Most commonly when people think of design for business, they think of branding.  However, design reaches across all elements of your clients’ journey with your business – website, emails, social media, marketing collateral, business cards, packaging, contracts, documents…. you get the idea.

It’s more than just your logo and brand colours. Design supports the everyday communication for  your business.

With the advent of Canva, more and more businesses are taking design into their own hands.  Which is great.  But having access to the tools to design is only half the story.  Understanding how to design well can mean the difference between your business appealing to your potential clients or repelling them.

Luckily there are graphic design principles that can help take your DIY designs from average to amazing.  Last blog I looked at alignment, now let’s look at the next principle that you can use to boost your business graphics appeal – CONTRAST.

Contrast

Contrast is simply about having elements on your page that are different from each other. Pretty basic stuff. 

Contrast supports the visual processing of your message, by bringing attention and emphasis to elements of importance.  It creates focal points so that there is order and sense in a design.  

As a layout designer, I keep these in mind when creating publications, web pages and documents, however they are applicable to all kinds of graphic design.

Size contrast

We are conditioned to understand larger elements as being dominant, or more important, and naturally our eyes are drawn to larger elements first before flowing onto smaller elements.  Which is why headings tend to a larger size than body texts in a document.  The size of the header signifies that that should be read first.

Size can also create dramatic effects.  Take the below images for example.  A wolf and a deer.  In the first image the wolf appears to be stalking the deer.  By increasing the size contrast between the two silhouettes, the story becomes much more dramatic.   

In the second image, the wolf’s threat to the deer becomes even more prominent.  Whereas in the third image, that power appears to have been transferred to the deer – through the use of size contrast.

Colour contrast

There is no greater colour contrast than black and white. Such high contrast makes for excellent readability.  Which is why black text on white pages is the most common combination for both print and screen.  High contrast can be achieved through many other colour combinations – I use a dark navy and a pale pink in branding elements for Dsmith Design where I want to create that strong contrast yet still remain within my brand palette.

Use high colour contrast in design where you want to draw attention to first, and low contrast between elements that are not as important.

Using low colour contrast works well where subtly is desired. Background patterns for example work well when used in this way, to refrain from distracting from the main page content, such as text or images.

There you have it.  How to incorporate the alignment design principles to boost the appeal of your brand.  Over the next few weeks I will explore more principles that you can easily implement in your designs – to create graphics like a pro designer.

Need some fine tuning of your design skills  in Canva?  I run one-on-one and small group workshops to help business owners just like you feel confident and in control with their designs for everyday business content.  Check out my workshop page.  

Danielle x