13 Graphic Design Tricks for Non-Designers

13 Graphic Design Tricks for Non-Designers

Today we bring you an article loaded with design tricks that will help you shape your graphic compositions, even if you don’t have much knowledge in the area. Improve your graphic design with our creative tips.

Regardless of what we need to do, whether producing graphics for social networks or designing an invitation for a company event, the use of graphic design can become complex. There are a series of basic concepts or graphic design tricks, that will help us avoid the vast majority of mistakes.

However, we want to make it clear that none of these design tricks is a substitute for the work of a professional graphic designer. Whenever possible, it is advisable to put yourself in the hands of an image specialist.

Limit the use of fonts

One of the most important design tricks. Choose fonts that are legible to come up with an effective and simple graphic design. Do not abuse different fonts in the same creativity. We can get to load the piece a lot and turn it into something unreadable. We recommend that you limit the use to only two fonts. We don’t need more to get a good design without complicating our heads. Be subtle with the use of capitals, italics, and different weights to enrich your designs.

Choose a font that helps express what you want to communicate with your brand image. In the case of typefaces, the family is the most important thing. We can achieve visual uniformity by using the same font family. Therefore, it will be better if we choose a font that has many variants.

Go big

Enlarge the size of the font or other graphic resources without fear. If we specifically expand text, we will be focusing attention on that word and favoring its impact.

Watch the space between the elements

It always controls the space between lines and also the Kerning (space between characters). Try not to reduce this last space too much or we will prevent the text from being read correctly.

Use your colors well

This is another of the design tricks in which more mistakes are made. Choose a color scheme of 1 to 3 colors. With only two colors we have enough to design logos and visual identities. Think that we can also always combine these two colors with white and shades of black (mostly gray). The same thing happens with colors as with fonts. If we use more than two, things can get complicated and reveal that you are not a graphic designer.

By adjusting the opacity and brightness of color we can create contrast, using different intensities of the same color. The most appropriate thing is to choose one of the colors as the main color and the other as a complementary color. We will always use the main color with greater proportion and for the larger color zones. Meanwhile, the complementary color will be reserved for small areas, such as support and contrast (buttons, icons, etc.).

Watch the contrast

Please memorize this design trick. Contrast is one of the aspects that we must control the most in graphic design. The contrast should provide legibility and personality, helping our composition stand out. Choose a contrasting color palette for text, fonts, and graphics. Thanks to the contrast, we can ensure that our composition draws attention.

Always contrast dark text on light backgrounds. If we have extensive text, it is always more appropriate to use light backgrounds. We will facilitate reading and prevent the eye from getting tired. This does not mean that we cannot use dark backgrounds, but it is more appropriate to use them on headlines or shorter text.

When in doubt, always simplify

There goes another design trick: “Simplicity is the greatest sophistication”. Start with simple and easy compositions. It will help us reduce the margin of error. As we gain ease, we can introduce more elements. Keep the design simple. Make sure that each resource has a reason why it is included in your final composition.

Buy resources that fit your brand identity

One of the least known design tricks that will save us more time. We don’t need to make all the designs from scratch. We can buy images, iconography, and other design resources to later adapt them to our corporate branding.

For example, creating an iconography from scratch can be very expensive. There are numerous pages where we can download icons as a vector image, to later adopt them with our corporate color. The important thing is to choose resources consistently. For example, all the icons always have the same stroke thickness and the same style on the edges.

Make use of order

Here, aligning the text or arranging the elements of our composition following a mesh can help our design breathe order, balance, and harmony. Make use of a hierarchy to order your content. The most dominant visual part (by size or contrast) of any design should always be the most important part of the message. You can give it a stronger color or enlarge the size of an element, to see how the hierarchy can change in our graphic compositions

Look for coherence and consistency

For example, if we are designing a multipage document or a collection of posters, we must ensure that we use the same fonts, sizes, and colors for our entire collection.

Play with symmetry

We can make use of vertical and horizontal lines to play with the rest of our elements. Make sure that the thickness of these resources is by the weight of the sources.

Value the use of white space

One of the design tricks that can make us think the most. We must let the elements of our compositions breathe. Surrounding our word compositions with white space can help create a fluid and elegant design. The space contributes to the final graphic composition attracting attention.

Start by informing yourself and looking for references

Before you sit down to compose a design, take time to look up references or do some research first. You will invest your time well because it will help you obtain a more elaborate result. Study, search, read, investigate.

Writing down ideas in a notebook can also be very helpful. You never know where or when inspiration might strike, so it’s important to be prepared. The notebook will allow you to refer to your ideas later when you can get your hands on the design.

Trial and error

No one is born controlling the Adobe software suite or knowing all the graphic design tricks. We all make mistakes. In graphic design, learning is always constant, trial and error inevitable. If you don’t like what you see, you’re only a CNTRL+Z away to go back to the previous state.

What do you think of our design tricks? Do you think we have left any behind? Leave your opinion in the comments.

And as you should already know, if you prefer to be told about it rather than read it, be sure to visit my YouTube channel: Hey Jaime, where I reflect and talk about graphic design.