if you want some quick hacks to instantly make your graphic designs look better well today you've
come to the right place and that begins with this design right here now we have one fiery chili that
does look pretty menacing let's ask ourselves what is the one thing missing from this design
as it is right now for me personally it's at the white background just isn't working out here and
so logically we would actually want to go ahead and add a vibrant background to match the hot
kind of chili but still it isn't packing that punch that I really do want after all the focal
point of this design looks like it could pretty much blow my head right off if I ate it and the
background doesn't do this Justice and it seems just really flat so this is what we're going to
do first click your background and convert it to a Smart filter this is going to allow
us to do the next steps in today's video which is going to be adding a vinette it's easily done in
this window here found in Photoshop make sure to head to the custom Tab and then play around with
these sliders found right here if it doesn't look suitable don't really worry too much about that
right now we'll soon fix that but if we generate this as a starting base we can see things already
do look a bit better increasing the brightness does help quite a lot with this kind of design
we can do more things to this design that will actually make more of an impact to the viewer
let's add some noise to the background for some decent and interesting textures
be careful though because the smallest amount has a big effect with this tool
okay so lastly for the big finale is the big shabuzzle we're going to add an oval
of white and then slap a gaussian blur onto it make sure that we do actually
have enough blur so it's going to blend into the background really really seamlessly and
speaking of which we want to change the blend mode to something like soft light
and after some jiggery pokery we can now see the design is a way more interesting and it's
more impacting as well this sort of technique is heavily used in marketing advertising it's
typically used when posters or things like that have a focal point and the product needs to be
emphasized now moving on you might find it difficult to choose the right color
palettes for your designs or perhaps you feel like when you add color you kind of ruin your
designs with that color for instance taking a look at this design right here what can we
identify as a main problem on this artwork in terms of the color now the palette might seem
a bit confused with no Harmony and there might be issues using shades of green on this blue
background actually quite a big issue however if we use the 60 3010 Rule and we put more
focus on the bass or the dominant color less emphasis on our neutral colors and finally we
use a very small amount of accent colors to catch people's attention in the first design there were
just way too many accent colors and this can lead a viewer to become distracted or confused
we can even maybe drop the coffee mug down to this kind of very dark blue and now your eyes really
should Glide over this design really freely as a viewer let's quickly step over to Adobe color and
extract the colors from each of these two designs and it's obvious which palette is more appealing
and more user-friendly hint is the second one so yeah try and focus on 60 or they're around
60 for the base color thirty percent for neutral colors and the remaining 10 for your accent colors
but remember there will always be exceptions to most rules and this is just a kind of guide to
color use typography is another area where many designers just fall down and sometimes sadly they
even quit graphic design because they just find typography too difficult to get around but one
way to give yourself a good chance of avoiding a bad typography is to remember four easy steps
so on this design we can start by implementing the first step and that is to make sure your
typography is one to two colors sometimes three in rare instances unless you're going for a kind of
brutalist design this Instagram advert is already looking a bit neater now the next step is when in
doubt a line to the left and rag to the right basically align this start of your typography
to the left Edge and have the rag over on the right try and have a neat Rag and not have kind
of awkward negative spaces on the right edge of that rag I've also finished a step three on this
design which is not to use too many different type Point sizes of course you should be contrasting in
size but just don't go crazy with it and use too many different sizes on One Design also consider
proximity when your group sizes together lastly use one to two typefaces on a design this design
actually only uses one typeface and yes we do have different fonts from a typeface basement grotesque
but because they are the same style visually from one typeface the design is tied together
in a neater kind of fashion so that's step one choose one to two colors for your text and then
step two align to the left and rag to the right and then step three don't go crazy on different
sizes is on your design for fonts and then of course try and stick to one or two typefaces on
a single design and the fourth graphic design hack is to ask yourself one question before you start
designing anything thinking about it is actually two different questions what is the focal point
and how can you tell a story through the focal points with your designs you should be trying to
tell the audience a message and the focal point is what they're going to see first so on this
design what would you say the focal points happens to be probably that huge chunk of salmon but how
does this tell a story on this design the people the designer are targeting here obviously do like
to eat fish and so the hero of this design is a succulent piece of fish which will create a sense
of desire in the audience also the designer has crafted it to look like a positioning icon which
leads into the concept of finding the taste very very clever and then right here one of
the most simple designs ever but also one of the most effects active Tabasco sauce is hot or well
some people will say it's not hot but anyway it's a focal point and it's a grenade and that's going
to explode your tastes on this design the focal point here is the bag of groceries and this design
is targeting plant-based eaters who are typically more caring of the environment and into organic
sustainable living so instead of a plastic bag the focal point is healthy food in a paper bag
that's not by mistake that's through design choice and also you could say the muted colors do play
into this as well now if your Satori Graphics Aficionado you will know that I do love Motion
Graphics and that's exactly why I've taken a shot but sweet class by Andrea on After Effects but
before I get into that you might be wondering what is skillshare well it's an online learning
community with thousands of online classes with members across 150 countries and they all come
together to find inspiration and take the next step in their creative journey I wanted to level
up my motion graphic skills and as you can see I'm looking into the Adobe After Effects section
right here now you can choose your experience level and importantly the amount of time that
you want to spend on a class so if you are like me and you find yourself strapped of free time
you can easily choose the right class that suits your schedule anyway I worked my way through this
glitch effect and text animation class by Andrea and it consisted of four different bite-sized
lessons I was really happy with how easy it was to follow and well check the results for yourself
and if you want to get the opportunity to explore the vast library of lessons
on skillshare across things like graphic design Motion Graphics 3D design and much
much more the first 1000 people to use the link in the description box below will get
a one month free trial to skillshare so further your education and expand
on your skill sets with skillshare but to learn more about that and advanced color
theory just click a video on screen and until next time guys design your future today peace
foreign