So you want to be a graphic designer? Join me in this Graphic Design Basics course and learn everything you need to know to get you started. My name is Laura Kyung, and I have been a professional graphic designer for 15 years and creating design courses for Tuts Plus since 2018. Graphic design is the creation of visual content with a communication purpose.
This is what makes design, design and not art. Graphic designers use a mix of visual elements like images and typography, logos, and complex page layouts to communicate ideas. Graphic design is important because aside from making something look visually stunning, it also organizes complex information to be delivered in the most comprehensible way.
Before we start with the course, let's take a brief and quick look at the history of graphic design. Before there were printing presses, the actual route of visual communication goes back to cave painting in prehistoric times, around 38,000 BCE. Early cave paintings are a sign that humans had an innate drive towards art. Historians aren't quite sure as to who cave drawings were meant to communicate with, but humanity already showed an interest for communicating with visuals.
Around 3000 BCE, The Sumerians created the first written languages with the purpose to record trading and inventories. The earliest languages weren't phonetic sounds, they were logographic, that means icons that represented entire words and concepts. There is evidence that at the beginning of the current era, around 200, China used printing methods using wood reliefs to print on silk, clothing, and paper. Around 1040, B. Shen invented the world's first movable type printing press from porcelain.
That's hundreds of years before Gutenberg's press in Europe. In the Middle Ages, typography started to catch on and letters and words became essential as texts and books were being reproduced by hand. Onciles were prominent in this area, a majuscule script style used by Latin and Greek scribes. Calligraphy, page layout, and lettering became important as calligraphy masters traveled around to share and educate the elite.
Johannes Gutenberg developed the movable type and printing press in the 15th century. This was a turning point for modern typography because it allowed for mass communication, reproduction of lengthy books, literacy for the masses. This was the start of design as commercial use.
The Industrial Revolution between 1760 and 1840 brought new technologies to increase efficiency like lithography and eventually chromolithography. These printing methods, first with only one color ink and the latter with multiple colors, involved inking a design into stone or metal and transferring it to a sheet of paper. Typography took on a much bigger role through signs, posters, newspapers, and advertisements.
Typefaces became larger, bolder, and even more experimental. The later decades were full of art movements that heavily influenced design trends. We've seen everything from the Bauhaus, Swiss design, and postmodernism. After the 1950s, the world began to embrace the digital era. The invention of computers, software like Photoshop, and the internet paved the way to new design disciplines like web...
design, interactive design, UI, UX, digital product design, and a myriad of other digital designs. Graphic design has now two constants, communication first, and it is always evolving. So now that you know where graphic design came from, it is time to learn the basics.
Every design piece is composed of different basic principles of design, appropriate color palette, carefully chosen typeface, and even more carefully typeset text. In this chapter, we will take a look at design principles, color theory, vocabulary, and elements of typography. But first, let's start with the definition of graphic design and the role of a graphic designer.
William Addison Dweggins wrote an article, New Kind of Printing Calls for New Design. And in it, he described exactly what his role was. He brought structural order and visual form to printed communications. A graphic designer is primarily concerned with applying design principles for communication.
We can communicate through logos, brand systems, layouts, design artifacts, collateral, etc. But all of this helps a brand, a book, or entity organize and clarify information, tell a story, and ultimately connect with people in a meaningful way. So in the next three lessons, you will learn all the basic principles, the color theory, and the elements of typography that you can apply in order to communicate effectively. In this lesson, we will take a look at basic design principles.
And the principles of design are a set of rules that designers can follow when creating a composition to create visually pleasing work. The purpose of these rules is to deliver a message in the most organized and functional way. So let's get started with the first principle, balance.
Any element placed on a page carries a visual weight. It can range from form to size, color, and texture. In order to make a design feel stable or have balance, the elements need to have a certain scale.
Lack of balance would make your design feel heavy on one side and empty on the opposite. And sometimes it can feel as it is falling off to one side. You can have symmetrical balance or asymmetrical balance. So symmetrical balance is when the elements on the right side have the same visual weight as the elements on the left side. Asymmetrical designs have different elements on the left and the right side but equal visual weight.
Next we have Unity. Unity is the harmony produced by all the elements in a design piece. Using similar colors that match and integrate elements organically makes it appear as if they belong together. You can achieve unity by making clear relationships between the visual elements.
Lack of unity would make your design feel cluttered and confusing. Not only that, but viewers will be attracted to the wrong element of the design and won't get a clear message. Next up we have contrast. Contrast refers to the level of difference between design elements in order to create visual hierarchies.
The variation makes certain elements stand out more than others and you can apply contrast by using colors, textures, sizes, and shape. Contrast can also create a focal point to certain elements that can draw the viewer's eyes. Lack of contrast can make a design look dull and viewers can overlook the important message. Repetition. Using repeated elements on a layout can be pleasing to the user.
Repetition is repeating a single element through the design. We can call a grid a repetition of lines because it creates a certain consistency. Repetition can also be achieved by repeating elements in a design like a logo or a tagline in a brand development project, or in a layout design, repetition is shown through the folio placement to help users find their way.
Next step we have pattern, and pattern is the repetition of more than one design element. While repetition focuses on a single element being repeated, pattern refers to multiple elements repeated throughout a design, like wallpapers and backgrounds. You can see seamless patterns predominantly in interior design when using tiles or wallpapers. Next, we have Rhythm.
Rhythm is the visual tempo of a combination of elements when used repeatedly and with variation. It gives the feeling of organized movement. Rhythm is a principle of design that is usually hidden in works of art and it is not as obvious in design principles or design works. Next up, we have Movement. This refers to the path the viewer's eyes take through a composition.
Movement in a composition creates interest in a dynamic play that keeps the viewer engaged. Movement can be created with rhythm when using a variation of an element repeatedly. Movement can be created with curved lines and diagonal lines. These lines trace the path to the focal point.
Next, we have emphasis. Emphasis is a strategy to get the viewer's attention. attention to a specific design element.
This can be in any form, a button, a website, an image. The purpose is to create something that will stand out from the rest of the page. Color is an easy way to create emphasis in any design because it creates a sense of urgency and attention.
Proportion. Proportion is the sense of unity created when all the elements in a composition relate well with each other. Proportion as a principle of design doesn't necessarily refer to the size of one element, but to the relationship of two or more elements. For example, in layout hierarchy, the proportion of the headline compared to the photo caption needs to be larger as the headline is the most important element.
Smaller elements have less importance. Harmony. Harmony as a principle of design is the sense of cohesiveness between the elements in a composition. The elements shouldn't be exactly the same or completely different but related in some way.
Color palettes or similar textures can create a sense of unity between different components. And last, we have variety. In the principles of design, variety is about creating visual interest that will keep viewers or users engaged with your design.
Holding their attention and guiding them through the composition will create a powerful experience. Variety adds something interesting to create contrast and tension. So for instance, mixing organic shapes with geometric shapes adds variety. This concept should reinforce the message you're trying to communicate in your design, otherwise it can look dull or pointless.
The elements and principles of art and design are the foundation for creating a composition, The use of these principles will help you design with purpose by giving function to every single element in a composition. In the next lesson, we will look at some color theory, vocabulary, and its importance. If you're a beginner designer and you're looking to streamline designs, processes, and you're looking for templates or inspiration, Envato Elements is a great resource for assets with their extensive and always evolving library you're sure to find something you need. From photographs to stock video, motion graphics, or if you need specific sound effects and music, and web templates, there are millions of creative digital assets with simple commercial licensing and you can cancel anytime. In this lesson we will take a look at color theory.
In color theory, colors are organized on a color wheel. in order to understand other color theory concepts, it is essential to understand this handy tool. Artists and designers use this tool to develop color harmonies that are pleasing to the eye and communicate to evoke certain emotions.
Sir Isaac Newton created the traditional color wheel in 1666 and that now helps us understand how colors work together. The color wheel consists of three primary colors red yellow and blue. Mixing these three colors gets us other three secondary colors, purple, green, and orange.
And by mixing primary and secondary colors, we get other three tertiary colors, a blue-green, blue-violet, and yellow-green. The color wheel can also be split into two main temperature groups. Warm colors are associated with the sun, warmth, fire, energy, action.
While cool colors are associated with calm and peace, blue, green, and purple, and their different shades are cool colors. As graphic designers who work in print and digital, we have to be familiar with color profiles or color spaces. This is very important to know and it is based on the final result of the project.
RGB and CMYK are two different color spaces that are used for different mediums. So let's start with RGB. RGB stands for red, green, and blue.
This is the color mode for digital output that need light to show color. RGB uses the additive color method that means that when all the colors are combined we get white. So RGB is mainly used when your final design will be displayed on a screen, be it a phone or a computer screen or an advertisement screen.
So CNYK stands for for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. CNYK uses the subtractive color mixing method. That means all colors start with white paper and then we subtract color until we get to black.
This is a color mode to use if the design will be physical. One important thing to know is that the colors we see on screen will never be as vibrant when they are printed. So while we're designing on a screen and we set up our document as the NYK, we will see bright colors but when it is printed the the colors will be slightly washed out. So always keep that in mind. Now let's take a look at color qualities.
That would be hue, saturation, and value. Hue is any color on the color wheel. It is another word for color.
While saturation is the intensity or the purity of the color. So this controls if we want the color to look more saturated, meaning vibrant, or desaturated, meaning dull. Value has to do with how light or dark a color is. This is where we get into shade, tint, and tone. Shade is created by adding black to a hue or color.
In other words, darkening a color for it to be rich. Tint is created by adding white to make a color less intense. And tone is created by combining black and white or gray with a hue. Now let's take a look at color harmonies. Color harmony is referred to colors that look appealing, balanced, and just work beautifully together.
So let's take a look at some essential color harmonies that can get you started on creating your own color palettes. The first color harmony is complementary. Complementary color harmony pairs two colors directly opposite on the color wheel, red and green, or blue and yellow are basic examples of this. This helps create a strong contrast color scheme. Keep in mind that you can also use the different hues and tones.
They don't have to be pure hues or pure colors. Next up, we have split complementary. This color scheme uses one base color and two secondary colors. So instead of using a complementary color, two colors placed symmetrically around it on the color wheel are used. The base color is main, while the secondary color should be used only for highlights or accents.
Next up we have Analogous, and this color harmony works by combining a main color with colors that sit next to it. This color scheme can produce a calming energy because it's so easy going, it doesn't have that much of a contrast. Next up we have Monochromatic.
This takes just one basic color from the color wheel and uses its different shades to create a more natural look. tones or tints to create a palette. It looks simple and cohesive. Next step is triadic.
This color scheme uses three colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel, forming a triangle. Tetradic colors are two sets of complementary colors that form one palette. These colors work best when one of the colors is the dominant in the palette and the rest are used as accent colors. And last in this lesson, we have to take a look at color psychology. This is a very powerful tool to use in graphic design.
Colors have the ability to impact a person's impression of a brand and evoke certain emotions. Just like warm colors are associated with the sun, fire and cool colors are associated with peace and calm, the rest of the color wheel also affect perception and behaviors. So there are many factors to consider like cultural background, gender, age, and many more as colors can be perceived in different ways. Based on different studies, colors can evoke certain emotions.
So for instance, red can represent power, passion, excitement, but it can also have a negative connotation like anger, danger, and aggression. Blue represents trust, security, and serenity. Its negative connotation is cold and emotionless and sometimes even unfriendly.
Green's positive connotations are related to health, hope, and prosperity, while some negative connotations can be boredom and stagnation. Colors are a powerful visual tool that, when used correctly, can get not only feelings but also ideas across. Some of us might have learned the basics of the color wheel in school, but mastering it doesn't have to be difficult.
Understanding the color theory wheel can help you create a myriad of color combinations. That can even be the main character in your design. Now that you know what color theory is, it is time to look at one of the most important elements in design, typography. What is typography? Typography is the strategic arrangement of type in order to make written language readable, legible, and appealing.
Typography has evolved greatly through the centuries. The serifs we see in fonts today can be traced back to early engravings in ancient Rome. Serif capital lettering was used to inscribe monuments and buildings. Characters were created by chiseling on stone, so the chisel created small feet at the end of each stroke. In the 14th century, Johannes Gutenberg adopted the movable type printing press and this allowed a larger number of sheets to be printed using ink.
Gutenberg then developed the first ever typeface, black letter. But shortly after, Roman type styles became popular since black letter was difficult to read. So typesetters started to look for ways to produce affordable books so they came up with space saving techniques like tracking and letting.
During the industrial revolution, printing presses evolved and paved way for advertisements. So designers started to experiment with condensed and stretched type for newspapers and posters. The upside of all this typographic freedom was the development of slab serif type faces.
So these were punchier and bolder revivals of existing serif styles and they still gave it a name. and still now give a lovely old-timey feel to titles in current design. By the 1900s, the modernist times, designers were creating some of the humanist and geometric typefaces we use today, like Futura, Gil Sands, and Helvetica. So these were introduced as functional and ultra-lunchable typefaces.
With the evolution of computers, Now we can create sophisticated typefaces with specialized software making fonts available to all computer users. Not only that, but the range of typographic family designers can now create is impressive. Variable Fonts is the latest digital type edition where one font file contains multiple typographic styles that vary in weight, width, style, and size. So before we get into type classifications, it is essential to know type anatomy.
That way I can explain the differences between the different type styles and it can further help understand typesetting basics. Let's start with Seraphs. So Seraphs are the small feet at the end of a stroke on a letter or character.
And they originated back in time. Characters were created by chiseling on stone. So the chisel created small feet at the end of each stroke.
Seraphs are usually used for long body copy because they are highly legible. Next up we have ascender. So any part of a lowercase letter that extends above the x height, for example letters like b, d, or h, have an ascender.
The ascender is any part of a lowercase letter that extends below the baseline, for example g, j, p, or q. So that would be the vertical stroke that goes downward. So axis refers to the direction of the stroke in a letter form, often taking inspiration from how letter forms might appear if drawn with a pen. The ear is a finishing stroke, usually on the upper right side of the bowl of the lowercase g. Bowl is the curved part of the character that encloses the circular or curved parts, also called counter, of some letters such as lowercase b, d, o, uppercase d, and uppercase b.
Shoulder is the round part of a letter such as r, m, or and all lowercase. This name comes from the fact that it resembles a human shoulder. Stem is the main, usually vertical stroke of a letter form, also known as a stroke, and that's a main or heavy stroke of a letter.
Spine is the main left to right curving stroke in the uppercase and lowercase s. The spine may be almost vertical or almost horizontal, depending on the typeface. Ligatures are special characters, are a combination of two individual characters.
Some letters can bump into each other when printed and ligatures allow for them to flow better together. Lowercase is the small form of letters in a typeface. The title letters or non-capital letters of the alphabet are lowercase glyphs.
Uppercase is the capitals in a typeface. The name comes from the days of metal type. Capital letters were kept in the upper part of the typecase. Font Styles Font style is the adjustment of the character or case such as italics and all caps.
Some typefaces have no style options and sometimes only offer a regular weight. Weight is the overall thickness of a typeface's stroke in any given font. The most common weights are regular and bold, but weights can cover extremes from the very light to the very heavy. With the weight axis in variable fonts, that number is effectively unlimited. Let's talk about type classification.
Knowing the different typefaces, categories is essential to identify them historically and distinguish them visually. Let's take a look at sans-serif first. Sans is French for without. Sans-serifs are what the name describes.
Without, Serifs. Sans Serif fonts are the most versatile category of typefaces. You can use them as display fonts or long-form copy.
They're clean, minimal, modern-looking. There are Grotesque Sans Serif, and these fonts were commercially popular in the 1900s. They feature a slight contrast between thick and thin strokes and an open aperture gap in some characters. Neo Grotesque Sans Serifs are refined versions that came later and intended to be more neutral and legible.
They feature a uniform stroke and a closed aperture gap. Humanist sans serifs are based on the proportions of Roman-style capitals, and some characters have a calligraphic influence. They feature a higher contrast between the strokes and a wider aperture. Geometric sans serif fonts usually feature optical circular bowls and rectangular proportions. They don't have a stroke contrast, it is more uniform and have a complete vertical axis.
Next, we have serifs. So serifs, like mentioned before, are the small feet at the end of a stroke on a character. With the exception of slab serifs, serif fonts can be used as body copy as they are easy to read and very comfortable to the eye.
Serifs can be subdivided into old style. These fonts were developed between the 15th and 18th century to be used as metal type for early printing processes. These features lightly rounded, cupped, and inclined serifs. Serifs can also be transitional.
So these came into picture in the 18th century as a transition between old style fonts and modern styles. The main feature here is sharper serifs. Modern serifs became more refined in detail thanks to advances in the printing processes. And they feature completely straight, flat serifs that sometimes can make them look less legible and more fashionable. Last, we have slab serifs.
These are easy to identify from the rest of the serif subgroups. The serifs are heavy and square and they have the same stroke thickness, so they are very uniform. This type of fonts were used for advertisements in the early 1800s. Scripts. These are based on the flow of cursive handwriting and are divided into two main categories, formal and casual.
Formal scripts are elegant typefaces used on wedding invitations and diplomas. They're inspired by writing from the 17th and 18th century. They feature connecting tails and flourishes. They look very elegant, very regal.
Casual scripts. are inspired by brushstrokes from the 20th century. They're more relaxed and friendly compared to formal scripts.
Monospace typefaces have a fixed width, meaning that all the characters occupy the same amount of horizontal space. These fonts bring to mind typewriters and computer programming. However, they can be a perfect choice for designers looking for sports, minimal, and an undesigned feel. Display fonts don't fit into any of the previous categories. They are one of the largest and most diverse categories.
Display fonts aren't suitable for body copy and are often experimental. Some examples are graffiti fonts, tattoo fonts, fantasy, and more. Variable fonts aren't really a style of typeface but more of a file format. This open type format developed jointly by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe includes a new technology called OTF variations.
A variable font can contain a font's entire glyph set up to 64,000 variants including weight, width, and slant. So as a rule of thumb, serifs and sans-serif fonts can be used for long form copy. Mixing these two together is fine but more than three fonts can be distracting. I have already been using many of these fonts from Envato Elements for my own personal projects. The quality of these fonts is amazing.
You can impress clients and save so much time with their resourceful library. With one subscription, I have access to unlimited assets that go beyond just fonts like photos, music, sound effects, and graphic templates. You can subscribe with the link in the description.
It is important to always put at the forefront legibility and clarity. Remember that our jobs as graphic designers are not just about creating. graphic designers is to communicate and organize information.
Type setting helps polish up a design piece to achieve clarity and comfortability. Not many designers put this level of attention to detail, but if you do, it speaks volumes. So let's get started with readability. Readability relates to how type is set on a page. It is the arrangement of fonts and words in order to make written content.
Flow in a simple and easy to read manner. Legibility is how a typeface functions. It is a measure of how easy it is to distinguish letters or words from one another and how easy blocks of text are read. There are different factors like x height, character width, weight, and other design traits that can determine if a font is legible.
Size. The smaller the type size, the more difficult it is to read, especially if your audience includes children or elderly people. Always consider who you're designing the content for.
Line length or column width. As a rule of thumb, there should be between 45 and 70 characters per line. When the column width is too narrow, it can result in many hyphenated words, forcing the eyes to jump to the next line too often.
On the other hand, long lines can cause confusion for the reader when they go from line to line. Letting or line space. The amount of letting you will need in a text box is based on the type size and the excite of the font you're using. To maximize readability, make sure there is enough line spacing, because too little line spacing can result on the lines crashing into each other. Tracking or letter spacing.
This refers to the space between a group of letters in a line of text. Adjusting the tracking can enhance readability and change the texture of a text box. Curtaining is the adjustment of the space between two individual characters within a word.
It is mostly used in logos or headings to enhance legibility. Alignments. In paragraphs of western text, alignment refers to the invisible vertical lines implied by a block of type. When type is left aligned, each new line begins from the same point on the x-axis. Right alignment isn't used that often and center alignment should only be used for short form text.
Rags. These are the uneven vertical margins on a block of text when it is left aligned or right aligned. You can fix them by hyphenating words where necessary or doing a soft return for a new line break.
Drags are more about visual appearance, but the reading pace needs to also be considered here. These are gaps that appear to run through a block of text which usually appear in justified text. A common way to fix this is by unjustifying the text or typesetting each line with hyphenation and soft returns. Orphans and Widows. An orphan is a paragraph opening line at the beginning of a page or column that separated from the rest of the text.
And a widow is a single word or line at the end of a paragraph that's separated from the rest of the text. These two problems can be solved by adjusting the kerning or tracking or by adding manual line breaks. And last, font case.
Uppercase is when every character is capitalized in a sentence. Lowercase is when no letters are capitalized. Sentence case is when the first letter of the first word in a sentence is capitalized. Entitled case is the first letter of each word capitalized. And that's it!
In this lesson, you learned about one of the most essential elements of graphic design. Good typographic use is important in order to communicate messages successfully. It is time to look at the rest of what graphic design entails.
In this chapter, we'll take a look at design examples for the concepts of the previous chapter. You will learn how, depending on the discipline, you'll have to make different design choices. And always keeping in mind that there's a brief to work off, a design solution that needs to be achieved, a message to be communicated, and a user whom we're designing for.
We'll also take a look at print design, what is the new definition of digital product design, digital design, and brand design. Through one of my branding projects, we will look at the brand design process, what you need to know before getting on the drawing board, the development process, deliverables, and examples of brand identities that have made brand design a key part of companies. So let's get started.
Print design is any design where the final form is intended to be printed. Since the rise of digital tools, every design will most likely be designed on a computer or even a web page. but the end product will be printed. This covers anything like brochures, shopping bags, stickers, labels, book covers, posters, business cards, flyers, and magazines.
So let's start with poster design. Every designer has designed at least one poster in their career. The top priority of a poster design is to expose key information and for it to be easy to read from a distance. The use of space and hierarchy are very important here. So on this poster, we can see that it has balance by placing a text group in the center and the design elements on both sides of the poster.
There's high contrast not only in the background but also in the text size. So this helps establish hierarchy. The background adds a nice touch of movement to what could have been a static group of design elements.
While there's contrast on the colors of the background, The designer also used cool tones. This is balanced with a black and white type to not create more visual noise. And last, the font used here is a sans serif. Super easy to read from long distances.
The text is concise, the date and the time are grouped together, and the hashtags have another little group at the bottom. So it is divided in good harmony and with good use of hierarchy. So our eyes go to the main text. first in the center next to the date and last to the bottom to the hashtags so people aren't confused as to where their eyes should go. Next, let's take a look at book design.
So books started off as ancient scrolls back in the fourth millennium BCE. Books have been part of our daily lives since then and they have evolved from handwritten to printed pages to digitized online. Books carry out information.
This is where typesetting text is important. As designers, we want to make books that are comfortable and easy to read. So in this book design, there are a few type styles that establish hierarchy.
The table of content or TOC and the welcome text box have the same font in size. This is bigger than the rest, establishing hierarchy that way. Throughout the pages, we can see repetition through the placement of the ingredients list. Photography is very important when it comes to book design because it helps create contrast between the design elements on a page. There are plenty of ways of displaying images, square, rectangular, and in circles.
Here, it is important that you use high quality photography. Sometimes designers or projects don't have enough budget. to have custom photography so design assets are totally fine to use.
The main text here is set in a sans serif font since there isn't long information like in a novel. A geometric sans serif font is fine and we can also see contrasts between the typefaces. Choosing photography for a book design compared to a poster design is very different.
Detail shots can look really beautiful here. Last, Let's take a look at magazine design. So magazines are a direct representation of culture and society. They've been used since the 1700s to distribute news and information on general or specific topics. This multi-purpose magazine template would make a great arts and culture magazine or even a fashion magazine.
Each spread achieves a great visual balance between left and right pages. The pages that contain images also create a sense of unity and cohesiveness. Nothing looks like it doesn't belong.
There's emphasis created with a colored background on certain spreads. And as for typefaces, the sans serif choice makes the publication look contemporary, modern, and clean. There's also a good sense of hierarchy and a play with the folio, the page number and section.
While bigger than most magazines, it adds an edge to it. So the difference between magazine design and book design is that with magazine designs, you can get a little bit more creative. Magazines usually have a topic or they're based on trends as opposed to book designs.
These need to be more timeless. And that's it for print design. So remember, print design is any design where the final form is intended to be printed, something physical. In the next lesson, we will take a look at digital product design. Many of us have shopped online on Amazon or rented an apartment on Airbnb or have browsed Instagram not only on our mobile phones but also on desktops.
Some of these websites are extremely easy to navigate through the use of design principles and usability. These websites are intuitive when it comes to their use and this is the UI and UX or digital product designer's job. So why product design? In the context of product design, A digital product is a software application, website, or platform.
Before 2010, the word product only referred to tangible goods. And now as softwares have become a normal part of our daily lives, designers and developers now look at these the same as a tangible product. UI and UX are sometimes used interchangeably, but these two concepts overlap.
UX is focused on conducting research on the user's experience. UI designers focus on these as well, but on a more systematic level, making sure that everything looks good and feels good, so cohesiveness. For instance, on this beautiful set of UI screens, we can see how the different screens match with each other.
They all have a certain characteristic, starting with a simple color palette and a call to action that stands out, that will be the buttons. Here would be also read more or play. There is a great sense of hierarchy through the typographic elements and the typographic system.
It is clear which is the title or what information is more important. Overall, there is a great sense of balance and unity through the use of the color palette. The illustration style matches from one screen to the other. When it comes to mobile phones displaying complex information like data visualization, it is important to have order, create hierarchy, balance, color choices also become important and it is very systematic.
Especially because the information needs to be made clear, it needs to be easy to understand. This is where truly less is more. So now that you know the definition of digital product design, in the next lesson we will take a look at digital design. In this lesson we will take a look at digital design, another graphic design discipline. So graphic design in general focuses mostly on static designs that are printed.
Digital design and graphic design can overlap. That's the case for magazines that get printed but also require a digital version. Digital design can be also static, but it is often displayed on a digital device.
It can also sometimes involve movement like animation, modeling, and interactive pages. When it comes to movement, framing is important. It is the way the elements are arranged in the frame.
similar to the principles of designs but keeping in mind that there's movement involved. In this particular video, the camera pans from the back of the cliff to reveal a meander and the water. So the last frame is centered, balanced, and static because the bend or curves adds movement to the frame already. Because of this curve, it is also that the video looks super straight and aligned. An example of digital design that's static but it's only used on screen would be a YouTube thumbnail.
A very popular design item these days since YouTube has become more and more popular. YouTube thumbnails need to look enticing, interesting, and need to call for attention in just a few milliseconds. So using a sans serif font is ideal. Make sure that it is easy to read.
The design shouldn't be too complex because of the small size of the thumbnail and you should use colors that are interesting and also interesting compositions that can catch the eye. This banner ad is a perfect example of digital design. In this case, we can see multiple sizes, but they all use the same elements.
The dark background helps draw attention to the shoes as well as the light colored typography. Sans serif fonts can create a sense of urgency, especially when used in all caps. Parts of the information uses a background color to help draw more attention.
So this type of banner you would usually see in passing when scrolling a website. So it is very important that this type of design is striking, easy to read. and features an impactful image so all of the attention goes to it.
Remember digital design and graphic design overlap in most things. The only difference is that most graphic design elements end up printed while digital designs are always displayed on screen and their end use is for screens. In the next lesson we will take a look at brand design which often include both print design, digital design, and even sometimes produce digital product designs. So what is brand design? Brand design refers to key brand elements like logo, color scheme, typography, and other supporting elements that make a brand stand out from competitors and one brand that is recognizable to consumers.
A good brand helps you understand the company's history, purpose, values, beliefs through all of these brand design elements. In this lesson, we'll take a look at the brand design process. This is my personal process, what you need to know before you start designing, before you get onto the drawing board, the development process, and the leverables.
We'll also take a look at some famous brand examples that made brand and identity design a key part of companies. Besides creating a distinct identity for a product or service, Brand design can also encompass the entire image of a company or organization. The key advantage of brand design is that the branding, the design elements, the language helps you identify with your audience.
So for instance, if you see a sign or a blog post, anything printed or on screen, it should be clear what company it belongs to. Let's take a quick look at what the branding process looks like. This is my personal process and this way you will know how to get started designing your own brand.
Let's take a look at this brand presentation from one of my clients and it includes includes a lot of the branding process. So the process started with an interview with a client of Four Bears Coffee Roasting. In this interview, I asked questions like what inspired the owner to start their own brand, their background, their likes, dislikes, and what type of personality they saw the brand as. So the target market, age, profiles of the type of people who would typically buy this coffee. It is important to know what questions to ask to look for inspiration that later can serve us to design the brand.
This part of the process is really important because we have to ask many many questions as anything at this point can serve as inspiration. So for the second step based on that interview, I built out a presentation with the direction we want to take the brand in, the essence of the brand, the audience, keywords that describe the brand, and what makes this brand different from the rest and from the competitors. mood boarding is essential to communicate all these traits to the client so this specific coffee brand also highlights lesser known coffee regions especially female producers so that's what the mood board was based on so pinterest here is a great resource for inspiration as a fourth step based on the unique traits of four bears coffee roasting i developed a color palette that was inspired by everything that was talked about with a client from her personal story, her background, and brand traits.
Alongside that, I provided classic and edgy color combinations that she can apply to the brand when it is delivered. From there, two concepts were developed and presented to the client. I suggest presenting between one and two concepts.
That way, there's time to focus on the quality of the concepts and if the right questions were asked on the initial interview, we then have a specific direction to run toward. Keep in mind that two different concepts mean two very different ideas, the way they look and the way they feel. So putting together a presentation that makes sense is essential.
Explaining the concepts properly and with the right words is also important. Keeping in mind that most times our clients don't have the same design knowledge that we have. It is important to explain the concepts with depth, explaining design choices we have made, color theory, so everything that entails that concept and at this point the client should provide feedback and choose only one concept to move forward with. As a next step, we take all of that feedback from the client to the chosen concept and finesse the design.
Here you can also start creating collaterals or continue if you haven't. Test your design in print or digital to know if maybe the typeface is the right typeface or the lines that you're using. are too thin or too thick or need some kind of finessing.
From there, create a final presentation for the client and once the project is approved, it is time to create the brand guideline. So creating the brand guideline is useful so the client or business can apply your design in the future if you're not their in-house designer. In this case, I created a brand guideline so the client can apply the brand as she wants.
The brand guidelines include specific values for the color palette, logo margins, how to use the different logos, and typographic rules. The next step is to export the deliverables agreed on in my case i delivered a design package that included the different logos in different file formats for web and print different colors as well as the graphic elements the collateral designs ready for print fonts and any other extras so my client has everything she needs and this is useful for a smaller entrepreneur or solopreneur so that way they can continue growing if they are at the beginning stages of their a solopreneur or entrepreneur journey. So now let's take a look at some examples of successful long-lasting brands. First, American Airlines from 1968 by famous Italian designer Massimo Vignelli.
The American Airlines brand identity has been famous for the use of Haas Helvetica. The logo is also famous for being simple. It features the modern typeface and the words are said half in red and half in blue. the USA's national identity. So the whole brand system was focused on function and logic over trends or emotion.
There was a lot of controversy when designers redesigned this original and unique brand. And the second example is the Olympic Summer Games for Munich from 1972 by Otto Eiger. The Munich 1972 brand is known amongst designers as a strong comprehensive visual identity that is to this day inspiring. The challenge then for this specific branding project was to rebrand the image Germany had post-World War II and modernize it.
Adel Eicher created a fabulous design, iconic, bold, and dramatic without losing the German design ethos of precision. The emblem represents a crown of rays of light. The identity included strong, playful colors and flawless pictograms. The design team went as far as designing the mascot and pictograms that successfully fit the whole branding system. A beautifully structured pictogram system that looks fresh even today.
Very simplistic and extremely timeless. This whole identity system is a great example of not only redefining a country, but also inspiring a whole generation of designers. So in this chapter, you learned the difference between design disciplines.
that exist today. You learned the new definition of digital product design and the brand design process. In the next chapter, we will take a look at different design tools to use and design assets that can help us speed up our work. So designers have different ways of working through a design project. But while these processes can be different, successful designers follow at least something similar.
A solid design process can help designers deliver quality work, get the job done through organized tasks and in an efficient manner. Not only that, there are plenty of tools that can help us design better and efficiently. So in this chapter, we will take a look at some useful tools that can help you improve your projects at every stage of the design process. We will cover tools for easier workflow, mood boarding, color palette development, and we will take a look at design assets and their benefits.
But first, let's take a look at the different design disciplines and how these overlap with each other. So first, let's talk about the different design disciplines. Graphic design per se is the creation of visual compositions to solve problems and communicate ideas through design elements like typography, imagery, color, and form.
There is no one recipe to do that. That's why there are several disciplines. So we can talk about marketing or advertising, packaging, and visual identity or branding. Designers make sure We're hitting those points through the successful use of graphic design elements, making sure that a brand looks cohesive not only in packaging but also in communication and graphic language.
Game design, motion graphics, or animation can rely on someone who has experience in illustration. UI and UX are two disciplines that blur their lines also as well as web design. It is not only concerned with the visual but also how people interact with digital product designs. Art directors are the designers responsible for coordinating and supervising the work of designers or other creatives who are involved in a single project.
So for instance, if we're talking about a magazine design, here we have photographers, editors, sometimes illustrators, and the designer who will be putting everything together. The creative director's role is usually above the art director and they take care of all the creative operations and tends to pitch creative concepts usually having direct communication with clients and as you can see there are many different disciplines and most designers especially specializing more than one because of the rapid advancements in technology. While there are different disciplines, many of these jobs have a similar workflow.
So generally, we start with a design brief from the client or art creative director that contains the details, purpose, and goals of the project. Next up, we have the brainstorming phase where we collect everything from the research and We aim to solve the problem from as many angles as possible. So by the end of this brainstorming phase, designers should have multiple solutions and concepts and ideally narrow down the solutions to a max of three concepts, ideally two, and even better if it's just one. Next, it is time to get your hands dirty, so to speak, and prepare rough sketches or layouts to present to the client or the team. The roughness of the sketches is for you to decide and also depends on the time that you have for the project.
The concept presentation to the client should be concise and to the point. Remember that often clients aren't designers, so it is important to explain every concept in detail and why we have made certain decisions. Clients will provide feedback. Ideally, this feedback will include more than I like or I don't like, and it will be more concept. The next step is to incorporate the feedback from the client to the design, polish the details and present the final product, deliver the necessary digital files.
If it needs to be sent to press, then you will need a PDF or you will need to push live if it is a website or sometimes both. Now let's take a look at some of the different software that designers use. In the past, poster designs were drawn by hand. and hand-painted, sometimes with multiple, and capacitors to achieve multi-color posters with processes like lithography or chromolithography. Now, design is available to the masses from the simple swipe and tap of your screen.
Professional page software like the Adobe Suite contains many software for many of the design disciplines mentioned before. Adobe InDesign is great for publishing magazines, book designs, multi-page, documents. Photoshop is good for digital painting and photography work.
Lightroom is for more specialized photography work, while Illustrator is great for vector-based designs, illustrations, logo designs. Premiere Pro for videos, After Effects for motion graphics, and the Adobe Suite has become the industry standard these days. Figma is a great collaborative web application for UX and wireframes or interface design.
Note that you can't build apps or websites here, you can only create the prototypes. Figma lets you collaborate on libraries and templates to share with your team. Another partially free web app is Canva. This user-friendly app has been very popular amongst non-designers the last few years. You can create marketing designs like posters, ads, videos, and social media graphics.
Figma and Canva start with a free plan building up to other subscription models. If you're looking for Adobe Illustrator alternatives, there are plenty. Affinity Designer has a one-off cost rather than monthly subscription.
Other apps like Sketch, Coral Draw are also one-off prices, and Inkscape is a great free option. As for InDesign, other desktop publishing app that has been used More and more these days is Affinity Publisher has a one-off fee. Their latest release is pretty close to what Adobe InDesign has to offer.
And you can even import InDesign files to work there. UI and UX designers also use some of these tools mentioned like Figma, Adobe XD, Webflow, and Sketch. And if you're interested in typeface design, FontLab is a professional software that has been the industry standard for many many years. FontForge is a great free option here.
When it comes to organizing projects, Trello is a great online tool that helps streamline creative processes and create a fluid collaboration between multiple designers or big teams. I personally also like to use Milanote. It is an awesome easy to use tool. To organize ideas and projects through visual boards. It is like Pinterest for designers.
And that's it. In this lesson, you learned everything concerning design disciplines, the design processes, and different software to use. Next, we will take a look at the use of design assets and how to come up with color palettes. Design assets have become essential for the busy designer and tight budgets.
Not every client can afford photography or professional licensing for typefaces. So these assets are important to achieve a high quality design. Let's start with fonts assets. There are plenty of free options to download fonts like Da Font and Google Fonts. Da Fonts has a great library with plenty of fonts that suit a big range of projects.
Google Fonts offer amazing quality fonts for free with a wide range of open source fonts in different languages. On their website, you can also try different font combinations before you download them to see if they work for your design project. Finding color combinations can also be time consuming, and there are awesome tools that can help with that process and get it shortened.
Coolers is a great tool to help you get started with a color palette. You can pick get inspiration, generate random palettes, and even go as far as checking contrast and create gradients. Another great tool is Happy Hues.
If you like a color palette but you don't know how to apply it, this site can give you inspiration and examples as to how and where you could use the color palettes. Many designers turn to design assets from websites like Envato Elements. Explore the fonts library and find anything from vintage fonts to futuristic fonts and even some of the best experimental fonts in the industry.
In the next lesson, we'll talk about how technology has impacted graphic design. Our main purpose as graphic designers is to communicate. Technology has made it easier to reach and spread information at a much faster rate due to the internet. Brands have more exposure online, allowing them to have a direct relationship to consumers.
Digital graphics quality improved greatly, but before would have been done with collage. Today can be created by painting in Adobe Photoshop or feeding words to an eye. Nowadays, we can take amazing photographs not only with cameras, but also with our phones.
Connectivity has made it interesting for many designers to work remotely. Adobe has made it easy for freelance designers to work anywhere in the world while still collaborating on design files. without being in house.
When it comes to fonts, in the past we needed multiple design files or multiple font files. Now we have variable fonts. This is the latest digital type addition where one font file contains multiple typographic styles that vary in weight with style and size.
And last, technology has made the field of graphic design expand by organically creating overlapping. disciplines. UI and UX wouldn't have happened without the internet revolution.
The traditional graphic designer was known for creating packaging or ads for marketing. It now has evolved into a wide range of disciplines, all which have communication and technology as the common denominator. Graphic design is an essential tool for business growth and it will continue to evolve as a result of advances in technology and online mediums. I think it is important to emphasize here that graphic design has a purpose.
Every design problem has a brief to work off from and a problem to solve, and that's what makes graphic design graphic design. In the next chapter, we will take an overlook at everything you learned in this course. Graphic design is the creation of visual content with a communication purpose.
You learned about the different visual elements that are involved in creating a design piece. We looked at the basic principles of design so you can organize elements on a page, color theory and its concepts, and an overview of typography history and its classification. We also looked at the different design disciplines that exist presently and the more traditional ones. You also saw examples of the different design choices you can make based on the discipline.
To make your design process easier, We show you tools that can help you have a seamless workflow. We also show you everything from subscription software, alternatives, mood boarding, and websites to help you with color palette development. Last, we took a look at how technology has evolved and affected our industry. While technology development has moved quickly, we must remind ourselves the core job of a graphic designer. It all lies in the balance between making something look visually stunning while organizing complex information that's being delivered in a comprehensible way.
At the end of the day, communicating with clarity is priority. My name is Laura Kyung from all of us at Envato Tuts+. We hope you enjoyed this course and we'll see you in the next one.