Effective Design Principles for Visual Communication

1. Proximity • Items related to each other should be grouped closely together. • Use white space to provide distance between unrelated items. • DO NOT use a line between a title and the story. • If you want space between paragraphs, use the Space After function in Format Paragraph. • Font Families • There are 3 font families: • Serif– Font with tails • Example: Times • San Serif– Font without tails • Example: Arial • Fun– Another style of font • Example: Apple Chancery • You can only use 2 fonts in a document. One serif and one san serif. Use one for your titles and the other for your text. Design Principles Maggie Binder April 16, 2013

2. Contrast • You want to grab your reader’s attention. • Add visual interest to your page. • Make color, size, and shape different. • Make big things BIG and little things little. • Make text dark and background light or vise versa. • Repetition • The document should look the same way throughout. • Use the same font and font sizes. • Titles should be one size, text another. • Use a similar graphic format throughout. • Use a similar color scheme throughout. • Alignment • Alignment creates a visual connection. • There are 4 types of alignment. • Left- This is the most common. Use when your reader will read lots of text. • Right- This is a funky, modern alignment. Use for titles. • Center- This one is boring. Center titles when you want to be formal. • Block- This gives you smooth edges left and right. Maybe use in a newspaper.