When a client says "make it look nice", what they really want is a design that people understand quickly. A small set of principles explains how to get there. Employers rarely list these by name in adverts, but every portfolio review and design test checks them.
Six principles
- Hierarchy. Decide what people should see first, second and third, then make the most important thing biggest or boldest. On an event flyer, the event name usually comes first, then date and place, then details.
- Contrast. Things that are different should look clearly different: big against small, dark against light, bold against thin. Contrast creates hierarchy and keeps text readable.
- Alignment. Every item should line up with something else. Text that lines up along a clear edge looks organised. Items scattered at random look careless.
- Proximity. Put related things close together and unrelated things apart. The date, time and venue belong in one group; the phone number and WhatsApp number in another.
- Repetition. Repeat colours, fonts and shapes so a design, or a series of designs, feels like one family. This is the start of branding.
- Space. Empty space, often called white space even when it is not white, gives the eye room to rest. Crowded designs feel cheap and are hard to read on a small phone screen.