Basic Principles of Graphics and Layout PDF

Communication is critical for people to share thoughts, feelings, and emotions. With the use of different media, people can express their views in many ways, including adding artistic designs. The purpose of the combined images and texts also gives influence to people not just understand the sent id...

Communication is critical for people to share thoughts, feelings, and emotions. With the use of different media, people can express their views in many ways, including adding artistic designs. The purpose of the combined images and texts also gives influence to people not just understand the sent idea or message, but it also adds emotion to what is being seen. **Understanding Graphic Design and Layout** What makes a good and effective website? How do users interact with the websites they visit? A good website must know its target audience, determine its needs, and communicate effectively using the basic principles of graphics and layout. Users or visitors may have different interests and needs like browsing, researching, streaming, online shopping, dating, and many others. They even behave differently depending on what they perceive on the website. Web design matters in every user, whether they can decide to stay or just leave. Usability is important for the users as it satisfies their experience on the website, but a good design will drag the audience's attention to stay on the page. Always remember that first impressions last and web design has an impact on the users on how they perceive the brand or message. Graphic design is an artistic way of communicating ideas and messages through visual expressions using texts, images, and symbols. Graphic designers work on the quality of the output they serve for the audience or clients like websites, advertisements, posters, flyers, logos, videos, and any other multimedia form. A practical graphic layout and design can easily catch the attention of the viewers and allow them to understand the message conveniently. **Graphic Design vs. Layout** Design is a plan of creating an idea through a combination of texts, images, and other elements that are placed together artistically, whereas, the layout is a term used as the process of organizing and arranging these elements in a design as you plot it in a paper. **Basic Principles of Design and Layout** **1. Balance** It refers to the proper arrangement of the elements, which gives a visual weight for the design. There are two types of balance, Symmetrical or Asymmetrical. Symmetrical balance is where the elements are equally distributed on both sides of your design, technically a mirror-based design. In contrast, Asymmetrical balance is a free layout where the elements can be placed in any order or the opposite of symmetrical. **2. Emphasis** It refers to something that needs to stand-out or emphasize. When working on emphasis, you can change the color, size, or even the element itself to lead the eye to the focal interest. Pattern, Repetition and Rhythm The use of repetitive elements such as lines, shapes, forms, textures, space, colors, font, style, and the like to create texture, movement, continuity, and consistency of the design. It also makes the design formal and more comfortable to read because of its uniformity. Alignment It refers to the proper placement of an element to your design, just like invisibly placing or aligning your texts or images diagonally, vertically, and horizontally. The standard texts or paragraph alignment we apply are center, right, left, and justified. **3. Hierarchy** It refers to the proper arrangement of the details such as text, characters, numbers, and symbols. Changing its character size, thickness, spaces, or even font type to stand out is its most critical features. By applying this principle, it can help the viewer to recognize and navigate the highlight of the event smoothly. **4. Contrast** It refers to the use of different or opposite elements such as sizes (large or small), shapes (geometric or organic), spaces (negative or positive), form (real or abstract), colors (monochromatic, complementary, triadic, tetradic), texture (smooth or rough), and values (light or dark). The contrast gives visual weight to an object or design. You must consider and limit the use of different elements, color, style, and typography to avoid cluttered design. When creating contrast in color and text, it is advised to choose a color from the background to create consistency of your design. Always remember that the details must be readable by having a dark-light value of either text and background or vice-versa. **5. Unity and Harmony** It refers to the relationship of the elements or the contents when you place them together. The elements of the design must work together and agree to its meaning, theme, feeling, or mood