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- Hi, I'm Sophia Yeshi,
I'm a graphic designer and illustrator from Baltimore,
Maryland, currently living in Brooklyn, New York.
I create work that's bold, expressive, colorful,
and demands attention
and I've worked with clients such as Instagram, Refinery29,
Adobe and Converse.
In this lesson, we're going to be talking about
basic principles of graphic design.
So we're going to start with contrast.
Contrast is really important and it's something that I use
in a lot of my work.
In fact, in almost all of my work,
you will see that there is usually
a heavy amount of contrast.
So what contrast is,
is just a difference between elements.
So it's being able to see a juxtaposition,
whether it's between the colors,
you can create contrast with topography, with shapes,
you know, whether it's a square and a circle,
those two elements juxtapose one another.
So it's a really useful way of creating visual interest.
As you can see, there is contrast,
this is the homepage of my website.
There is a lot of contrast between these shapes.
There are some that have some sharper edges,
some that are rounder, as well as between the colors,
the line thickness, there's just tons of contrast.
Contrast is a way it can draw your eye in,
for example, in this piece, right here,
there is a contrast between the background,
which is this navy blue,
which is a lot darker and this bright orange color.
So it's creating interest because your eyes automatically
drawn to the center of the piece,
which is where I want you to focus on.
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So the next one is rhythm and patterns
and this is another concept
that I use in a lot of my work as well.
So rhythm and patterns is about creating repetition
in your work, and you can have regular rhythm,
you can have irregular rhythm.
It really just depends on your preference
and what your goal is.
So when I was looking at my work,
I realized I tended to have a lot of regular rhythm
and patterns in my work where the elements are all kind of
repeating in a way that doesn't look too off.
Like it looks like it's supposed to be cohesive.
So in this piece, it was a lot of, you know,
organic shapes in the background and that after you combine
them all together and kind of lay them out
in the background, it does create a rhythm in your work.
So for this piece for Converse,
you can see the shapes in the background
have a pattern as well.
And even in the way that it is animating with the colors,
I'm using the same colors
and I'm just kind of moving them along.
So that shows a regular rhythm as well.
When it comes to patterns,
it's important that you have to have a repeating element,
otherwise it's not a pattern.
So as you can see in this piece,
I am repeating shapes and they are all around
and I do repeat like circles,
you'll see like this flower,
and this is creating a pattern.
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Color, is something that is so incredibly important.
It's probably my favorite thing about designing anything.
And I usually save it for last,
because color really sets the tone for your work
and for the mood.
You can see, I use a lot of the same colors in my work,
and it took me a while to really establish a palette
that I felt like speaks to me.
So in my work, you'll see a lot of this magenta,
navy blue and yellows,
and I have combined tones that are darker and harsher
with tones that are lighter.
So I think that it's really important to find colors
that speak to you.
If you look at any painter, illustrator, graphic designer,
most of the time, you're going to notice a similarity.
They tend to use a lot of the same colors
and if you were to pull their work, you know,
into illustrator and look at the codes,
you're going to see a consistent palette
and that just makes your work look more cohesive.
Of course you can always break outside of that.
But I think just having a general idea of,
do you like lighter tones? Do you like darker colors?
You know, what colors really speak to you and feel like you,
and that's really going to help
your work feel more cohesive as a whole.
So when I was defining my palette
and the colors that I liked,
I spent a lot of time looking at other designs
and illustrators and saw what colors they use
and I ended up just having like a board,
a visual inspiration.
And so there was a time when I was creating my branding,
this was the initial color palette that I created
and this was in January of this year.
And this was really a great starting point for me.
I used this palette and it has evolved over this year.
And you know, this same palette
that I created is now kind of the core basis of my work
and it still really speaks to me.
So I just looked at colors that I liked.
I knew I liked, you know, lavender's and blues,
I looked at colors that paired well together
that I could use for a variety of different purposes.
So, you know, I didn't want to just have too many colors
that were the same hue or the same tone,
I tried to have darker and lighter shades
and even now I still will have
to kind of adjust depending on, you know, what the piece is,
but you can even see like a lot of my work
has those same colors in it.
Right here, this is literally all of those colors except
that lime green, 'cause it was too bright (chuckles)
for this piece,
but these colors are pretty much what I use
in most of my work
and there are times when I do switch it up,
but it's still compliments this palette
and it also feels like me, like for example,
this piece is a lot more pastel,
but it still has a lot of those tones, the lilacs,
the greens, all of those still feel really cohesive
with my work.
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So balance as a principal in graphic design
has to do with the visual weight of a piece.
So all of the elements and how they interact together.
A lot of the times, you know,
we like to see things balanced and symmetrical.
So if you look at my work,
I think I tend to favor symmetrical or balanced pieces,
meaning that if I put a line on this side of the composition
most likely, I'm going to put a line on the other side
to balance it,
or I may place a figure in the center.
Sometimes you want to place your figure off center purposely
to create, you know, a little bit of off balance,
which is when you talk about like the rule of thirds
in photography, that's that concept as well,
that it can be more interesting to have a figure
or an object a little bit off center
to add to your visual interests.
So another one of my favorite concepts
that I think gets overlooked is a white space.
White space is not literally white space.
So if you look at my work, you may be thinking,
I don't see any white that's because it's more so about
allowing the elements in your composition
or in your design to breath.
So giving objects, text room.
If I didn't have any white space,
this text would be right up against the edge of the frame
or the composition and it wouldn't have any room to breathe.
And so when you first start out a mistake
that a lot of designers make
is just pushing everything really close together
so you may have an image and text right next to it
and you know, that can be a purposeful choice,
but most of the time it's going to look a little bit better
if you just give it some parting and give it some room.
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- [Narrator] Thanks for watching.
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