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GOOD VISUAL LAYOUT CAN HELP WITH MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF GRAPHIC DESIGN PROJECTS

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10 RULES OF GOOD VISUAL LAYOUT

01. FIND YOUR FOCUS

A key element to any good composition is a strong focal point, as it helps your viewers’ eyes naturally settle on the important pieces of your design first.
When choosing your focal point, keep in mind that the main goal of any design is communication. Whether you’re communicating an idea, some information, or simply a feeling or emotion, your design is telling a specific story, so be sure to choose a focal point that helps this story get told in the strongest, most effective way.
Some ways to draw focus are through techniques like scale, contrast and leading lines.

01. FIND YOUR FOCUS

The focal point of this piece is the model and her clothes. So, she has been placed centrally, has type and a block of color positioned in a way that highlights and draws attention toward her face and then to her outfit, and leading lines direct the eye down her frame and gradually toward more information.

01. FIND YOUR FOCUS

This poster puts the focus on the photograph of the man. The design orients the focus to this image by placing him centrally, framing him with the graphics, and using the doodled graphics to lead the eye in toward the photograph.

02. DIRECT THE EYE WITH LEADING LINES

Just like you point at something when you want people to look at it, by positioning certain lines and shapes in certain ways you can control the viewpoint of your design, aka where viewers’ eyes go when they see your design.
A common use of leading lines that you might be pretty familiar with is within flowcharts. Flowcharts use lines to direct your eye from one point to the next in an obvious way.

02. DIRECT THE EYE WITH LEADING LINES

Check out this save the date card that uses flowchart leading lines to present the information in a fun, unique way.

02. DIRECT THE EYE WITH LEADING LINES

Leading lines can also guide you to various tiers or points of information. As previously discussed, you want the eye to first land on the main focal point, but then where does it go? By positioning and adjusting your leading lines you can not only direct the eye to the focal point of your design but also throughout the rest of your design.
For example, this poster uses strong leading lines to first guide the eye toward the main focal point (the title), and then to various rungs of information.

02. DIRECT THE EYE WITH LEADING LINES

Not every design you create will have such obvious lines for you to adjust to direct viewpoint. Find shapes and lines within your images and graphic elements and use them to direct the eye in certain ways.
An example of this is seen in this poster that uses the line along the man’s left arm to draw the eye to and from the logo and then down the rest of the image. In this way, the shapes of the image have been used to direct the eye.

03. SCALE AND HIERARCHY

Scale and visual hierarchy are some of those creative fundamentals that can really make or break your designs, so it’s important to have a good hold on them to maintain a successful composition.
In a very brief explanation, hierarchy is the arrangement and design of elements in order to visually signal importance. So, you might make a more important element bigger and bolder than a less important element which might be smaller and fainter.

03. SCALE AND HIERARCHY

03. SCALE AND HIERARCHY

Scale is often used to help communicate hierarchy by drawing attention toward and away from certain elements, thus signifying their importance to the communication.
For example, this poster uses a scaled-up image as the largest element, which helps it attract the most attention and focus. The title is the boldest, largest piece of type as it is the most important piece of written information for this specific communication, and the body copy is much smaller. So, scale has been used to signal the focal point, and to maintain typographical hierarchy.

03. SCALE AND HIERARCHY

Scale is also an incredibly handy tool for giving your design proportion and a sense of size. You can make things seem incredibly detailed, intricate and tiny, or you can make them big and grand.
For example, this poster uses a scaled-down, small silhouette of two people to help communicate the massive scene in front of them. This instantly gives viewers a sense of the grandeur and size of the scene.
By contrasting a small scale element next to a large scale element in your composition, you can create a number of different effects.

04. BALANCE OUT YOUR ELEMENTS

Balance is a pretty important thing in many regards, and your designs are absolutely no exception.
But how do we strike that perfect balance within our designs? There are two common types of balance.
First, we have symmetrical balance. Symmetrical balance does what it says on the tin – it balances your design using symmetry. By reflecting certain design elements from left to right or top to bottom, you can create a strong sense of balance.

04. BALANCE OUT YOUR ELEMENTS

Here’s an example of symmetrical balance. This wedding invitation uses a symmetrical composition by reflecting the positioning of type and graphic elements. By using symmetry, this design is made elegant, clean, and beautifully balanced.

04. BALANCE OUT YOUR ELEMENTS

Another kind of balance, and an arguably more common type is asymmetrical balance. Asymmetrical balance is also a fairly self explanatory term, in that it concerns creating balance without symmetry.
Here’s an example of successful asymmetrical balance. This poster employs asymmetrical balance by dispersing and scaling elements purposefully.
In the above design, the three central circles are the largest elements in the design, but they are balanced out both by the type, the fine line graphics, and the small, heavily textured circle in the bottom corner.