Principles of Design

It is an art to create designs that communicate with the end audience and unmistakably express ideas that the designer intends to convey. In order to create amazing designs, there are some principles of design that need to be kept in mind. These are as follows:

1. Alignment

The most fundamental aspect of any design is its alignment. Proper alignment of different objects in a design illustrates a clean look and eradicates the messiness that might occur due to aligning the objects randomly. The objects should be suitably aligned according to the background, theme of the design and in relation to other objects.

2. Hierarchy

Hierarchy refers to the process of giving more weight or importance to certain elements in the design to convey the message properly. This can be done by highlighting the text, by making the important message bold, or by using certain shapes that can accentuate your message. The main message should be the focal point of the design to achieve the intended objectives.

3. Contrast

Contrast is another vital aspect of design that allows the designer to create important elements of the design and emphasize them. A contrast is created between two alike design elements such as thick and thin, black and white, modern and traditional, etc. It is the contrast that draws the viewer’s attention in the important elements and organizes the information in an organized manner.

4. Repetition

Repetition is a design principle that enhances the overall look of the design. It binds all the distinct elements of design altogether and allows them to remain more consistent and organized. Repetition in design helps the designers in creating ‘brand identity’ for their clients.

5. Proximity

Proximity refers to grouping the similar design elements together in order to establish a connection between them. Proximity not just refers to clustering the elements together, but it refers to visually connecting the similar tools by using the same color, font style, size, font type, etc.

6. Balance

Balance in design is utmost important as it entails to distributing the elements all throughout the design so that it appears clean and orderly instead of appearing messy and unattractive. Balance can be both symmetrical and asymmetrical. In case of symmetrical balance, elements on the same side of design are weighted evenly while in case asymmetrical design, contrast is used (black is balanced by white and vice-versa) to establish even flow of design.

7. Color

Color is one of the most significant principles of design. By using the right mix of color, a designer can depict the whole message even without words. The colors dictate the overall mood of the design as every color represents a particular emotion/feel. For instance, green is related to the environment, red signifies anger, blue stands for calmness while yellow creates a sense of happiness.

8. Space

The blank spaces in the design are as important as any other element of design. Negative spaces can create shapes and even accentuate the most important elements of the design. So, the spaces should be planned meticulously.

So, these were the eight principles of design that allows a designer to create stunning, appealing and winning designs. Avantika University being the first design-centric university accustoms its students to all these design principles. We train all our students to exploit these principles while creating designs. There is a special unit on ‘principles of design’ for all the students who study at Avantika’s design college, which is indeed regarded as the best design college in Madhya Pradesh. Our experts also make sure that every student at Avantika knows how and when to apply each principle to create outstanding designs.