in today's a toy graphics graphic design tutorial I'm gonna teach you the golden
rules of layout design so you can make professional and effective graphic
designers so welcome back to the toy graphics and in the first and golden
rule for layout design we're going to take a look at negative space which is
sometimes referred to as white space now this simply is just the areas on your
design they're not taking up by actual design assets or graphics it can be used
to separate sections of your design define certain areas and also allow your
design to have room to breathe now in the first design I've made sure to make
some common mistakes that designers do embark on and that is to try and fill
out the negative space as much as possible by scaling up my text at the
bottom here also I've used a layer of sort to fill the top half now doing this
makes the design appear too busy and unorganized having a clear separation
allows the viewer to look at the design more comfortably and also obtain the
information very very easily but let's take a deeper look at my revision so
firstly the logo is neatly added in the top left and it doesn't fight for
attention and evil crowd the design the blue area is left with a lot of negative
space which does look neat and also organized below that the text is still
legible when printed out on an a4 document yet there is a lot of space to
the bottom rights which gives the design and the text some more room to breathe
allowing your design to have negative space like this clearly creates areas
for specific parts of your design and this makes a viewer feel more at ease
when viewing your design and trying to gather the information from the design
itself so finally the design uses negative
space to create the shapes and going diagonally from the top right to the
bottom left so be sure to pay a close attention to the negative space on your
graphic designs just as much as the actual graphics themselves if not more
so negative space in local designing is often strictly around optical illusions
and creating shapes with negative space if you want to see more about negative
space and local designs I have a video linked at the end of this one but
secondly we're now moving on to why proximity is such an important aspect of
layout design and proximity basically suggests that design elements that are
linked in some way or have a relationship should be grouped together
aspects of your design that do not have a link or a relationship should not be
linked together in most cases when used correctly proximity will structure your
design as well as indicate to the viewer certain cues and information so here is
a landing page design and firstly you can see a clear divide from the left to
the right the right section here basically has the illustrative artwork
displaying context to the design itself you will not find any key information or
call-to-action buttons here aside from the toolbar at the top of course now on
the left hand side the title and the text content is grouped together in a
neat manner using good use of proximity now below that there is a call to action
which has its own space and is left alone which basically frees it up to
make it easier to be seen by the viewer and thus clicked and finally all of the
social media icons are below in their own groove on this left hand side we
have three different groups that all use needs and valid proximity
proximity and negative space do have a connection and both should be taking
into account when designing something in terms of the layouts my repetition is a
key aspects of not only layout design but just graphic design in general it
helps the design have more continuous theme or look and feel repetition can be
seen in things like the color scheme used throughout your design or the use
of similar shapes and graphics and here is another landing page design and what
kind of repetition can you see in this example now firstly the most striking
thing probably would be the color scheme the color scheme is seen throughout the
entire design from the illustrations into the typography and even the
call-to-action button also in the design you noticed that this style of the
illustrations and the graphics are of the same kind of style throughout you
don't randomly see a gradient style or 3d graphic the illustrations are flat
and somewhat rustic in nature all themed around the topic of travel repetition is
not just about using the same graphics throughout but think about the same use
of typeface the same use of color and the same style in general this will
unify your design and make things flow and appear more professional as a whole
the next golden rule for layout design is contrast and this is something I've
mentioned before in this channel but let's take a quick look to reaffirm the
understanding and the importance of it contrast simply refers to two design
elements or aspects that are different in appearance in nature
to create contrast you can experiment with color typeface shape and size
contrast is very useful for creating a focal point as well as giving objects
greater visual weight and balancing the image the first aspect of this design
that utilizes contrast is the typography at the very top now I have the word
Satori in a thicker version of the typeface as opposed to the type saying
graphics this creates interest in the visual aspect of the title and the next
use of contrast is the bottom text here and this is where the use of red and
black is seen which are two contrasting colors as well as again having different
thicknesses in a typography itself and in terms of shape the cellular icons at
the bottom are a contrast to the straight edge line shapes and I found
elsewhere in the design giving them intrigue and a chance to stand out to
the viewer the actual image in the middle of the design is slanted on a
tilt which is a stark contrast to the level straight lines that are horizontal
and found throughout the rest of the design and of course finally the entire
design utilizes a very contrasting color scheme of black and red and also ye
thrown into the mix contrast is a great way to create interest and intrigue on
your designs but also it grabs attention and it directs the viewers eye onto
certain aspects of your design now the penultimate golden rule for layout
design is alignment in graphic design we should always be mindful of alignment if
it's for texts for imagery or design elements in general you should always
look to align your work professionally and not make the rookie mistake of
neglecting alignment on my example the first port of
alignment is the future text in the central focal points now you can draw a
vertical line and see that this text is centered properly and next to the bottom
the text information is situated neatly along a horizontal line and away from
the print edge by a decent amount of space and this is to keep the design
neat and visually appealing now also running up the left and the
right hand edge I've adjusted things so that the linear graphic in the
background now levels up to these text contents on the sides however the white
circle with a price tag and I've left this not aligned properly and this is to
make it stand out more it's okay to break the rules in some
sense as long as the majority of your design does follow the basic layout
rules the design is still aligned well despite the price tag of being the odd
one out and that's just another form of contrasts the last and golden rule of
layout design is to use focal points and I've touched upon focal points many
times in the past so I'm not going to go to detail today however a focal point is
used on a design to a pinpoint the start of a viewers journey and it's the main
hot spot to grab attention and to lure them into your design itself it's almost
like a kind of paint if you want to think of it that way now a focal point
can be a shape it can be an image or even just typography itself and on this
example here what do you deem to be the main focal point of interest firstly
it's a stark contrast in terms of color it's a dark blue set against a color
scheme of oranges and yellows which are the complementary colors and the total
opposites in the color wheel also as a design asset it's very large taking up a
lot of space on the design I notice how the wing itself is pointing to the title
and the text in the sense which again demonstrates how the viewers
can be directed and controlled you start looking at the wing at the bottom and
then you move your eyesight up to the words the text this is a classic use of
focal points in graphic design so just remember focal points are areas
of dominance and they do not have to be the main dominant feature focal points
our areas of interest emphasis or a difference within a composition that
capture or hold the viewers attention so that was today's golden rules of layout
design and there is another one that I could have thrown in there and that is
hierarchy and I did use hierarchy a lot in my graphic designs but I've touched
upon that so many times I didn't add it in today but yeah if you want to keep
learning essential skills as a graphic designer
make sure to subscribe to my channel for weekly graphic design content and of
course until next time have a great day and design your future today peace