You may feel like you need to ask for a designer to help you, but truthfully, anyone can learn the basics of graphic design.
Professionals may have years of experience, but as long as you know the basics, you can grow from them and make your own beautiful graphics in no time at all.
Breaking Down The Basics Of Design
You don’t need any talent in art to learn the basics of design. Everything is made up from basic elements that you can put together.
These elements are pretty simple: line, shape, color, texture, and typography. So long as you understand the core basics of the design, you can easily put them back together again.
However, you should keep in mind that you should put them together meaningfully. You should make sure your design complements your content in a way that aligns with your business.
Doing an arbitrary design won’t help you find good graphic design for your business.
Lines
Lines are vital in the design process, as they connect two points together. However, they can also separate parts of your content, or draw your attention to a specific location.
Lines also evoke different emotions. Horizontal lines are used to represent stability, vertical lines are for motion, and diagonal lines are for drama.
Shapes
Shapes come in different varieties, and the first thing that comes to your mind are geometric shapes like squares and triangles. Organic shapes contain curves, and abstract shapes are unrealistic.
Geometric shapes are used for structure, organic shapes are comforting, and abstract shapes are used for communication.
Colors
Many people have studied color theory, and it’s important that you utilize this when you’re designing your web page. Color is important when deciding on the type of brand you have.
There are warm colors such as reds and yellows, cool colors such as blues and greens, and neutral colors such as white and black.
All of these project different emotions, and you can look at different case studies to see which colors work for what businesses.
Texture
Texture can change the entire aesthetic of your web page even if you can’t feel it. You can use texture to guide visitors through your site, and use images to add to this.
However, that’s not to say you can’t use flat colors. Minimalism is making a comeback, but you also don’t want to use textures that clash with one another.
Typography
Typography is the art of arranging letters and symbols, and can be a huge deciding factor in how people view your website.
You should always choose fonts that are easy to read, and you should consider the line length, style, weight, hierarchy, and the amount of space in between.
Core Principles Of Design
Now that the building blocks have been put together, let’s include the core principles that can help you put your designs together.
Balance
You need to make sure what sort of weight is added to your page. If you have bigger images, you don’t want to add too much text to it. Symmetry can help out a lot in this case.
Having a lack of balance can make your website unusable, and difficult to navigate.
Contrast
Using contrasting elements to showcase their differences can make your design more effective. It’s why using black and white is so popular, because they contrast well with each other.
Rhythm
Think of your design as a series of building blocks to create rhythms. Creating a rhythmic format by using blocks can make your audiences more engaged and even makes it easier to read.
Space
If you see blank space, you’re looking at white space. This provides room to breathe on your site, and can make your site easier to read. However, despite the name, white space can be any color you want.
A Step-By-Step Guide To Design
Now you know the basics and what you need to consider, let’s do a quick step-by-step guide on how you can create your graphics.
Choose a background, either flat or textured color, or as an image. If you choose an image, make sure you’re picky about it.
Pick a design tool once you’ve chosen your background. This can be any design tool you want, and there’s a variety of them online for free.
Choose your add-ons such as your font type and style. Make sure they don’t clash. Also include your icons to make your design more engaging. There’s a variety available to choose from, so feel free to test it out.
Extra Programs To Explore
To make certain features, you might want to use a specific program. You could use Canva, or even Photoshop.
For free graphics design apps, you could try out Designfeed or Pablo, which is one of the more straightforward options. These graphic design tools are fairly easy to use, but you should make sure that you understand how to use them.
If you’re struggling with colors, you can always try out Google’s Color Palette which has hundreds of colors that have been designed to work well together.
As an addition, you can also try to find some free stock photos if you’re looking for images. If you want retro images, try out New Old Stock, and Pexels hosts a collection of over 10,000 images available.
There are so many resources available online, so you should try out as many as you can until you find the right one for you.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know the basics, you should be able to create your own designs with no trouble at all. However, you shouldn’t expect it to happen overnight.
Graphic design is a matter of trial and error. But understanding the basics and the core elements are the most vital elements of design.
So long as you understand what content you want to produce for your brand, you should have no trouble at all in working on your own graphics.
Hi, my name is Justin Shaw, I started my career with a Masters in Computer Science but found writing to be my forte'.
I'm now the Principal Tech writer for GshiftLabs.com as well as a few other well known publications. I help make the complex world of Tech-Jargon easy to understand.
