Graphic Design For Beginners – 5 Basic Principles
This article references my experience in magazines, but the principles apply equally to other media in both web design and print. No matter what software you work on, or what industry you’re in, these guidelines are universal. Understanding them and practicing them will pave you a rock-solid foundation for a successful career. The rest is up to you!
There’s no question some people have a gift for graphic design, but even the most talented novices need some mentoring in order to learn fundamental design basics when they’re starting out. Without such guidance, many gifted designers will fall short of their potential. I’ve seen experienced Art Directors do high-impact magazine covers and creative feature openers filled with eye-popping typography and complex Photoshop collages. But the pages that follow are littered with unforgivable design flaws. Here are five basic principles – not necessarily in order of importance – which well help you become a better designer from day one.
1. Comprehension precedes typography
We’ve all seen designers do amazing things with type. Pulling words apart and manipulating individual letters to reflect the context and meaning is one of fun things about designing. Before you get that far, however, one simple prerequisite: read the copy and understand it! For people whose job it is to work with type, many designers have an aversion to reading. Before you can go and play with the text, you must understand exactly what you’re being asked to present visually. Know which words – if any – need to be emphasised; understand the hierarchy and stick to it.
2. Good typography
Once you’re ready to bend the type to your will, remember it’s not always necessary to waste hours looking for the perfect font. Try instead using a plain font and do something creative with it. This is a good place for an inexperienced designer to test their typography skills. If you can produce creative typographic designs with classic fonts such as Helvetica, Times, Garamond, etc, then you’ll be well prepared to explore and design responsibly with the more exotic fonts available. Bonus tip: if you’re combining fonts, the key is there must be contrast between them, otherwise you may as well just use the one (or the variations thereof). This can be done using size, weight and colour, but also consider the style of fonts themselves. Rarely will it be a good idea to pair up two decorative fonts. Alternatively, the combination of exotic and plain fonts can yield fantastic results.
3. Understanding hierarchy
The laws of hierarchy apply equally to text, graphics and images. Without them, your artwork trips on the first hurdle. List in your head (or jot down on paper) your design elements in order of importance, then design and assemble them so that the viewer immediately recognises which part he/she should be looking at first. Start with the most-important, then second-most, and so on. Rarely will you need more than a three or four-tiered hierarchy. Again, use size, weight and colour to affect the outcome, but it is important that this hierarchy is at the beating heart of your design, not a last-minute adjustment. Once you’ve finished, have a good look at your work. If the hierarchy isn’t obvious to you, chances are it won’t be obvious to anyone else.
4. Combining colours
You’ll either have a feel for colour or you won’t. Mostly true, however, a beginner can’t be expected to have the same balanced sense of colour as an industry veteran. So where to begin? Obviously, you’ll need to consider what kind of design you’re doing, and who it’s aimed at. But whether you’re working with vibrant primaries or a stylish earthy palette, there are ways to ensure you’re combining colours that don’t jar or vibrate against each other. Take a nice earthy purple: 50C/45M/15Y. Instead of grasping blindly for a complementary colour, try sliding the CMYK channels against one another, keeping at least one the same. If we slide only the Magenta down so we get 50C/10M/15Y, you’ll find a nice turquoise that works perfectly with the purple. Or perhaps you want a warm combination. Go back to the original purple and assign the same numeric values to alternate colour channels: 15C/50M/45Y. Now you’ve got an earthy pink – same values; different channels. Again, it works well with the purple (in fact, they all work together). Naturally, there’s nothing saying you need to stick rigidly to this rule, but it’s a good starting point for a novice designer struggling with the tricky concept of colour. And don’t forget to make sure your monitor and printer are calibrated to display accurately.
5. Is your design the best possible solution?
Graphic design is of course subjective, and there are a hundred different roads leading to the solution. You need to find the best. Once you’ve finished your work, ask yourself this: is this the best possible outcome? The measure of what kind of designer you’ll become will rest greatly on the extent to which you push yourself with this very question. Don’t settle on something if you’re not 100% convinced it’s the best-possible design outcome. If there’s even a sliver of a doubt in your mind, change it or try something new. Your client wants to see the best you can do. That’s exactly what you should be delivering every time.
The above-listed principles should be lesson 1.01 for any upcoming graphic designer. A successful, experienced professional works to them without ever pausing to think about it. Creativity without order is contemporary art, not graphic design. Never forget your client. They’re paying you to be creative, but working with these guidelines in mind will help build structure to your art so that it’s true to its purpose and sells exactly what it’s designed to sell…be it glamorous or not-so-glamorous. After all, that’s precisely what we’re employed to do.
Brief History of Graphic Design
The very first written word of mankind was the beginning of Graphic Design! And its native land was none other then ancient caves and caverns! The very first symbol they had sketched through cave drawings, paintings, markings on boulders, bone, and ivory are the foremost indication and evidence where graphic design was born, nursed, nourished and grown! Nevertheless, the term Graphic Design was named by William Addison Dwiggins in the early 20th Century.
Anthropologists studying prehistoric periods on cave paintings leads us earlier than the Upper Paleolithic period from 40,000 – 10,000 B.C., where our ancestors were learning how to design signs and symbols that could be communicated visually; moreover they were successful on leaving their marks. The pioneers of graphic design are none other then our own ancestors, who had lived in the caves and sketched their drawing on rocks.
History of graphics design roots to our own ancestors of ancient era where civilization was cultured in caves, and left their drawings and sketches for us on their canvas of cave walls and ceilings.
The earliest drawings known today are from 6,000 years ago, are that of carved stone and pottery containers. Drawings contained in Egyptian pyramids with signs, symbols and letters are known to all and it leads us back 5000 years.
Furthermore, from 600-250 BC evolution on geometrical shape and structures in Europe played a major role for the development of designing and sketching. As an applied art of arranging images and text for an attempt of visual communication; the hand written copy of the Christian Bible “The Book of Kells”, created by Irish monks in 9th century AD with rich illustrations is a good example of the evolution of graphic design.
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg, a German metal-worker and an inventor, introduced a printing technology allowing the re-use of individual letters. The first book produced by Gutenberg press was “The Incunabula”. This book became the standard in the history of book printing and publishing and was a giant leap for printing and publication; though, block stamping on sheets of paper with text and signs carved, was in use in Europe and Asia long before 14th century; however, Graphic design of this era was formatting and we today have named it Old Style graphic design.
Guttenberg era of graphic design evolution was sluggish, until the 19th century, in Britain the division created between fine art and applied art boosted this evolution, and they successfully published some of the most major graphic design products through the Arts movement. William Morris made a great deal of business of publishing books with stylish printings and contributed a significant role to attract the potential market as well as commercializing graphic design; in addition he was the pioneer for the separation of commercial design and fine arts.
Another painter from the 19th century was Piet Mondrian whose innovation has greatly influenced today’s modern graphic designer. Though he was not a graphic designer, his uses of grids was the origin of modern day advertisement known as the grid system; widely used by graphic designer of our century today.
With the decadence of classical style, modern graphic design engrossed in the early 20th century with designs influenced by fine arts. The trademark of early modern fonts is the sans-serif typeface. In 1928, the book “New Typography” written by Jan Tschichold systemized the philosophy of modern typography.
Furthermore, the fathers of modern graphic design are still considered to be typographers such as Herbert Bayer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky as they broke new ground on typography building techniques and stylizing. Modern computer technology has changed typography production altogether, but for the experimental and evolutionary approach their contribution was highly recognizable.
The booming and flourishing period for graphic design was after World War II; as the American economy thrived, the demand of graphic design, particularly on advertisement and packaging sectors blossomed.
I Love NY ad campaign (1973) and a famous Bob Dylan poster (1968) designed by Milton Glaser are examples of applied graphic design culture and its influence. Progressions in graphic design in the early 20th Century were mostly enthused by technological expansion in printing and also in photography. But at the mid of this century, the raising of the computer era in graphic design has faced little backwards as early computers were far weaker and computer memory was limited. However, within the end of this century with the immense development of computers and its corresponding technologies, modern graphic design has evolved into a business that is done almost entirely on computers.
In mid 1980, the arrival of desktop publishing and the launching of software applications like Illustrator and PageMaker introduced an era of designers to computer image manipulation and 3D image creation. Computer graphic design facilitates instantaneous effects of layout or typography changes.
Today, graphic design the visual communication, is yielded in the rich soil of computer ground, fertilized with latest hardware and software technologies. Graphic designers worldwide plough through computers loaded with the latest gadgets and gizmos, software and hardware, academic and technology, information and communication, and are generating the new history of graphic design in their design laboratories.
With express elevation of the hi-tech industry, the future assures more and today’s designer are contributing their name and effort through their creativity for the next generation. History yet has to write all of her pages for new innovation and invention in this field.
Author: Bharat Bista Resources and References: Graphic Design – Custom Web Site Design – Silk Flowers
Graphic Design – Exactly What is Art Nouveau?
As the 19th century was drawing to a close, graphic illustrators incorporated pattern, shape and design into their art. This major shift in approach to graphic design can be traced back to one artist, who died at the young age of 26. Even though his lifetime was short, he managed to develop his very own, highly personalized, interpretation of the entire art nouveau style which many artists have been trying to duplicate at various times throughout the 20th century.
One of the most famous and infamous literary figures of this time period was Oscar Wilde, who was a patron of various artistic styles, he put forth that art was an end unto itself and neither moral nor ethical judgments should be put upon it. Wilde chose this important figure in the history of Art Nouveau style to create imagery for a story of his which was considered ‘perverse’ and ‘exotic’. The blossoming artist utilized dark eroticism, grand lines, arrangements and interesting imagery to depict the storyline.
A pronounced interplay between positive and negative space defines this artist’s noteworthy style. This artist often used elegant patterns on a light surface, surrounded by heavy borders and negative space. The resulting works were sweeping and beautiful, active across the entire visual plane and lacking symmetry. Although the actual characters found in his art are very simple outlines, their clothes or props are usually very detailed. The intriguing interplay and contrast beween the complicated and simple characterizes his work.
Japanese art, as well a a revival in medieval art forms and early Renaissance work inspired designers at the end of the 19th century. Wilde’s drawings ran in numerous famous and popular publications of the time. This led to widespread admiration and appreciate of his work in both the United States and throughout Europe. Artists imitated and copied his work at every opportunity. Currently, a great deal of this art is available as reproduction prints and posters.
Poster art evolved during the 19th century; it was first simply used as commercial advertising, and then changed into a completely different art form. Even though the books of that particular era were being produced in black and white print, color posters were also being printed. One colorful and arresting image was the focus of the leader of poster design. If this image was advertising an event or a product, the accompanying text was usually very simple and quick. He worked with powerful colors and simple shapes that were flat so that he would seize the viewers’ attentions. He used lines that were fractured and suggestive much like the Impressionist artists. Because of this, his work is though to be the forerunner of the exemplary art nouveau design poster.
There was another illustrator, who is thought of as the creator of the more proper art nouveau poster, who used more fluid contours and much stronger outlines. His is the familiar work seen full of willowy, young girls wearing loose clothing and letting their hair flow down from their heads, which then moves out into further artistic shapes. An additional renowned art nouveau poster artist’s creations were invariably characterized by sleek, thin proportions which included a full-body rendering of a woman. Ornate, complex arrangements feature a range of influences, such as origami, Hebrew characters, Arab and Moorish embellishments, Byzantine mosaic work, Japanese wood cut examples and Celtic themes.
Books and reprints are available today for many of the turn-of-the-century artists. You will also find there are dealers who will specialize in the sale of 19th, and early 20th century poster art. These dealers can frequently be found in stand-alone stalls at big antique markets. If you go, be ready to deal with prices from hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for any original pieces that are in excellent condition.