Less is More: Design Notes for the Artistically Un-inclined

I will start with a caveat: If it is true anywhere that rules are meant to be broken it is in the creative fields. However it is also true that it is always good to know some rules are as ignorance is embarrassing and gets you nowhere.

Don’t be afraid. If you don’t think you’re creative treat it like a math problem. Things like basic geometry, perspective and color theory are all math/art crossovers. Many of the same principles apply.

So with these guidelines I hope that you too can make beautiful um, party invitations?

Fonts

• 3 fonts maximum in any given design. A decorative or header font, a sub-header font, if you want/need, which should be bolder or larger than the…body font, which should be plain the smallest & most importantly, easy to read. Please keep legibility in mind especially if you have any older readers.
• The 3 fonts rule excludes the use of italics as an additional font but includes weight changes (bold, other than for emphasis in paragraph, light, roman, demi) of the same font as additional. I swear that sentence made sense. Really.
• Only one crazy font per layout. Less is always more!
• No large amount of body text should be in a decorative font. Who wants to read paragraphs of curly, distressed hanwriting-y craziness? People on acid, that’s who.
• No all caps in a script/handwriting font! It will likely be hard to read. Also, I’ll murder you.

Color

Two colors, not counting neutrals (black, white, greys, tans, nudes) is a good rule however variants of the 2 should be used freely. Variants include:
Tints – Base plus White. Lighter. Pink is a tint of Red
Shades – Base plus Black. Darker. Maroon is a shade of Red
Tones – Base plus Grey. Hue shift. Brick is a tone of Red
Temperature – Base plus warm or cool compliment. Usually yellow or blue.  Be careful with temperature as if you move to far in one direction or another you’ll reach a new color. Too much yellow in red makes a proper orange whereas a nice orangy red might be fine. It is all very arbitrary, isn’t it?

General Layout

• There should be a central image, phrase or word. You are trying to communicate something I assume. This is about design, not pure art.
• Having said that that design is all about communication. It needs to look good but that is the vehicle for the idea rather than the main objective.
• People hate reading.  How the hell did you make it this far? Do make it interesting to look at.
• Don’t be afraid of white/empty space. Be afraid of clutter.  Less is always more.
• Don’t be afraid to overlap things so long as you can still tell what’s going on and/or can read it.
• Do not have tangent (Math! Friggin math! Look it up.) items. Barely touching items looks like a mistake. Either space or overlap them.
• Do line up things. If one item is only slightly off from another it will look sloppy. Line them up or make the difference bigger.
• Borders and rules (lines) can make things pop and help to prioritize.
• In that same vein, breaking up boxes and lines can add visual interest.
• Keep very squared-up boxy layouts for more conservative designs.
• Do look for a geometric flow in your layout. Is it a circular or triangular arrangement? It could be just a diagonal sweep from one corner to another.

Life, the Universe & Everything

• As with everything, be consistent.
• If at first you don’t succeed, blah blah, however…
• If you keep picking at it, it will never heal. Therefore…
• Don’t be afraid to start over.
• Try something you think will look bad. You might be wrong.
• Ask for help.
• Oh yeah, break the rules.