Design Principles

Five emphasized in class

  • Ellen’s Place

    is a graphic artist’s inspiring, well-designed site that includes interesting biographies about famous people, plus tons of links to other useful sites. It's a pleasure to browse.

    • Alignment – line up things . . . in some way
    • Proximity – related parts and info go together
    • Contrast – so important information stands out
    • Repetition – repeated parts and patterns
    • Unity – all the parts add to the whole piece
Source for the following information and examples: The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams
  1. Alignment, Proximity, Contrast, and Unity applied in a simple business card.
    [James Monroe Business Cards]
    • Left Alignment
    • Center Alignment
    • Right Alignment
    • Name and title together (in proximity), as well as address and phone number together
    • Size & style of name contrasts with other text, making the name stand out clearly
    • The equal gutter (white space) all around, and the use of only one font, adds to the design’s unity
  2. Alignment and center alignment on all the invitations, but by simply changing the text field’s position on the card, a strong design appears; and the application of contrast in the last card (white text on black field) makes the strongest design.
    [Please Come invitations]