Best Graphic Design Tips You Need to Use

Many businesses know that graphic design has become beneficial to their branding and marketing efforts. With this in mind, many businesses are looking to invest in graphic design not only to establish their identity but have them stand out from the crowd. That’s why some businesses may want to hire graphic designers to do their work.

Fortunately, even if you’re not a graphic designer, you can still learn to create a graphic design through DIY graphic design tools. Or you may opt for graphic design services that will do the job for you. Whatever you decide, here are some graphic design tips you should keep in mind.

1. Think of Your Audience

Before conceptualizing your design, think of your audience first. Let them serve as your inspiration in creating a graphic design. After all, you’re connecting and reaching out to them. When identifying your target audience, one of the key aspects in determining yours is demographics. This can guide you into choosing a color or font. It might even help you decide which pictures to add to your graphic design.

Whatever you decide, it’s always best to focus on your audience at all times. 

2. Find Inspiration

Once you’ve decided on your target audience, the next best thing to do is look for inspiration. Graphic designers do the same thing with their projects. And you can find graphic design work on sites like Behance or Dribble to give you a perspective on the design you want to produce. 

3. Choose Fonts Carefully

The rule of thumb in typography is to use two fonts maximum. Graphic designers should use fonts from the same family. Let’s say you want to use Helvetica for your design. Since you need to stay consistent, you can use the weights available from the font family.

Another rule to consider when using fonts is to use contrasting ones. But you must ensure that the chosen fonts go well together. The best combination would be a Serif and a Sans Serif one. 

4. Decide on a Color Palette

With thousands of colors available, you might not have an idea of which colors to pick as your base. Some would use a base first, then decide if they want a palette or follow the color wheel. This is one of the great graphic design tips because of how emotion and color are connected so strongly.

Fortunately, you don’t have to guess which colors go with what since there are sites dedicated to generating palettes for you. If not palettes, they would choose adjacent or complementary colors. Here are some sites to consider:

• Paletton
• Coolors
• Adobe Color

5. Create Order and Structure

You want to ensure that your graphic isn’t created without any form or structure. Even those with symmetry still have some structure. Make sure that you align all the elements of your design to present your designs well.

6. Use White Space

At first, you might wonder what designers mean when they say white space. You don’t have to design something against a white background all the time. This is the space where you don’t put design elements on, and it’s an important thing to consider when creating any design. This will help you organize elements much better and make your design look clean and simple.

7. Add Icons

As a replacement for text, icons can act as a visual representation of messages. You don’t have to go overboard with adding icons. Use it wisely and ensure that it has an overall function in your design.

Add some here and there, like in digital ads, for instance. One of the more clever graphic design tips is to use the icons from social media platforms rather than type out their names. This way, it saves you space from typing things.

8. Apply Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is another concept to understand in graphic design. Aside from order, you want to ensure that the objects are placed in visual importance. Hierarchy will help you achieve that. Here are the key elements of visual hierarchy to remember:

• Size
• Contrast
• Color
• Texture
• Proximity

9. Keep Your Design Simple

Noting all these elements and thinking about how to sneak them into your design, you might not know how to fit them all there. But here is a great graphic design tip: less is more, and that’s true. You don’t want to have so many components there that could cause more confusion to your target audience. 

10. Learn Trends and Updates

Trends can tell you what’s hot in the design industry. Knowing trends or looking at graphic design statistics can give you an idea of what’s happening.  While many would say not to follow graphic design trends, it’s best to know how you can modernize or tailor your designs to trends. Or to keep up with an emerging target audience.