Odds are, you know good design when you see it.

Whether it’s a beautiful website, eye-catching billboard or a cool beer label, some designs stop you in your tracks and make you look.

But have you ever paused to work out why some designs please the eye and others don’t? Why some designs draw you in and others make you shudder?

At AJ Marketing, we think about design a lot. We work with clients to create visuals for all sorts of collateral. And while there’s a tonne of creativity that goes into our work, for every project we also follow some basic design rules.  

That’s because, no matter how creative you want to get, good design stays true to a set of principles.

Stick around as we reveal the best design principles:

Negative Space

Negative space or white space gives your design room to breathe. It helps to create balance and can also lead the eye from one element to the next.

If you ignore the KISS principle of keeping it simple (stupid) and start filling all your negative space, that’s where your design gets into trouble.

Hint: Negative space doesn’t need to be white – it’s just any empty space around an element or object.

Nobody does negative space like Apple.

CRAP

Despite what the name suggests, CRAP actually helps you create good design. It stands for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity.

●     Contrast: Helps organise your design and show which parts are most important.

●     Repetition: AKA consistency, it's the process of repeating elements to give a unified look.

●     Alignment: Using the natural way the eye scans helps make elements appear in harmony.

●     Proximity: Things that belong together should sit close together. Close proximity tells the viewer that items are connected or have a relationship.

These four key principles of design are all important in their own right. When their powers are combined, you can create a show-stopping design.

Squarespace has nailed a CRAP design here:

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds helps compose your design. Like a grid, think of it as a way to position elements of your design in relation to each other.

Lots of brands use the rule of thirds to organise content on their website, especially on their home page.

The thing about this principle is once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere…

Hierarchy

Hierarchy tells the audience what to focus on first. You can create a hierarchy using varying sizes and placements.

The bigger an element and the higher its physical placement, the more important it is.

Over to you

Using the best design principles helps you communicate a message with impact and drive people to action. But remember, some rules are made to be broken. Some of the best designs ignore one or more of these principles to stand out. The trick is to know when to follow the rules and when to break them.

Got a project that needs some design love?