Effective Design

1. Part of the whole picture

Anything you are about to design has to fit into your corporate ID. One contact (ad, DM, brochure…) is hardly noticeable by itself. You need at least 5 contacts to get near to selling, so you’d better make the recognition easier with the same design ID as well.

This ID contains the logo, the colors, the fonts, and other design elements as well.

2. Keep it simple

7 seconds is very little, and looking at a marketing material first you usually take it in as a whole, than scan and read only afterwards (following the Z shape, from left to right and online the F shape).

So the design should be simple, clear, easy to scan, and airy: at least 25% of the material should be empty.

3. Make it readable

You must follow some rules to help people read the content:

• Don’t use reverse lettering, such as white lettering on a black background

• Don’t write on pictures

• Don’t use ink colors: bright red on a white background

• Don’t center

• Don’t use all caps

• Do put a picture beside the lead

• Do use bullet points

• Do use huge headline, and sub-headline

Headlines set in serif font (Times New Roman, Bookman…) have a 92% comprehension rate and lead the eye.

Headlines in sans serif type (Arial) all caps cause a 59% drop in comprehension rate.

4. Use repetition

Repeat elements of the design: use the same type of the bullet points, paragraph and table structure, titling, etc. It helps to keep the design integrated.

You may even navigate with design: different menus or product-groups in a brochure can be distinguished by different colors as well.

5. Align

Aligning makes the design tidier and easier to follow. Align elements as if you could link them with an invisible ruler. For example the headline should side with the logo at the bottom, and the bullet points with the table.

6. Focus

You can play with the size and shape of the elements within longer materials – usually in multiple-paged brochures. Equal size means equal importance. If you decide to use different shapes and sizes than do it manifestly, use contrasted shapes, make it interesting.

Use vertical design elements: 80% of readers will look at a vertical shape or graphic before they’ll look at a horizontal one.

7. Rank

Not only can the content be ranked according to importance. The design should support the ranking as well (from the most significant to the least):

1. Headline (80% of the readers only read the headline)

2. Call to action

3. Lead +picture

4. Bullet points

5. Text

8. Style

All designs should have a stylish quality to them. Basically this is the “I like it” factor. If you want to word your wishes to the designer answer these questions:

• Do you prefer square or round shapes?

• Do you prefer one big or many smaller pictures?

• Do you like bright colors or darker ones?

• Do you like conservative, minimal, retro or what style?

Knowing these rules you can easily distinguish a good design from a bad one and can brief your designer better, expecting better results.

9. Similarity

Elements will be grouped perceptually if they are similar to each other. And when we perceive a collection of objects, we will see objects close to each other as forming a group.

10. The Law of figure-ground

In perceiving a visual field, the figures take a prominent role while other elements recede into the background.