Hi! I’m Libby, and I’m a marketer and designer at Lucidchart.
Diagrams are a great way to organize your thoughts and work out processes.
But eventually you have to take it from the rough draft stage to something you can show to other people.
For example,
I could show this diagram to my boss and my coworkers as-is, but just a few minutes of work
would make a huge difference and make it really wow-worthy.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you a few tricks to make your charts more eye-catching and
more persuasive.
You can use these principles apply no matter how you’re making your charts, but I’m going to be using Lucidchart
If you want to follow along
I’ve made this document into a template,
and I've included a link in the box below so you can follow along there.
Ok, let’s get started.
Ok, here we have our Lucidchart diagram.
Maybe you made it, or maybe you’re collaborating with a co-worker.
Either way, you’re showing it to your boss in 1 hour, and you need to give it a makeover.
Keep the three Cs in mind when cleaning up a diagram:
Clarity Consistency and Contrast
Step 1: Clarity
First, I’ve taken the chart and organized it to provide more clarity to the reader.
While you’re organizing everything, think about the chart from a new reader’s point
of view.
Is it clear where they should look first?
Do they know where to go from there?
Have you made the information clear enough for them to follow?
Work with alignment to make the diagram easy to follow.
You should also check for spelling and logic errors, and fix any that you find.
Step 2: Consistency
Second, I’m going to work on consistency.
A design tip: when you’re picking font styles, “more” does not equal “better.”
Pick just one or two fonts, you really don’t need to go crazy.
(Don’t worry, we’ll talk about different ways to provide contrast and visual interest
in a minute.)
Headers can be larger than body text, but try to keep font sizes the same for most of
your shapes.
Consistency also applies to formatting like bolding, italics, and underlines.
People tend to overuse these things.
At least in this phase of design, keep your design simple and clean.
Later, we’ll use formatting to emphasize the most important things.
Consistency also applies to brand and company colors.
Some people think they can just guess the colors and everything will be fine.
NO.
No no no no no no nooo no.
Do NOT just eyeball this!
Brand colors really need to be precise.
Ask your company’s designers for a brand color palette, or look at your organization’s
materials to figure out the correct colors.
You can use hexcodes in Lucidchart to get the exact shade you need.
One easy trick is to copy and paste a branded image into your Lucidchart doc, then use the
color picker to sample colors.
For example, I want to try filling these boxes with this blue, so I’ll just color sample
it here.
An easy way to make changes across an entire doc is “Copy and Paste Style”- just copy
the style from an object you like, and then paste that style to other objects.
If this document is going to be external, you may also want to add your organization’s
logo.
Try putting it in the corner, and lock it down so it won’t get in the way if you need
to select and move objects.
Step 3: Contrast
Contrast adds easy wow-factor, and helps the important information stand out.
I use something I call the “cross-eyed” test to assess contrast.
If you cross your eyes and look at your diagram, does it all blur together?
Or can you still pick out the location of important shapes/words?
If you can, it’s a sign that you’ve made them stand out well.
For example, I want people to start reading right at the top shape.
By making it darker, I draw your attention there first.
I’m also going to make this big shape on the left darker as well.
Since multiple lines point there, it’s important that people can find it quickly.
I’ll also make these two shapes lighter, because their content is different than the
main body questions.
Contrast also applies to text.
If you want to make something stand out, try making the text bigger, or formatting a few
important words.
Just to polish things up at the end, I’m going to round the corners on my shapes using
the shape options dropdown menu, and also round my lines to make everything look smooth
and professional.
And there you have it!
Compare this diagram to the one we started with.
The information is the same, but we’ve made it a lot more powerful and persuasive with
just a few easy changes.
Now you can share your document confidently, and know that it’ll make a strong first
impression.
Remember, you can try out some of the tricks you’ve learned today by following along in the template
Also, if you want to learn more
about design in Lucidchart, then take a look at the some of the videos we've created in the playlist.
If you have questions for me, or suggestions for another design video that we could do, leave them in the comments below.
Thanks and happy diagramming!