Branding Recap: 12 Digital Design Tips | MP 124

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Where do the laws of great graphic design apply to? Do you want to connect more deeply and quickly with your ideal clients? What are some tenets of setting up eye-catching and effective design to connect with your audience?

In this podcast episode, Sam Carvalho speaks about 12 digital design tips.

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In This Podcast

• Limit your typefaces
• Don’t be afraid of scale
• Respect the space of other elements
• Use a small color scheme
• Create clean, crisp, clear imagery
• Use fonts to help inform the mood of your design
• Create order with alignment
• Keep your designs simple
• Use hierarchy to order your content
• Keep your font in the same family
• Use white space
• Contrast is key

Limit your typefaces

When selecting a typeface or font for headings, subtitles, or body text, be sure to use easy-to-read fonts to create a simple and effective design.

Remember that the eye finds it hard to scan multiple typefaces, so try to stick to a simple collection of fonts.

Sam Carvalho

Don’t be afraid of scale

To acquire the appropriate emphasis, you can apply scale to:

• type
• shapes
• compositional features

Additionally, use appropriate colors to enhance this technique while making sure to use suitable typefaces that look good when increased in size.

Sam’s design tip: sans serifs fonts are great for this

Respect the space of other elements

Use letter spacing to fill dead space, align text, or condense words that take up too much space.

However, be careful not to reduce letter spacing so much that it can’t be read, or increase it so much that the letters become detached from one another.

Sam Carvalho

Use a small color scheme

Choose a color scheme that has one to three primary colors and an additional one to three secondary colors that contrast and complement each other.

Try using different tones of the same color for consistency by adjusting the brightness for contrast.

Sam’s design tip: Keep in mind that finer typefaces will need stronger distinction against a color’s background.

Create clean, crisp, clear imagery

Pump up the contrast by adjusting the brightness of the background image so that it offsets the text color, making the design clear and easy to read.

This is a great way to apply white or black text over an image to create a strong ‘cut-out’ effect.

Sam Carvalho

Use fonts to help inform the mood of your design

Choose a typeface that sings the song of your content.

For example, typefaces with rounded edges usually give off a friendlier note, while hard-edged, geometric fonts are more solid and strong.

Alternatively, serifs can convey an elegant and sophisticated look.

Create order with alignment

Apply a line or an embellishment to a design for balance and composition.

Use horizontal and vertical lines to correspond with other design elements.

In a multi-page document, keep this alignment consistent across all pages to create a cohesive overall design. 

Keep your designs simple

Keep [your design] simple, but don’t forget your basics. Make sure every element has a reason to be in the design and keep the number of fonts, colors, shapes, and frames to a minimum.

Sam Carvalho

Use contrasting tonal color combinations so that your text is sharp and easy to read. Apply a solid frame containing your to enhance the compositional structure of a design.

Use hierarchy to order your content

The most visually dominant feature in a design should be the most important part of the message.

Sam Carvalho

Apply color or scale to a graphic to see how it changes the hierarchy of elements and what grabs attention first.

Keep your font in the same family

Create visual uniformity by applying one typeface or font family to the text. Use a typeface or font family that has a selection of variants, such as italic, bold, and condensed, to keep options open.

Use white space

Create a fluid design by surrounding words with white space to let elements breathe. The application of space around text boxes, images, and other graphic elements makes a design easier to read and reduces visual clutter.

Contrast is key

Contrast is one of the most imperative parts of the design for mood, legibility, and to make it stand out:

• Use a contrasting color palette background, fonts, and graphics.
• Use photo filters to enhance the positive/negative space in an image
• Apply black or white copy to create optimum contrast against a background image

A good rule of thumb is if you have a light-colored background, then you should use a dark font and vice versa.

Sam Carvalho

Useful links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

• Branding Recap: Creating a Brand Style Guide in 6 Steps | MP 123
• Email Sam at [email protected]
• Design Services With Sam
• Check out the Practice of the Practice Network
• For more branding advice, click here
• Apply to work with us

Meet Sam Carvalho

Sam Carvalho is a graphic designer living in Cape Town, South Africa, with over five years of experience in both design and marketing, with a special interest and experience in the start-up environment.

She has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016 and has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs take their practices to the next level by enhancing their visual branding. She loves working with a variety of clients on design-intensive tasks and is always up for a challenge!

Follow Sam on Instagram to see some of her work. To work with Sam, head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/branding.

Thanks For Listening!

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