8 Graphic Design basics you need to know

The basics of Design are the basis of every visual medium. From fine art to modern web design even small details, like the fonts make up most compositions. Some very basic elements, including line, shape, form, texture, and balance are what decide how your user will feel about your design. They might not seem like much on their own, but together they’re part of almost everything a user looks and feels. In this article, we will discuss the 8 Graphic Design basics you should know before designing your next graphics.

Graphic Design basics you need to know

1. Line

All of us are familiar with what a line is, it can simply be obtained by connecting two dots or points. In Graphic design Lines and Shapes are the most fundamental elements. Lines are of three types: thin, thick, and wavy. It can be used to convey a specific message to the user for example, In texts, a line can be used to provide emphasis to a certain sentence or word. All in all, the line appears to be subtle but in the overall design, it can have a big impact so it must be carefully used in Graphic design.

2. Typography

Typography simply is a technique in user interface design to create readable, appealing, attractive, and easy-to-eye text for users to read. Typography plays an integral role in any website’s design. Other than the visual elements, text is the most important form to communicate with the users, sometimes, text is even more important than the visuals itself. Therefore, we as user interface designers must focus on this aspect of UI design. Good typography is soothing to the eyes and creates a long-lasting impression on the minds of the user.

3. Color

In 1981 Richard Kuller showed in his studies that color had a great effect on heart rates as well as emotional perceptions of objects. So color does have a direct physical response on our bodies and can actually play on our emotions hence, impacting the overall human Psychology. Colors are indeed a double edged sword – right use of colors has a positive impact on the user’s psyche and helps in the communication of your message but if a few things go here and there, it might cause stress on the user’s eyes or can reduce the effectiveness of your message you wish to convey.

4. Contrast

Contrast is a visual design principle where we try and differentiate one or more elements/visuals from others by differentiating them by help of colors, fonts, typography, repetition, alignment, or anything else. The idea is to make a particular element or visual to stand out to the users. In design terms – The visual design principle of contrast refers to the juxtaposition of two visually different elements. Contrast is when you notice the difference between two objects in the user interface and that difference emphasizes that they are different. This distinction might mean that they belong to different categories or have different functions or behave differently etc.

5. Shape

All of us are familiarized with what a shape is, it is simply any area with recognizable boundary mostly made of multiple lines. One important thing here is that A Shape can only be 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional structures are called Forms, we will discuss it later. Shapes are important to understand since they can be leveraged to communicate with the user visually. Shapes are of two types:

1. Geometric Shapes: These are shapes with regular edges like Square, Triangle etc.
2. Organic Shapes: These are shapes with irregular edges like any freeform diagram.

6. Forms

Any 3-dimensional Shape can be called as a Form. Forms look much more read and natural since there are 3-dimentional like the real life objects. You can use techniques like tone, shades, shadows in Shapes to make them look 3-dimentional and make them visually more interesting.

7. Texture

You may have heard Texture in the context of clothes, Texture refers to the physical quality of the surface that we are illustrating in a Graphic. It is an addition to details in a Graphic design that can to be used show the roughness or smoothness making the Graphic appear more real. Texture can also be added to icons and can be used with typography as well. But a lot of times Texture is not required and the graphic starts looking overwhelming, so Texture is something that must be used very carefully.

8. Animations

The creative movement of text or visuals in Graphic Design to catch the user’s attention or bring the user’s attention to a particular component in the design is called animation. Since Graphic Designing is all about capturing the user’s attention, it becomes necessary to use animation to communicate with the user. Animations help our users to understand and properly digest what’s happening in the screen. Objects in real life don’t appear and disappear in an instant, so animations can help us bridge the gap between an active and inactive state.

Conclusion

In Graphic design, the basics can be intimidating, especially for beginners. However, there’s a lot they can teach you about working with different assets and creating simple visuals from scratch. The 8 design basics we discussed are basically a way of learning to appreciate the many small details that make up every composition. Make sure to focus on the basics we discussed in this article when designing your next Graphics project.