OPINION – Graphic Design

For all those who are trying to become a graphic designer.

Fundamentals of “Graphic Design”

Whenever we talk about the term graphic design, it evokes an idea of colors, design manipulation and artistic inventions. Literally the term graphic design refers to the presentation of professional and digital material in a creative way.

Although the field of art and design is a concoction of many forms of creative works, but some people pick graphic design for some specific reason.

There are fundamentals of graphic design in which they act as pillars and graphic design as a building. These fundamentals are the base of every creative design presented. We usually get a sight of such designs in our daily life, such as a logo owned by a certain food company. To elaborate further, the advertisements, product packaging, and book covers, that catches your eye is all deliberately made in a certain way. They all follow the rules and fundamentals of graphic design.

Thus whenever you feel convinced to buy a certain product, by just looking at the design, remind yourself of the term graphic design.

You may see an eye catching advertisement, but have you ever ask the reason, why is it like that.

It may have a perfect balance, that means the photo, text, borders or anything else might have been arranged in a complementary way for human analysis.

This balance supports the design and make it look organized; so with one glance the idea can be easily noticed. A disorganized and unbalanced design would be completely opposite, unwelcoming to the eye and unsuccessful.

Furthermore, color plays a key role in graphics design. It is paramount that the design includes colors that complements the subject, such as green for health, blue for technology, pink for baby care products etc. It is preferred that two or three colors are used in a certain graphic, otherwise a lot of colors would look clueless, having a deteriorated effect towards the idea of design. Selecting colors from the color wheel is a simple phenomena, as it may be triadic, tetradic, and analogous. We can also find the perfect combination of colors, by varying their contrast, hue, saturation and darkness.

Another basic strategy is to use the shape and form properly. If a design is based on squares, so only use squares or another one shape would be good to use. Too many shapes would have an adverse impact on the look of the design. This concept is mostly applied to wireframes, in apps, blogs, and websites, which is almost completely based on shapes. So intelligent use of shapes should never be a compromise. Moreover, an appropriate texture should be used to represent the shapes, such as a wall should portray a texture of bricks, and a bear should display a texture of fur. Accurate use of texture at the right place, is the key requirement.

Likewise alignment and line density matters as well.

For instance, just imagine a seamless pattern based on circles with improper alignment, which would give the pattern an unappealing look. Additionally, alignment is an important factor in maintaining the flow of the design. Line density also plays a major part in the design, as the thickness of line gives a different meaning to the design.

The more thick line would certainly give a bold look, but a thinner line would indicate a clever strategy. Thus, a designer should not be naive of line density.

Lastly typography is a crucial and critical component of a design. A correct typeface should be used for correct category of topic. The text should stand out in case of a logo, where contrast matters the most, such as Helvetica with an italic font, bold with light. The right font at the right place is a necessity, such as Sans Serif for business documents, which gives a professional look.

Conclusively with our innovative ideas, and the fundamentals of graphic design, we are able to create an outstanding graphic. Although at the first attempt, we make a lot of mistakes, but learning from those mistakes is the confident move. Going through a few falls, we earn experience, so working with consistency, patience and trial and error, we achieve what we want.