroll stoppers. In
the mid 2000’s, Apple came out with a revolutionary

ad campaign that features silhouettes of dancing people

holding their signature iPod product in their hand.

These ads were unique because they displayed just the

Apple logo and usually a very short headline. The photo
communicated the product and what the product was
intended to do: to help you enjoy music. Combined with
its bright color palette, this made for a very effective and
versatile ad campaign without the use of wordy product
descriptions.
 "Star Wars posters by Olly Moss" by ShedBOy^ is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Framing helps
to tell the
story.
Framing is the isolation of a subject in a photo through
the use of a shape. This allows the main subject of the
photo to become the main focal point, but it also helps
to tell a deeper story.

A great example of framing is this simple landscape

photo to the right. Instead of using a simple
unobstructed landscape photo, this photographer
chose a window as a frame for the landscape. This
gives the photo a more intimate perspective of what
the photographer is thinking or feeling, and it lends
itself to a more rich and intriguing story.

In the illustration at the top of the page, we see a

different interpretation of the original Star Wars movie
posters. The designer used framing to turn an ordinary
illustration into two storytelling opportunities. The
frame, or silhouette, is the character who plays the
biggest role in that film, while there is a second story
being played out in the illustration inside the frame.
Cropping for
emotion.
Your photo choices, as well as how you crop your
photos, can shift the emotional impact of your design
dramatically.

The wide shot of this baby holding a yellow blanket

is calm and relaxing. The viewer might focus more on
what the baby is doing with their hands and perhaps
what they are holding. A tighter cropping, with a focus
more on the face, helps the viewer focus more on
the emotional side of the photo. The cropping on the
upper left might be great for a product based photo,
while the one of the right will work better if you are
looking to make an emotional connection.

In the second example to the right, the top photo

includes some foreground weights as well as some
background elements behind the subject. This type of
cropping allows us to get more involved in the subjects
environment.

The photo underneath has a more tight cropping and

allows us to focus more on the man and his thoughts
rather than the environment. This one feels more
contemplative and introspective.
 “Lionel Messi Poster for Copa America - Buenos Aires
- Argentina” by Adam Jones, Ph.D. - Global Photo
This billboard makes a great effort to show the emotional Archive is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
excitement of a win. It might have a totally different feel to it if
it was a zoomed out wide shot of the entire team on the field.
Notice the upward gazing position of the eyes and the close
proximity of the type. The headline and the type are able to
play off of one another with little detraction.

“If your
pictures are
not good
enough you
are not close
enough.”
RO B E R T C A PA
The eyes are
windows to the
soul.
“
There are
always two
Both photos above feature a happy, smiling
woman. Humans have a wonderful quality
people in every
called empathy which allows us to share and
understand the emotions of others. When looking
at the photo to the left, we have what feels like
picture: the
an instant connection with this woman. It might
be because her eyes are looking directly at
us, almost with the expectation that we should
photographer
respond to her gleeful gaze.

The photo on the right has the woman still smiling

and the
but looking away with her eyes closed. This still
allows us to share in her happinesses but more in
the role of observer. There is not really a sense
viewer.”
of response here and in some ways the emotional
connection will be tempered. ANSEL ADAMS
Photos + typography as one.
Typography and photography can interplay nicely to help bring short messages
to life. This can allow us to free our photos and allow them to exist outside of a
boxed or framed area. Readability is a big issue with this method and that is why
this works well with concise, simple phrases.
Photos can give context.
What do you read when you first glance at this poster’s headline? Most likely it is the
word DANCE. There is no set order to how the letters D-A-N-C-E are spaced and there
is no clear baseline in which the bottom of the letters rest. Even though the A seems out
of order, we still read this quickly as the word “dance” most likely because the subject
matter is acting out the words, helping us to determine a clear outcome.

The diagonal shape that separates the dancer between foreground and background
also allows the design to adapt a greater sense of movement.
 3

Using multiple photos in narratives.

In the magazine layout above there are three total photos
being used, each with a specific purpose. The larger photo
acts as the main attraction using a tight shot and direct eye
contact.

The key to using multiple photos is not to use photos with

very similar presentations. If I were to use a second photo
with similar cropping and direct eye contact it would
take away from the leading photo, making it less unique.
Instead, with the second and third photos, we achieve
focus on the products without using faces. This balances
out the photo usage and allows us to tell the narrative with
photos from different angles and perspectives.
1

Like the example above, these three photos chosen for a sushi
restaurant ad all have a different purpose. Photo number one
is the emotional draw while photo two focuses on the activity of
eating sushi and photo three gives a hint at the environment of 3
the sushi restaurant. One for the product, one for the activity and 2
one for the place.
 Your photo
choice can
“ ...It can
also make
make your it go
design go from from worse to
good to great... misunderstood.”

L I N D S AY M A R S H
section five // COMPOSITION
Composition gives the designer complete
control over the design.
Layout is the combination of photos, typography and
color to produce a guided view of your design. It
allows you to be in the driver’s seat.
What if your design is an experience you curate
for your viewer? What if you could sit down next
to them and point to what is most important first
and make sure they understand all the information
presented?
Layout gives us this ability and opportunity to
craft experiences for the viewer that are effective
at pushing our main goals for the design. Is it to
sell a new car? Promote cleaning services? Raise
awareness of a charity? Inspire a great reading
experience for a novel? There are so many ways
the layout of a design is essential in creating the right
experience.
One of the main issues about layout is there are so
many viable options for the same design. I hope this
section will provide you with tools and methods to help
you discover the right layout for your projects. We will
discover the power of using grids in design and take a
look at lots of great examples of solid layouts. We are
going to first review some basic layout terms as well
as layout best practices like hierarchy alignment and
balance.
Once you master typography, color and layout, you
have all of the necessary knowledge to become a great
designer. So, lets get started!
 Basic layout terms
General Layout Terms

Leading
Headline goes here. The spacing between
lines of type.
Sub head goes here.

Pull-quote
Drop
Cap
Quotes can
break up large
Body blocks of text.”
Ragged Lines
Text
Uneven lines of a
right of left margin of
a block of type.

36

Orphan
A line of text with just one word. Try
to avoid orphans when possible.
Folio
The page number
identifier. These can also
include dates, section
Whitespace and Margin title or webpage.
Ample whitespace in your margins
can look clean and professional.

Call to Action
They encourage the viewer to take some
sort of action. It can be a click now
button on a paid digital ad or a line of
text that encourage them to purchase
tickets on a website.

Buy Now
 Margins Objects in the Margins
Margins border the entire layout. This Remember, feel free to extend unimportant items off into the
ensures that you keep vital text and objects margins like parts of photos and non-text design elements.
within the acceptable viewing space. This will help the piece feel less boxy and feel more alive.

Go
vertical
Going vertical
with some text
can add contrast
with other
horizontal
elements.

You can use the

grid as a guide
for placement.

Hero
Image
(focal
point)
Layouts work Supporting
better if one image
element
stands This image
out as the supports the
main focal main focal point
point. photo. It is not
as large and
complements the
theme.

Columns
Columns run vertically downward from the top of the Overlapping Elements
margin to the bottom. Very helpful in magazine and
Another way to break up a boxy
editorial layouts to find placements for paragraphs,
layout is to overlap elements
headlines and text. This one uses a 4 column layout.
using the grid, like this quote box
overlapping the yellow photo.
BLOCKING
Blocking is the planning and
organization of a design before
the graphics are applied. HEADLINE

Every design needs a good plan. The art of blocking helps one
to establish the final content needed for a design. It also assists PHOTO #1
in solidifying the main mission or goal for the design. Once both
are set, you can start to block out a basic structure.

Content or design elements can be represented with white or

gray boxes, circles and shapes. These rough outlines give you
the blueprint you need to manage the required content of a
design. This way you can design layouts with purpose.
PHOTO #2 PHOTO #3

Let’s say you are required to use three photos in a given design
for a full-page advertisement. You are also given some text, like
a short headline and some body copy, that you need to work
BODY TEXT
into the design. There are several different layout combinations
that can work.
This layout might be the winner for us if we wanted
Ask yourself, “What is the main goal of the design? How is my to focus more on one photo over others and include
a quick call-to-action and information at the bottom.
layout supporting this goal?”

HEADLINE

PHOTO #1 PHOTO #1 PHOTO #2

HEADLINE

PHOTO #1
PHOTO #1

PHOTO #2 HEADLINE

HEADLINE

PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3

PHOTO #3 BODY TEXT PHOTO #2 PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT PHOTO #3

BODY TEXT

No focal point. Providing Equal emphases on Magazine style experience. A A non-predictable layout,
information. body text and photos. focus on readability. good for grabbing attention.
PHOTO #2

PHOTO #1 PHOTO #2 HEADLINE PHOTO #1 PHOTO #2

PHOTO #3
PHOTO #1
BODY TEXT

HEADLINE HEADLINE
BODY TEXT
HEADLINE

BODY TEXT
PHOTO #3

PHOTO #2 PHOTO #3 PHOTO #3 BODY TEXT

PHOTO #1

Collage style. Great for Headline first, photos at the A focus on photos, less on A headline-driven narrative.
emotional impact. bottom. Suited for events. information. Pairs well with great copy
writing.
 COLOR
festival A rough plan
HEADLINE is better than
no plan.
PHOTO #1
The act of blocking your
design works wonders in
reducing the time it takes
to produce a finished
layout. Imagine working
through all of those
PHOTO #2 PHOTO #3
various layouts on the
JUNE 12TH 2022 previous page with the
FOOD TRUCKS | COLOR RUN | KIDS ACTIVITIES
final graphics.
TICKETS $20
BODY TEXT C O LO R F E S T 2 0 21. C O M

COLOR
festival The content decides
JUNE 12TH 2022
the layout.
FOOD TRUCKS
What if we needed to list more than just
COLOR RUN a few activities for the event? Perhaps our
layout might change to make sure the list of
KIDS ACTIVITIES
activities has the room to breathe and list all
VENDORS
the proper items. In this case, we switched
FAC E PA I N T I N G the layout so the main goal was to focus
more on the list of activities.
HOT AIR BALLOONS

AND MORE
Our original photo may not work in a
vertical space as well as it did in the first
Y
O
UR TICK layout, so sometimes finding the right photo
and cropping is key.
E
T

TS

$20
GE

O
C

LO O
R F E S T. C
VISUAL HIERARCHY

You will read

this message
first.
And this one next

As you can see something called

type hierarchy is in action here.

Bigger, more bold typography, photos and design elements are

seen first and increasingly smaller, less important ones are seen
second, third, fourth, etc. Without proper type hierarchy, all
text competes with each other, giving a design a complicated
hard to digest feeling.
Without a
system
Nothing stands out as
special. A lot of type
elements are the same
size. My brain is having
a hard time finding out
where to start processing
the information.

With a
system
On this sample menu
categories are at least
twice the size of the food
listings. Also, the words
at the top are larger,
indicating that it is an
important block of text
to read first. There is a
system, therefore there is
order.
Before
This template I found for a surf shop graphic at first
glance looks chaotic. The name of the surf shop is
hard to locate. The headline is scattered among three
content areas with three different photos. The website,
which would normally be very important, is small and
out of the way.
After
I made some tweaks to this template to assure the
headline became a bigger visual priority in the
hierarchy. The size did not change, but because
they are placed closer to each other the headline
becomes one larger element and has a bigger
weight.
I chose a new photo, one that features a face, in
order to increase the connection with the viewer
and to maintain the photo’s dominance by making it
much larger. Less important items are reduced and
items are grouped together based on relevance.
This does not mean you cannot use multiple photos
that are the same size in a design or that you cannot
break a headline into smaller parts. There are plenty
of situations where they could be the best layout
choice.
But this exercise simply demonstrates that without
using size, color and weight to differentiate your
elements they becomes less effective.
 Size = Importance
The large “AM” on the top of the
left page in the example (left), is
dominant in this editorial spread.
It is large compared to any other
element on the page. Secondary to
this is the smaller Arctic Monkeys
headline. Smaller still, the detailed
information at the bottom. Notice
the gradual step down of type sizes.

In this recipe book I created I made sure to have ample sub headings
for both the ingredients and the preparation lists. I can easily identify the
Visual Hierarchy headline in each column because there is contrast in size, color and font
choices between the headline and the body text below.
with a Purpose
There is also a much larger main headline text that helps to sort through
the recipes, making it easier to find when flipping through the book.
FOCAL POINT

Focal points provide

direction.
When you look at the top left image is there
something that stands out to you first? Which
direction does your eye go? I think each of us
might have a different spot we look at first. This
means there is an unpredictable viewing order in
this type of layout where most items are around
the same size.

Now compare that to the image on the top right.

What is the first thing you notice? I bet it was
the two larger butterflies in the center and even
more so the top one.
This single large circle provides order to the layout, helping to group
the three smaller content circles together as one unit. The second layout
struggles to find a focal point which makes it feel disorganized and
scattered.

Disorder
The image on the left (above) does not have one
clear focal point, but five different areas that draw
my attention. This is because the design elements are
roughly the same size.
“Fast Company magazine cover: April 2010”
by Karen Horton is licensed under CC BY 2.0
1
2
3
Order, Flow and Structure
This magazine cover does a good job at drawing
the eye in with a main photo that acts as the focal
point. From there I can slowly begin to read the
largest article headline and then move on to the
smaller article sizes. The designer has full control
over this layout and has guided me like a map
throughout the cover design.
Photos + Type
This fast company magazine cover draws your eye
to the little girl on her phone. Directly below the
phone is the main article featured in that month’s
magazine. The headline and the photo work
together to become one focal point.
 OPTIMAL
READABILITY

Optimal Line Length Your eyes shift from one line to the
next when reading. This length has
been proven to be the length of
50-60 characters per line has been shown to be
choice, creating an easy reading
optimal for readability. experience for the reader.

Me nus ne provit at qui dolupta non eseque pla nobit venima volorum
JUST RIGHT

quas si dolut ellautat fuga. Ipsandam rae non non ratum in non rem
aut accaepel ipsum inia nonem rest erchillabo. Itas rem dis volorro ea
Expanding your text across a
consedi ut at quodisin nem elisciae sit alit pedis re plabo. Et qui ditas
standard sized page creates viewer
volectia sitiam con et aut duciend elendentias moluptasped ma comni
fatigue and can frustrate the reading
doloreprae cusanto odi a
experience in longer reads.

Me nus ne provit at qui dolupta non eseque pla nobit venima volorum quas si dolut ellautat fuga. Ipsandam rae non non ratum in non rem aut
TOO LONG

accaepel ipsum inia nonem rest erchillabo. Itas rem dis volorro ea consedi ut at quodisin nem elisciae sit alit pedis re plabo. Et qui ditas volectia
sitiam con et aut duciend elendentias moluptasped ma comni doloreprae cusanto odi aParciam as ea nus prae nonsequ idendam entiumque quam
et, volupta tempossites conseque eaquossi tem qui blaciae isquatque nos doloris erferep udisquat. Illuptur? Quisqui consedis el ipid est eum quam
exerrorro est, et volupta tiundiscit, occaboressi doloreped qui sunt am eliatin ihillan debit, omnim init porepro es ilis estiatur, sin corest, il incimol
orpore maione pos ernat assedi te evelecearit laut quam dolorunt.

Column Width Line Breaks

Short line lengths are fine for short photo Too many or too few line breaks in longer
descriptions and small type. Avoid using shorter paragraphs can make type unbearable to read.
widths for longer text areas.

Me nus ne provit at qui
dolupta non eseque pla
nobit venima volorum
quas si dolut ellautat
fuga. Ipsandam rae
non non ratum in non
rem aut accaepel
ipsum inia nonem rest
erchillabo. Itas rem
dis volorro ea consedi
ut at quodisin nem
elisciae sit alit pedis
re plabo. Et qui ditas
volectia sitiam con et
aut duciend elendentias
moluptasped ma comni
doloreprae cusanto
odi a
Me nus ne provit at qui
dolupta non eseque pla
nobit venima volorum
quas si dolut ellautat
fuga.
Me nus ne provit at qui dolupta non
eseque pla nobit venima volorum quas
si dolut ellautat fuga. Ipsandam rae
non non ratum in non rem aut accaepel
ipsum inia nonem rest erchillabo. Itas
rem dis volorro ea consedi ut at quodisin
nem elisciae sit alit pedis re plabo.
Et qui ditas volectia sitiam con et aut
duciend elendentias moluptasped ma
comni doloreprae cusanto odi a Me
nus ne provit at qui dolupta non eseque
pla nobit venima volorum quas si dolut
ellautat fuga. Ipsandam rae non non
ratum in non rem aut accaepel ipsum
inia nonem rest erchillabo. Itas rem dis
volorro ea consedi ut at quodisin nem
elisciae sit alit pedis re plabo. Et qui
ditas volectia sitiam con et aut
Me nus ne provit at qui dolupta non
eseque pla nobit venima volorum quas
si dolut ellautat fuga.
Ipsandam rae non non ratum in non
rem aut accaepel ipsum inia nonem rest
erchillabo.
Itas rem dis volorro ea consedi ut at
quodisin nem elisciae sit alit pedis re
plabo.
ratum in non rem aut accaepel ipsum
inia nonem rest erchillabo.
Itas rem dis volorro ea consedi ut at
quodisin nem elisciae sit alit pedis re
plabo.

TOO LONG SHORT AND TO NEEDS AT LEAS T ONE TOO MANY BREAKS MAKE
THE POINT PA R AG R A P H B R E A K FOR A CHOPPY READ
 T
One inch
Typographic Units or 25.4 mm

T
Type size is measured in something called “point
size”, abbreviated by the two letters “pt”. One
point is 1/72th of an inch in character height, so 72
points equals one inch. That means a 12 point sized T
character equals roughly 1/6 inch in height and a 12pt 72pt 144pt
144pt character measures two inches in height.

So what is the optimal text size I should use for

readability? The answer is not always clear, as it
can depend on the font choice and the medium in
which it will be viewed.
If you find it hard
For example 8-12 point (pt) font sizes are to read this short If you find it hard to read
recommend for longer blocks of text. As you can paragraph or you this short paragraph or
see below, anything below 8pts can be difficult 12pt have to squint to 8pt you have to squint to
to read. Small print used for disclaimers and read it perhaps read it perhaps making it
copyright information that is 6pts in size is seen as a larger size will help.
making it a larger
acceptable.
size will help.
In digitized fonts there is something called an “em
box”. This em box contains a glyph or a character
If you find it hard to read this short
6pt 4pt
If you find it hard to read this short paragraph or you
letter. Some fonts decide to place the characters have to squint to read it perhaps making it a larger
size will help.
paragraph or you have to squint to read it
perhaps making it a larger size will help.

in different parts of the em box, so it is almost

impossible for 12pts to be the same visible height
across multiple fonts. It is close, but not perfect,

TT
therefore making it hard to recommend the perfect This is 12pt sized font.
readable font size for all situations.
This is 12pt sized font.
Placement is also an issue. 12pts on a printed page
is standard for most written papers for universities,
but 12pts on a magazine article can seem a bit
clunky and large. The same goes for digital screens
where 5pts, which is almost unreadable on print,
might be more legible in a brightly lit screen.

As you can see, testing out the readability of your

text with others is critical.
Helvetica 12pt Montserrat 12pt
The thin weight appearance in Eurostile
and Helvetica light could make 9pt size a
better read than 8pt.

This longer block of text can have a This longer block of text can have a This longer block of text can have a
minimal acceptable reading size of minimal acceptable reading size of 8pts. minimal acceptable reading size of
8pts. But 8pt size does not always But 8pt size does not always read as well 8pts. But 8pt size does not always
read as well for every single font. for every single font. read as well for every single font.

Futura 8pt Eurostile 8pt Helvetica 8pt

AA A A AA AA A A
6 7 8 9 10 12 14 16 18 21
A AA A
24 28 32

All of these are measured using the point system labeled pt.
36
A AA A
42 48 55 63
AA 72 96

The typographic scale

Similar to the golden ratio, the typographic scale uses a formula that scales type sizes into
increasingly larger sizes. These have been used through history as a scale that tends to
work harmoniously with each other. You will notice the first few in the scale increase in size
by one point and start to increase by two around the 10pt mark and increase by wider gaps
as you move up the scale.

The word scale is borrowed from music, in a similar way to how music notes can exist along
a scale. Musical scales sound better when played compared to random notes. It is the same
with the typographic scale as they pair well together when used in an established system.

Below we can apply this scale to our typography sizes to create a simple type hierarchy
where headlines are larger, sub headings are smaller, body copy is even smaller, and so on.
 5
2 Typographic Scale
In Practice
I use magazine covers a lot as
examples because they can be very
tricky to navigate. To make sure a
sense of hierarchy is established,
even with large amounts of text, a
typographic scale is applied.

4 The designer uses a very large pt

size for the number 100, so when
combined with the photo it becomes
the focal point.

Secondly, the font size steps down

60-70 percent to have a second
headline size for the magazine title. It
continues to step down sizes for less
important information with the next

1 size being the headline article, the

fourth being the secondary articles
and lastly the tagline of the magazine.
3
ALIGNMENT
& JUSTIFICATION

Alignment
Which column looks better to you, the first or the second
column? The second column, which uses left alignment
throughout, has consistency, but the first column would make
anyone with OCD quiver.

Alignment (also known as justification), when used properly,

can be a designer’s secret weapon, allowing us to align
content in a layout that ties those elements together.

Left-Alignment Center-Alignment Right-Alignment

Good Use: Good Use:
Smaller or medium Great when used
length paragraphs. consistently through
a design.
Good Use:
Used interlaced with left
alignment to direct the
flow of the design and to
provide balance.

Large Headlines
Bad Use:
For short columns or Bad Use:
long columns of text For larger areas of
text.
 Slightly off...
The three boxes above and the three boxes below
have great distance between them. Without the
arrow to remind us of the misalignment happening
here we might not notice this right away. We may
feel as though something “seems off” about the
layout. These small misalignments are usually what
makes a design feel messy or seem disorganized.

Big headlines Big headlines Big headlines

command command command
attention. attention. attention.

Left alignment is the most common
alignment found in design. This
is because we mostly read from
left to right so it is natural to have
your left side be anchored.
The left alignment of the smaller
body text does not match up
with the center alignment of the
headline. This can make a design
seem inconsistent.
Right alignment is harder to use
for type. This fights against our
natural tendency to start in the
upper left and read toward the
right. Notice when reading the
headline that the ragged edges
are on the left, making it hard to
find your place when you read
the second and third lines.
Alignment Commitment
This finished menu that was featured earlier for a sushi
restaurant adheres to a left alignment for the first column. You
will also notice the top paragraph in the red box also lines
up with the left-aligned column of menu items. This gives the
viewer a consistent line of sight when reading this menu. The
alignment serves as a guide in following the viewing order.

Not everything in a design needs to have the same alignment.

The circle (featured on the lower right of the menu) is its own
element and has the ability to have a center alignment without
interfering with left alignment dominated design.

Grids are a huge in helping us figure out proper spacing and

alignment, which we will talk about next.

This movie poster for the Jennifer

Lawrence movie Passengers commits to a
center alignment throughout the poster.
 You will find center alignment very popular with logo symbols (logo
marks) and their corresponding company names (logo type).

The Balancing Effects

of Center Alignment
Center alignment can create strong anchors that hold
designs and illustrations together. Take for instance this
logo design (top left) for a Popsicle Food Truck. There
are equal amounts of typography on the left and right
sides of the middle popsicle. This creates unity in the
design between the illustration and the type.

The same is the case for this 1922 Life Magazine cover,
which features an illustration that has a strong, balanced
center focus with a center aligned title above. The date
and the price are equally weighted on either side of the
title. The illustration name toward the bottom also aligns
in the center along with the magazine title.

‘The Flapper’ (1922)

 When do you use
right alignment?
A less common right alignment can still be used
effectively to fit around photos or when used with
shorter headlines and blocks of text.

Notice this magazine uses a mix of alignments

with the magazine name and the “On The Edge”
article title center aligned with one another, while
the other articles are using a right alignment.

This helps to frame the girls in the center as they

remain the focal point and the main visual draw.

Awkward
Moments...
Right justification can create awkward empty spaces.
The space is the same for left justified, but for some
reason those extra spaces seem more natural, mostly
because we see these spaces everyday when reading
left to right.

There is also a space needed for punctuation at the end

of a right justified sentence which makes the entire block
of type feel like it is no longer completely flush with the
right edge. It is awkward already, so be very careful
with right alignment for punctuated sentences (although
there are settings in the software to mitigate this issue).
Choose
an
alignment
that
feels
natural
in its
space.
 We see the same method
applied to art prints. They use

WHITE SPACE what is called frame mats to

& SPACING
give it padding between the
frame and the art piece.

What a lot of The extra wide margins of white

space added to this poster give

people get it a luxurious, professional look.

wrong you can

get right.
I have seen some incredible student
work in my years as a design
instructor. I do find that if there is
Y O
one layout principle or idea that is I S H U
W W
misused and misunderstood it is the
|

E
use of white space. R
E

E
H E R

H E R E

White space is the empty spaces

R E
E

between design elements. White

|
W

U W I
space lacks any particular draw
Y O S H

or uniqueness. It can be seen as

a waste of precious design real
estate in your layout. I believe this
is why people feel the need to fill
their layouts with unnecessary
elements like extra photos or text.

But there can be beauty and

substance in white space. In the
absence of design elements you
can actually find something there.
This extra breathing room changes
how the existing elements feel and
it can change a layout’s impact.

22
No.
The Goldilocks
Scenario
Searching for balance in a world of
extremes is true in design as well as life. In
design there is a Goldilocks scenario with
spacing. Goldilocks, in the famous tale, had
to try both the hot soup and the cold soup
first to discover that her desired temperature
of the soup was “just right”.

The letterhead on the right features wide,

clear margins and lots of whitespace
between design elements. The letterhead
on the bottom left has very tight spacing
between elements and creates an anxious,
uneasy feeling.

Looking at the lower right example, we

see too much spacing can limit the function
of the design. A letterhead needs to
JUST RIGHT

accommodate specific word counts to be

effective. Having this extra white space
reduces the ability to put longer letter
lengths into the space.
TOO TIGHT

TOO WIDE
T I G H T S PAC I N G

Presentation Matters
In this logo presentation I can make the logo extra
large and extend it all the way to the edges of the
given space. The logo suddenly loses its professional
quality, as the drastically reduced whitespace no
longer gives the logo a buffer with the project
BA L A N C E D S PAC I N G

document.

The second version seems more balanced. There is

even whitespace around the margins and it no longer
feels limited or confined by the document borders.

The smallest logo has ample whitespace. As long as

it is readable in the given document size, this small
presentation could give off a delicate, refined feeling.
G E N E RO U S S PAC I N G

Law of Proximity
Earlier we examined several Gestalt principles.
Particularly, the law of proximity states that items that
are close together are seen as belonging to one another.
Headline Right here
FIGURE A Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime
ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan
dignam es quis vendio.

In Figure A, to the right, we notice a thin area of

whitespace that separates the headline and body text.
This whitespace is fairly small and so both the headline
and the body text are seen as relating to one another
Headline Right here
FIGURE B Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime
and so are grouped together. ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan
dignam es quis vendio.
In Figure B, we see the whitespace is reduced to almost
zero. We overcompensated our proximity and it risks
being difficult to read.

In figure C, we see too much separation or whitespace.

Headline Right here
These elements are not seen as being related to each
other making the headline seem like it is pointlessly FIGURE C

Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime

floating on its own. ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan
dignam es quis vendio.
 Holiday Treat Recipe #1
Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime
ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan
dignam es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist,
eossit aut fugit derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam
ipit quae nulpa sima secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt
qui cum rem que nos dias essum es quam rerum quodis
quo conemol uptatem quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Holiday Treat Recipe #2

Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime
ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan
dignam es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist,
eossit aut fugit derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam
ipit quae nulpa sima secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt
qui cum rem que nos dias essum es quam rerum quodis
quo conemol uptatem quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Holiday Treat Recipe #1

Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime

ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan dignam
es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist, eossit aut fugit
derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam ipit quae nulpa sima
secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt qui cum rem que nos
dias essum es quam rerum quodis quo conemol uptatem
quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Holiday Treat Recipe #2

Ri officiaes il ipitate vit quat ma sequam as si rest, ime

ventur a ped magnien tissit, accus dolut rempe vellenis
aborepudam, utem fugitem. Ut facerorem repudan dignam
es quis vendio. Vit illoria im veriat plis id quist, eossit aut fugit
derrorum et ea am quid ma cum fugiam ipit quae nulpa sima
secus et doluptas rerenda nis eiunt qui cum rem que nos
dias essum es quam rerum quodis quo conemol uptatem
quos ad magnihi ligenihicita

Spacing with Typography

In this editorial layout, about a series of holiday recipes, you will notice the equal
and deliberate spacing between elements of the design in the bottom example as
compared to the top.

Also, the dividing lines between the recipe titles and the body text give the bottom
version additional spacing and helps the eye to further differentiate between title and
written text. It is amazing what happens when a little attention is paid to small details
like spacing and establishing set margins around your design.
The spacing between
your sentences can
impact the mood.

Wide spacing gives And tight spacing can

help your headline read
text a dramatic flair
nicely as one unit.
in headlines.

There is always a balance If the spacing is too tight it

feels very unpolished and feels
just plain amateur.
you have to strike in design.

Too much spacing can make

something feel very disjointed

and tiring to read, especially

with longer blocks of text.

Spacing between
characters is a huge
deal too.

T Y P O G R A P H Y
Large spacing between characters (sometimes referred
to as tracking or kerning) in all capital or uppercase
characters can feel elegant and high-end.

t y p o g r a p h y
On the other hand, wider spacing between lowercase
letters can make the characters feel less connected because
lowercase characters have different character heights. This
makes it harder for the eye to join them together as one
word.

As you can see, how we

present our typography
makes a big deal in how we
communicate to the viewer.
REPETITION
& DESIGN
THEMES

Continuity
Throughout Your
Design.
Repetition is often found in music.
Have you ever listened to a song
and forgot the lyrics? But when the
chorus is sung, suddenly the lyrics
seem to come to you easily?

A song without a chorus can be

fairly hard to remember or resonate
with. Having those same lyrics
repeated several times throughout
the song makes it memorable and
unique.
Design themes existing across different pages.
This business card features a slightly diagonal slant to all of its shapes and
graphics. The front and back can never be viewed at the same time, but
because the diagonal theme carries over it maintains continuity.

This website landing page mock-up features an

abstract circular cropping of the main photo.
This same abstract circular shape is also used
as a subtle background shape so as not to
overpower the main image.

You can see how it continues in the illustration

below and in the icons.

No matter where the user scrolls throughout

the website, they will also feel like they are
browsing the same webpage. Repetition
can be used in small ways through the use
of similar type choices, size, color, shapes,
images, spacing and cropping to make a
design seem unified.
INTRODUCTION TO DIFFERENT LAYOUT TYPES
Spread Magazine Cover
Book covers and inside layouts
The book cover to the
right features a simple title
intertwined with a photo
that depicts coral which
is also reminiscent of the
veins of a heart.
This Life Magazine cover
uses photography to play
up certain emotions. The
cover sets the stage for the
entire article inside.
Editorial Layouts
The magazines you see on
the newsstand use editorial
style layouts including spreads
(pictured top left), article layouts
and cover designs.
These layouts tend to be more
photo driven with larger areas of
text.
This also includes traditional
book covers, inside layouts and
newspapers. Book covers do best
with a layout that encourages a
story driven narrative enticing the
viewer to read the book.
This can be through the use of
photos that relate directly to
the book’s characters or unique
typography presentations of the
book title that support the genre
of the book.
Social Media
The sizes vary wildly for social
media posts depending on where it
will be placed. They tend to feature
a more prominent single focal point
with some sort of viewer goal,
like “buy now”, “check us out” or
“follow us”. YouTube video thumbnail

These can be the most restricting

layouts because of limits set on size
and text amounts by social media
platforms.

Facebook paid posts restrict the

total area of type, forcing the Paid Skyscraper Display Ad
design to be more photo heavy.

R E S P O N S I V E L AYO U T S
Responsive layouts are layouts that can easily
respond or adapt to a variety of sizes. You may
have heard this term when talking about responsive
website design. A layout should condense down to a
small size and still remain relevant and effective. This
travel ad starts off as a longer horizontal display ad
and as the sizes get smaller the layout shifts slightly
to allow the most important thing (the offer) to be
highlighted even at the expense of the photo.

The most effective social media layouts focus on

the viewer and not the company. They are outward
focused, usually provoking an interaction or
response with a question or comment.
Large Format Layouts
This includes anything larger than a standard paper
size. This can be posters, billboards, signage and
banners.
These layouts have to be simple because the average
viewing distance for these projects is significant.
Posters have a better chance to be seen for longer time
frames but sometimes they are still at greater distances
than most other types of designs. This means text needs
to be large, simple and easy to read. The concept
needs to be quickly understood and have photos that
feature less complexity.

Imagine driving down the road and seeing a huge

billboard. That billboard has about two seconds to be
seen by drivers so that the drivers remain safe. Think
about how basic that message needs to be.
Package Design
Composition for package design has its own set of
challenges as it has to be appealing to consumers and
look eye-catching on store shelves. Package design
layouts tend to focus heavily on the company or
product name, as well as any descriptions that may
further explain the function of the product. Most of
the time package design may come in sets of different
product types. In the example above, this comes as a
series of four soda flavors, each with its own color. The
series needs to look cohesive and carry a strong design
theme throughout.

Bar-codes or shipping information need to

remain clear on product packaging.
There may be legal or additional
information that is required on some food
and product packaging that can reduce
your layout options.
Apparel, Accessories &
Other Tangibles

These types of projects have a unique quality in that

they are not always printed on paper. They can be
designs on cotton, nylon, metals, cardboard or plastic.
There is an added layer of texture that needs to be
considered. How does it feel in my hand? How will the
ink print on this material?

These layouts usually have a single purpose and can

be used multiple times. The composition of the design
has to support this main function.

For example, this lanyard design in the above photo, it

needs to feature a clear, large assignment title so that
the staff can easily identify if that guest is allowed in
certain restricted areas.
section six // GRIDS 6
The Guide to Grid
Systems.
Grids can change your entire workflow. Have you
ever stared at a blank screen and wondered how
on earth you were going to find the right position
for all of the elements for your design? You may
have a layout plan already established, but
where on this blank artboard are you supposed
to place everything?
Grids have been used throughout history, though
mostly never called “grids” as such. Look at some
of the first printed books and you will see a series
of columns dividing the text into blocks. Look at
any line of printed text in a book to see one of the
earliest forms of griding in the form of a baseline
that aligns the bottom of the text together.
Grids are the building of a matrix of intersecting
vertical and horizontal (and sometimes diagonal)
lines to form a grid system. Using grids, designers
can make sure elements are aligned properly
but also find opportunities to align certain items
together to form unity.
Grids can be used on just about anything. Some
special types of grids exist just to provide a
template to design aesthetically pleasing icons,
for example.
This is a standard icon grid which
consists of a series of intersecting
45 degree lines to form a center
point. Designs that adhere to this
basic grid form tend to be more
orderly and symmetrical.
Basic Grid Terminology
We are going to review several different grid
types throughout this section. They all have similar
characteristics and feature the following terms (see
below).
Manuscript Grid
a.k.a. Block Grid or Single Column grid

This grid is great for books and long, continuous placement

of text. Manuscript layouts consist of one center block
that divides up the page and creates a clear margin, text
area, header and footer. This is the most basic form of a
grid and found in word processing documents as basic
guides for creating margins.

Margins that are naturally

created by the intersecting
grid lines

Space created for the

headers and titles.
Column Grids
Perfect for magazine layouts and spreads or anything
that has a mixture of photos, quotes and text. Column
grids allow you to create space to break up type and
photos. These can be 2, 3, 4 or even 12 columns
depending on the complexity of your layout.

Newspapers may feature many

narrow columns. This example of a
newspaper ad I helped to layout
early in my career is called a
“double truck” ad. It consists of two
consecutive full pages of content
each containing five columns.

Using grids to form my column

widths helped me to make sure
each column was the same width
throughout. The lines created
from the columns can also provide
guides for where to place photos
and other elements to keep the
design orderly.
 Modular Grids
The most flexible grid available, modular grids
allow for lots of mixing of type, photos and design
elements. You can have a variety with which
modules are chosen for element placement. These
are great for posters, flyers, magazine covers and
designs that require more creative arrangements.
They can also be used for arranging a list of items
or photos that need the same spacing or have the
same order.

The spacing, or the gutter, between columns

and rows can be generous or tight. In figure
A the spacing is tighter. In figure B it is much
more loose and provides more padding
between spacial zones.

Caption
here

  
   

  
  
 

The main The main headline

headline story here
story here
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FIGURE A FIGURE B Notice how both layouts try different arrangements.

Also notice the visual hierarchy, with one leading
photo followed by a smaller secondary photo.
Hierarchical Grids
These are mostly used for the web, where fixed grid
layouts will not work. The gutters and margins can
change in size throughout depending on the space
of the browser.

Hierarchy comes from a Greek word meaning

“superior”, “ranking” or “order”. These grids
follow an order of importance, with the most
important items larger and toward the top and with
less important items further below and smaller in
size.

This kind of grid is a perfect fit for a website layout

or mobile app design where the most important
items need to be shown higher up in the layout.
Notice the featured news item shows a bigger
importance by not only being bigger, but being shifted
to the upper left side of the web page, an area that
has greater visibility than the lower right.

bbc.com/news
Combining Grid Type
Composite Grids

Using modular and column

grids elements.
Create “plans” for your layout by using grids before any
final photos or text is placed in your design (this is called
Blocking).

This ensures there is order and a reason for each element

placement. This can also help you decide which elements
are more important than others, how much room you may
have for photos and final text, and for determining how
many photos you may need to find.

Blocking our layout using a tight (no gutters)

modular grid and creating our column grid
using our modular grid as a guide.

In most design programs you can go to VIEW-> then go down to

GRIDS to turn on a modular basic grid. You can edit your grid
spacing in the main settings or preferences area of the program.
 Specialized Grid Types
Isometric

“497131080” by verkeorg is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

Using modular and

column grids elements.
Isometric grids are “axonometric” projections,
1 which, simply put, are used to represent 3D objects
0.8 in a 2D space. This means there is no vanishing
0.6 point or distortion when looking at an isometric
0.4
grid. This makes them perfect for engineers who
0.2
want to create maps, plans and buildings and be
0
3 able to view angles equally. They also make them
2 great for visualizing information like the graphic
1 3 seen here to the left.
2
0
1
-1 0 Isometric grids have become really popular in
-2 -1
-2 design in recent years mostly for illustrations but
-3
-3 also for layout and product mockups.
 60
DE
G
RE
E
AN
G
LE

Even though the bottom

square feels closer to the
viewer, it still maintains the
same size as the square
that is further back in the
How isometric grids are
constructed.
grid. This is because there
is zero distortion with this
angle relative to location.
This makes isometric grids
great for comparing sizes Isometric grids are fairly easy to create. They consist of
across large areas. equality spaced vertical lines. You can replicate those lines
and then rotate that grouping by 60 degrees to create the
first intersecting series of lines. Lastly, you duplicate the
lines you rotated by 60 degrees and rotate that set by 60
degrees to form the third set of intersecting lines.

All three of these lines come together to form the isometric

grid you see above.
Icon Grids

Icons need a center

balance.
Icons mostly exist as a set or series of small graphics that
are required to fit into a dimensional small space.

A grid has been developed that goes a step further

than a standard grid to help an icon be centered and
balanced. Adapting an icon set to the same grid can
also help you create consistent cohesive icons that look
like they belong together.

The spacing between the circles and lines are determined

by the Golden Ratio. That subject we turn to next.
The Golden Ratio

The golden ratio, or the golden mean, is

a simple ratio that states if one side of a
rectangle is 1.618 then the opposing side
is 1. You can see in the example (left)
the two different shaped rectangles it
creates, with one side being a bit longer
than the other. This is a simple ratio that
can be seen throughout nature including
the nautilus creature seen above. The
golden ratio echoes throughout its
repeating ridges on its shell.

Euclid, known as the father of geometry,

studied this ratio in detail and his
principles revealed how nature applies
this simple ratio into spiral shapes, circles
and more.

WRITTEN
CONTENT

The golden ratio in its simplest form can be seen in both of

these examples. Using the golden ratio helps strike a balance
WRITTEN between the main visual and the remaining content elements,
CONTENT such as text. This allows a balance and naturally pleasing
division of elements.
 Quarter-circle
arcs

AKA: Fibonacci spiral

Applying the golden ratio
beyond rectangles.
We can continue to expand this simple ratio out to other
shapes and angles to find an almost infinite amount of
ways to apply the golden ratio to our layouts and our
designs.
We commonly see the golden ratio applied to logo
designs by using the golden ratio in circular form which
is created using the golden ratio spiral.
137.5 222.5
degrees degrees Golden Ratio
Angle
You can also take this spiral and apply it to layout
design. When the golden ratio is repeated over
and over, you get a series of rectangle shapes that
become focused in a particular quadrant similar to
the nautilus shape seen earlier. We can place our
highest priority content in the tighter portion of the
spiral. This allows the balance of the design to be
shifted toward this ratio. We can also use the spiral
to help shape the framing of our photos.

THE SERIES 1 | MAX INLINE | BLOG

Beyond
Running.

SA
LE
 1 : 1.618
A P P L I C A T I O N

1. 618
1

1.618
1

Two divided halves The Ratio Repeated

The golden ratio is a naturally pleasing Repeating the ratio and fitting those
ratio and consists of two divided halves. two halves inside the biggest half will
The first being 1:1 and the other side create the golden ratio grid.
being a multiple of 1.618 of the first
size.
I N
L O G O

The Golden Spiral Golden Ratio Circles

When you draw an arc from one corner
to the opposite corner and continue to
do so through increasingly smaller
golden ratio rectangles, the result is the
D E S I G N
If you create circles in the golden ratio
grid boxes, you will be able to convert
the ratio from a rectangle to circles.

golden spiral.

A Basic Structure for Logos Overlaying Circles

These golden ratio circles can be used Overlap these circles of different sizes to
to help you create a wider variety of create your shapes. This is most useful for
shapes and curves. simple curvy illustrations, icons and symbols.
 I created this penguin illustration using the golden
ratio. Entirely new shapes are created when the circles
of different sizes overlap. This allows me to create
concise curves and a well balanced graphic.

Using it to find nice proportions for typography

sizing or type scale.
In the example below we have a type size at 12pts. We can apply our 1:1.618 ratio to figure out that if
12 is the first half of the ratio, then 1.618 x 12 = 19.5pt (rounded). You can go the other way and find a
smaller size by dividing your pt size by 1.618. So a size one step below would be 12 divided by 1.619 =
7.5pts (rounded).

This is a headline that will

19.5pt
be 19.5pts in size.
The body copy below is 12pts in size and
12pt
pairs nicely with the headline font size above.

Another step down in type size according to the golden ratio was figured
7.5pt out by dividing a given point size by 1.618.
Using Grids
A simple social
media graphic.
This is a simple modular grid
with margins. I am using the
grid not just to find out where
to place elements but where to
frame certain parts of elements,
like the central part of the logo
or a person’s face.

In this case it all about finding

the right balance. We have
equal weight on both sides
with the face and Popsicles
commanding similar attention.
Because of their close proximity
they work in concert to become
one focal point.
 Marsh
Museum of
Modern Art Marsh
Museum of
Modern Artt

Grids in Logo Design

Create spacing rules.
Establish the spacing between elements of the logo but
also the spacing recommended for the areas outside of
the logo.

2x
For example, this logo has 50 pixel whitespace around
the logo required to maintain a clean look for the
brand. Also the same spacing is required between the
1x
logo mark (the icon) and the logo type (the company
name).
Ah
Authentically
ut et ilca lP
yePrepared
pa ed
d
How do I know how much spacing to use?

You can apply grids to any design project
including logo designs to find the right spacing
between your logo type and mark.
Create a mock ad and test out spacing between the
photo, logo and other design parts. This can help you
see how much whitespace might be required to give it
the look you desire.

Grids for Web Layouts

For Desktop.
Above you will see a classic 12 column grid layout with
a small gutter. This is traditionally seen with desktop
website layouts.

This grid is a default grid in an Adobe app called

Adobe Xd, which is commonly used for website and
mobile app layout design and is slowly replacing
Photoshop as the app of choice for this task.

Grids for Mobile Layouts.

To the left you will see a common 4 column grid layout
for a mobile app design. These columns can help guide
the placement of button, photos and other design
elements. They can even assist in helping you know the
placement of multiple columns of information like in this
example to the right. The ends of the buttons line up
with the shopping information above.
Diagonal Grids
Who says grids have to be left, right,
up and down? What about diagonal?
Grids in Editorial Layouts
The grids here were
created by using
guides in Adobe
Illustrator and
Grids are most helpful when creating editorial layouts
InDesign. Photoshop
and spreads. Not only do they keep both sides of a
also has this option.
spread cohesive, they also keep even spacing between
To use guides simply
gutters and provide a professional organization of large go to view--> Rulers.
amounts of information. This will show you
rulers on the sides of
your document. Click
anywhere on the ruler
and drag outward to
create a guide line.
Now elements can
easily snap to your
guides making it easy
to line things up.
Breaking the Grid
Grids are great but not
always necessary for every
situation.
Have you ever heard of Jackson Pollock? He was an
early 20th century painter who decided that modern
simplistic design popularized by German schools of
art during that time (think Bauhaus) was too rigid and
stifled creativity. He became known for these almost
random splatters of paint in his artwork. It challenged all
known methods to become a refreshing take on artistic
expression.

All creative arts are connected and the same goes

for graphic design. There are times when grids are
extremely helpful, but there are times where they can
hinder our ability to do something a bit out of the box.

Choose the times when you feel grids are needed. Fluid
movements, curves and shapes where you want a bit of
unpredictability will most likely be best to form without
the use of a grid. Jackson Pollock Painting - Year Unknown
Putting It All
Together
Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be. You are now
equipped for the epic battle, ready to defeat the
enemy that is creator’s block. I believe a lot of
people have the misconception that creativity is
something you are born with. I happen to believe
that we all can be great creators.
As you read in this guide, there are so many methods,
tools and systems in place to help you know how to
be creative. Hopefully you have seen the veil lifted
and have caught a glimpse of the inner workings of
design.
I want you to take this knowledge several steps
forward. Create as much as you can. This can be
practice projects, sketches, social media posts, or
just simple combinations of typography, photos in
interesting compositions and layouts.
We can only get better through experimentation and
practice. It takes years to become a brilliant painter
or sculptor and graphic design is no different.
With the basic foundations in place go and create
something you are proud of!
“
The biggest
limitation to
your future
success is
doubt.

With doubt
lifted you may Design is not
try things you just meant for
never thought the creative
you could do. minds.

Design is for
those who see the
limits as walls
to be broken
down.

So, go break down

L I N D S AY M A R S H some walls...”
AA

T
Suggestions?
Since this is a digital guide, it means
new sections and pages can be added
to make it even better.

Would you like for me to discuss

something related to design theory
that was not covered in the guide? Or
was there something you want to have
more in-depth detail? Just reach out
and let me know! I am active on many
social media websites including:

Instagram: @LindsayMarshDesign
Facebook: @LindsayMarshDesign
YouTube: @Lindsay Marsh