12 Graphic Design Principles

1. Contrast

Contrast is one of the most common Graphic Design Principles and every graphic designer must
dominate it, contrast refers to the difference between the elements in your design, mean for
example in a color that if you use a dark color in one element, the other graphic elements need to
be in a light color to easily differentiate from the other.

For example, if you create a graphic design with a text, and the background of your design is
Dark, then the text color needs to be in a light color to make it easier to read.

How To Use Contrast in Graphic Design

 Contrast is a key principle of visual hierarchy and a fundamental element in graphic design, the
contrast in graphic design is a great way to attract the viewer attention at the same time that
organizes your elements in your graphic design elements by focusing the eye on most important
parts of it.

When talking about contrast many people just think about color contrast, but you can apply
contrast in different ways using color, size, shapes and typography, on this post I will show you
how to apply Contrast principle in graphic design to make your design projects better using these
graphic design tips.

What is Contrast in Graphic Design

When we are talking about graphic design contrast refers to a representation of two elements of
the design in opposite ways, is a very useful design principle used by graphic designers to create
focal points in a graphic design layout that makes your eyes naturally draw to that point.

Contrat is also used in graphic design to give shapes or objects better visual weight and balance
the whole design, it is also used to organise all the graphic elements present in your graphic
design project at the same time that you can use typography contrast to organise text and
enhancing the most important parts of it.
 How to Use Size Contrast in Graphic Design
Size contrast in graphic design consists on adding a variation of scale and size to the different
graphic elements on the composition being the bigger ones the most important elements of it and
where the viewers will look for the first time.

You can apply size contrast in every element from your design layout, from text or shapes,
making the text or shape bigger to focus on that part of the design, usually, the bigger text is the
title being the focal point.

By adding size contrast to your design makes it more interesting visually and help to assure the
key ideas of the design being the big item more important than the smaller, by playing with this
type of contrast you can be sure to move viewers eye on the right area of the design layout.

Size contrast is also a good graphic design element if you want to create minimalist graphic
design projects, as you are lack of elements to play in your design, you can use size contrast to
make your design layout more interesting and avoiding boring design by using the same size in all
elements.
 How To use Contrast in Color
Color contrast in graphic design consists on playing with complementary color schemes to drive
the viewer’s eye through your design composition, usually, the first look of the viewer will be the
brightest part of your design as it is more notorious than the darker color, so use it to create a
focal point adding the most important element of your design with the high contrast color.

Color contrast is the most popular type of contrast in graphic design and most well-known
principle for non-designers and it’s not a surprise as color theory is a key principle in graphic
design. As it happens with different types of contrast is used to drive viewer attention and make
your design more visually interesting.

It’s also very important to choose the right color combination to create an eye-pleasing color
contrast because if you choose a wrong combination it can be irritating and frustrating to the
viewer, it’s also important to avoid using colors near to each other inside the color wheel if you
want to create color contrast as they look very similar and you won’t obtain that result.

Use complementary colors to create contrast but avoid too bright combinations that can produce
strain on the eyes, if you feel that the color contrast from your design layout it’s too bright and
can be damaging to the eyes, try to different shades of that colors and experiment with the
different tones.

How To use contrast in Shape

When you have a repetition of the same shape in your graphic design layout for example squares,
it’s a good idea to add a different shape like a circle to drive the viewer attention to that specific
part of the design as it’s different from the previous shapes.

Using shape contrast and color palette tester in your graphic design layout can help you focus the
viewer’s attention to a specific point making it the most important element of the composition at
the same time that makes your design idea more interesting by avoiding a monotonous use of the
same shape through the layout.

Imagine a design layout formed by rectangle shapes all around, this will make it look boring and
confusing by the viewer as he wouldn’t know what is the key point of the design, by adding a
variation on the shapes it will make automatically the first thing people will see and it should be
the key element from your composition.
 How To Use contrast in typography
Typography or font contrast in graphic design consists of pairing two different fonts with a clear
visual differentiation to focus the main information on the most notorious font, being the most
important part of the text the title which will be the first thing the viewer will read followed by the
body text.

It’s important to note that bold or more decorated fonts can grab viewer attention more easily but
they don’t have good readability for long pieces of text, that is why only use it for tittles or small
pieces of text that you want to focus by the other hand for body text, you can use less decorated
fonts as the key part for long pieces of text is to maintain good readability and make the viewer
easy to read.

Imagine a design layout only made by text, and now imagine that text is the same through all the
design, really boring right? there are two ways of applying type contrast, ad the first one is to
choose two or more fonts for your design, being the header one font that focuses more attention
and the body text use a more readable font.

You also can use the same font throughout the whole design by you can apply different weights
depending on the importance of the words, using bold weight for the focal points, and light or
regular weights for the rest of the body text.
 2. Balance
If you are a Graphic Designer and you are working on a design project you need to know that
every element you place in your design has a weight on it, and it can come from color, size, or
texture.

Balance refers to how you put these elements on your design and avoid putting all your heavy
elements in the same place. There are two types of balance, Symmetrical, which creates balance
by aligning equally weighted elements, and asymmetrical design is the opposite, you align a
heavy element with lighter ones to create a contrast effect.
 3. Emphasis
Emphasis refers to the importance of the elements on your design, and what order they should
have on it. What the emphasis principle says is that the most important information that you need
to show in your design must be the first thing the people see in your project.

For example in a Movie poster design, the first thing you need to see is the Movie title, then it can
be the name of the director and after the name of the actors and actresses, if you want to know
which are the best Poster Design in Movies you can check my post about it and see how the
emphasis work on this posters.

4. Repetition
Repetition is a great tool to reinforce an idea you want to transmit through your design and it also
helps to unify your project, you can use the repetition principle in different elements as color,
typefaces, shapes, or other graphic design elements.

For example, if your design has multiple typefaces or colors it can be seen as a bad design and
uncomfortable to watch due to the chaos, but we can avoid this by choosing two typefaces for
example, and using them in all the design.
 5. Proportion
The proportion principle in graphic design is one of the easiest to understand, basically,
proportion refers is the size of elements to one another in the design. Larger elements are easy to
see in design than smaller ones and by this principle, larger elements are more important than
smaller ones.

6. Hierarchy
Hierarchy principle in Graphic Design stands out that the most important elements in your design
also should appear to be the most important, this help people who will see your design understand
better what is the important element on it.
You easily can see a hierarchy example in titles and headings in a design.

What is Typography hierarchy

Typographic hierarchy helps you to organise the information from your design layout making for
the reader easy to find the information he is looking for and focus on the most important parts of
your text and which are just supporting the main point.

The big difference between an average graphic designer and great graphic designers is that the
second one understands that graphic design is a visual way to communicate a message and
prioritize it instead of just the visual aesthetic of the design layout.

We will understand better what is typographic hierarchy with this example below where we can
see two pieces of text with the same information and amount of text, yet the left version it’s
impossible to distinguish what is the text about and the important parts of it, but on the right text
we can easily see the title and the subheader making it easier to see what the text is about, and that
is called typography hierarchy.

Why is important Typography Hierarchy

Now that we understand what is typography hierarchy the question is why is important in graphic
design? and the answer is very simple, it’s a vital part to organise the information you want to
communicate through your design by importance, being the first sentence the viewer see the title
or the focal point of your design.

We can use typography hierarchy in all types of graphic design projects and web design. For
example, you can use it on a business card design to prioritize the name of the business card
owner or the company followed by the contact details, in UI/UX is used to make the viewer
navigate through the site more easily and view the call to actions clearer and the last example is
poster design, you use one word or sentence really big to grab the attention of the people and
making them stop to read the rest information the poster is talking about.
Typographic Hierarchy Levels
In typographic and text hierarchy there are three different sections with a clear differentiation
between them and this is used to create a visual hierarchy in the text. The three sections of text
hierarchy are Heading, Subheading and body, graphic designers use these sections to make the
design more eye-pleasing and easy to find the information you are looking for.
Heading
The first section the viewer should see is the heading, that is why the most important information
of your message should be placed here and used to attract the viewer attention. Usually, the
heading is used for the title and as it contains the most important part of your text it should be the
most visually stimulating element of your design using large and bold typefaces to make the
viewer stop and read the information in your design.
Subheading
Subheading in graphic design is used to divide your design layout into different sections to give
the reader more information about what is about the body text and expand the header information.
The subheading should be visible and stand out from the body text but still making the visual
differentiation with the main header, as example you can use this post, and as the main header is
the title of the post, the article is divided into different sections with subheadings indicating what
you will read in the body text.
Body
Lastly but not least is the body copy, this section will include the content and that will make it text
heavy, as we saw the main function of heading and subheading is to grab the viewer attention and
the main function of the body text is to communicate the information you want, that is why is
important that you use a font with good readability for the text and the size of your body copy
needs to be smaller in comparison with heading and subheading.

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How To Create Typographic Hierarchy in Design Project
Now that we know the three levels of text hierarchy in graphic design, the next step is how we
create this hierarchy in a visual way and easy to differentiate each part of the text, there are plenty
of graphic design techniques to do it and let’s see the most efficient ways to create visual
hierarchy in text.
Type Size
The first element to create text hierarchy that cames to our minds is type size, and it consists of
making the most important parts of our text larger (Heading and subheading) in comparison to
the less important (body text) making the bigger elements as a tool to grab the attention of the
reader. If you want to use type size to create visual hierarchy in your design layout you can use
the traditional typographic scales present in most word processing programs and it the scale is 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, and 72.
 Case
Usually, capital letters are most suitable to use as a heading or subheading as they will make the
sentence more visually important and easy to see but by another hand, they are not a good idea to
use in the body text as it will negatively affect to the readability of your design

Weight
Typeface weights are a great idea to create visual hierarchy in your text as making the typeface
bolder or thinner will make it easier for the viewer to organise the information in your design. It’s
better to use bold typeface weight for heading and subheading as they are more suitable to grab
viewer attention and use regular or thin weights for body text to increase the readability of your
text.
 Color
Color is also a great graphic design technique to create a visual hierarchy on the text as you can
use the color contrast principles and giving the high contrast color to the focal part of the text and
you can use different shades of a specific color to create this hierarchy, you can check this post
where I show you how to use contrast in graphic design.

Position
The position is also a graphic design principle that you can apply to text hierarchy to organise the
information across your design layout depending on the importance of them, you can place the
most important information in a prominent place of your design to create a visual separation from
the body text making for the viewer easy to identify the key elements of your text.
 Alignment
Alignment is related to position to create visual hierarchy in your text, you can play with the
different alignment options to create a clear difference between the heading, subheading and body
text.

Typeface
Font pairing is also a popular technique among graphic designers to create visual hierarchy in
typography and it consists on choosing different fonts for the most prominent elements of your
text (heading and subheading) which will be more focused on grabbing viewer attention as you
can use bold and decorative fonts and more readability focused font for the body text as it will
include bigger pieces of text. Make sure that the fonts that you will use for your design layout
have a reason and are aligned with the context of your design.
The Art of Pairing Fonts: A Beginner’s Guide
Read More
 Spacing
Lastly but not least you also can use spacing as a graphic design technique to create a visual
hierarchy by adding more white space on important elements of your text as this will create more
emphasis on that parts at the same time that you will obtain a more clean look of your overall text
making clear the different parts of it.

Combine Different Styling techniques

Now that you have learned the different styling techniques graphic designers have to create
typographic hierarchy it’s time to play with them, that is why you can combine different elements
of text hierarchy to create the combination that will be right for your content and design layout.

For example, you can combine type size, typeface weight and color as you see on the example
below to create a visual hierarchy in your text organising the information according to their
importance and make it look better in your overall design.
 Visual Hierarchy Principles in Graphic Design

Visual Hierarchy in Graphic Design is the way we arrange all different graphic elements from the
composition and create a visual order depending on their importance, being the most important
information the first we saw in the design.

The average time people spend watching any design is 8 seconds, so that’s why visual hierarchy
is important, we need to have in mind this time when creating a design and structure correctly all
elements depending on their importance to give the viewer the main information.
1. Size and Scale
In graphic design Scale and proportion as design elements refer to the size of one graphic element
in relation to another graphic element in design or artwork. Size and scale are one of the core
principles of graphic design, and they can affect on the meaning of your design and it can help the
viewer to identify easily the most important elements from your design and focus on the main
information.

2. Color and contrast

Color is one of the key elements of Graphic Design and I have a single post dedicated to color and
a full guide of color theory here!. Talking about visual hierarchy color and contrast is used in a
design composition to drive the viewer’s attention to specific graphic elements through
contrasting color palettes where the most important elements use brighter color.
 3. Typographic Hierarchy
Typographic hierarchy in graphic design is a system used to organize in a visual way using
typography (Rytr provides more information about it. Read rytr review here) the order of
importance of the information shown in the design, where the title will be the most important
element, and it will be bigger than the body text, and that will help the viewer to easily identify
the main topic of the design

4. Spacing
Spacing in the visual hierarchy is used to give all your graphic elements in design more space and
room to breathe, and this will make it easier for the viewer to identify all objects in your design
and order them by importance.

5. Proximity
Proximity is one of the basic graphic design principles and proximity rules in the visual hierarchy
are say that things that are related should be nearer to each other, and things that don’t have any
relationship should be placed further from each other in your design composition.
 6. Alignment
Alignment in Graphic design refers to placing graphic elements and text on a page that line up
with your composition. Alignment helps you to organize your design elements and create a visual
connection and make the viewer easier to detect the most important information from your design
and improve the readability of it.

7. Repetition
Repetition in graphic design refers to a process of repeating different graphic elements from your
design and place them through the design composition to give a more unified look to it and
adding more consistency to your design.

8. Leading lines
Lines in graphic design are one of the basic graphic elements and they are marks used to connect
two different points, in the visual hierarchy we use leading lines in the design to direct the
viewer’s eye and control their attention using lines.
 9. Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds in graphic design is a common technique designer and it consists in divide the
design into three rows and three columns, and where the vertical and horizontal lines meet is
where the focus points in your composition should be placed, by doing this technique helps to
make more striking effect to the viewer.

10. Perspective
Perspective in graphic design refers to the three-dimensional effect given to a flat image as design
composition and designers can use this technique to create an illusion of depth and in visual
hierarchy objects closer to you drive more attention.

7. Rhythm
The rhythm principle is easy to understand by using the music as an example when you are using
repeating elements in your design this creates spaces between these elements, and this creates a
visual rhythm as this happens in musical compositions. There are five types of visual rhythm:
random, regular, alternating, flowing, and progressive.
 8. Pattern
The pattern in Graphic Design refers to a repetition of multiple graphic elements on your design
working together to create an eye-catching and harmonious design.

Pattern principle is also referred to how design elements are designed in a project and set a
standard on it to easily communicate your ideas.

9. White Space
White space is also known as negative space, and it refers to the area of a design that is empty and
not include design elements. But white space is actually a really important design element, you
need to give your design elements space to breathe and easily differentiate them from other
elements.

White space is also used in Logo design to create hidden images on it and give more information
about your brand and avoiding to saturate it,

What is Spacing in Graphic Design

Space in graphic design is the distance around the area between different design elements of your
composition, and to make it clear with an example, put an image into a page, and space refers to
the area that doesn’t contain the image, also known as white space or negative space.

In graphic design space is used to separate or connect elements in your design layout, adding wide
space creates emphasis on the difference between different graphic elements of the composition
and by adding more narrower space between them creates more relationships between the
elements.
Depending on the use of spacing techniques in your design layout it can help your design convey
different meanings as quality, solitude, cleanliness, purity, spirituality, openness and calmness.

What is White Space in Graphic Design

White Space, negative space or blank space in graphic design refers to the space between each
graphic element of your composition and it can have any color, texture or patterns and it’s used by
graphic designers to make breath each element of the design layout and create emphasis on
certain elements of the composition.

White space is used by designers to create a visual hierarchy among the graphic elements to help
the viewer scan the design and easily identify the focal points, by adding white space in your
design it also increases the legibility and readability of your text and negative space can help you
to create a minimalist design style.

How To Use White Space in Graphic Design

Now that we already know what is white space about and how it can help to create a visual
hierarchy in our design, let’s see how we can use it, but first we need to identify the different
types of white space in graphic design.
Micro White Space
When we are talking about micro whitespace we refer to the small space between graphic
elements as letters, text lines, paragraphs, buttons and icons.

Micro white space is usually used in paragraphs to improve the content legibility and help the
viewer to read faster the text with better comprehension thanks to adding margins to it as if the
text goes outside the paragraph’ it will make it harder to read for the viewer.
 Macro White Space
Macro white space in graphic design refers to the space between bigger graphic elements of the
design composition as text columns and graphics.

Unlike Micro White Space, macro white space acts like a big picture white space helping as a
container of the overall design as it is used as a major design layout element to emphasize
different parts of the design composition.

Active White Space

Active White Space refers to the space added in a design layout intentionally to create more focus
on specific parts of the design or content from the design, it’s called active white space as the
main function of it it’s to be noticed and create emphasis on specific elements.
Passive White Space
On other hand, passive white space is added in a more organic way between words, lines or the
blank space around a logo design, and in most cases it goes unnoticed as the main function of the
passive white space is to increase readability and comprehension of the design.
 Why White Space Is Important
White space or negative space is a really important design element used to create visual hierarchy
in our design layout and can make the difference between a good design vs average design, let’s
see some benefits of using correctly white space in your design composition.
Focus
The correct use of negative space in your graphic design layout can make it easier for the viewer
to identify the important elements of it, so we can use white space to focus the eye on the content
we want for the viewer to read first.
Helps to build a hierarchy
As space is a visual hierarchy principle it allows white space to create hierarchy among the design
elements present in our composition, making our design project easier to understand and it helps
to build an eye path for the viewer to follow the content ideas in order.
Creates a certain design style
As mentioned earlier on this post, white space is key design elements for different styles as it can
help your design look more luxury, minimalist, premium or modernist by using the negative space
and is a key principle for minimalist design style which you can read more on this post.

Many luxury brands know the power of white space in graphic design as they add a lot of
negative space on the presentation of their products to give all the focus on them creating a simple
design where the focus is the product adding him premium quality traits.

Minimalism is always a trend in graphic design and it’s always associated with modern style, that
is why many brands that want to be perceived as modern make a huge use of negative space on
their designs creating very clean graphic design layouts.
Improve Comprehension
White space is a key element for graphic designers to improve comprehension and readability in a
text, especially is used micro white space for that purpose as there studies that says that good use
of white space between lines and correct margins can increase the comprehension of a text up to
20%.
Group Elements and help the user
By using white space in a graphic design layout makes it easier for the viewer to identify groups
of elements and make a logical order. By adding negative space to a design composition we can
easily differentiate different parts of the design that can include images, text or branding elements.
Adds emphasis
Lastly but not least white space is used in graphic design to add emphasis to certain parts of the
design making that part easily identifiable and clearly visible by adding more space, for example
think about logos, adding more space around it helps to add more focus on your brand.

Graphic Design Tips For Using Space

 When your graphic design project needs to contain many elements it’s important the good
use of space to arrange all of them in an harmonious way
 By giving a high amount of space to a graphic element it will create a focal point there
and you can use it to highlight some part of the design.
 Large margins will give your page more upmarket look and makes it easier for the viewer
to follow the content.
 Don’t be afraid of using white space or negative space in your design as it will help the
viewer’s eye to rest and easily identify the content of your design.
 10. Movement
The movement principle in graphic design refers to how the human eye interacts with your
design, and the most important element in your design must be the first thing people see, and after
seeing it your design needs to lead the viewer to the next most important element.

11. Variety
The variety principle is used in design to create visual interest to the viewer and it can be created
with different elements as color, typography, images, shapes, and many more. And by using the
variety we avoid creating a monotonous design and lose the interest of the viewer.

It’s important to understand that when you use the variety principle you need to be very careful by
not overloading your design and create chaos.
 12. Unity
Unity principle refers to how well all the elements used in your design project work together, they
should have a clear relationship and communicate the same concepts, this will cause that your
design looks more organized and every element on it will be related to each other.