Design Principles
Carley GussertApril 16, 2013
Proximity• Keep items that are related with each
other together, keep others far, far away. That means do NOT leave a blank line between a story’s title and the story. They are related, keep them together!
• Use white space to provide distance between unrelated items.
Font Families• There are three major font families.
• Serif – font with a foot Example: Times New Roman
• San serif – font without a foot. Example: Arial
• Fun – all other fontsExample: Gidyup Std
Contrast• Visual attraction on the page.
• Keep elements the same or very different.
• Make darks dark and light items light.
• Place dark text on a light background and light text on a dark background
• Make big items big and small ones small.
Repetition• Aim for consistency
• Repetition will strengthen the reader’s sense of recognition.
• Repeat elements throughout your document.
• Repeat fonts, font sizes, colors and graphics.
Alignment• There are 4 different alignments.
• Left – Use for large blocks of text that need to be read. This is a traditional style.
• Right – Use for titles and small amounts of text. This is funky.
• Centered – Use for titles, is formal.
• Block – Use in newspapers.