AG's 15 Graphic Design Tips for Beginners

A good set of graphic design tips always comes in handy when you are a beginner graphic designer, or even a non-designers and essentially serves as a checklist on the journey to a good cohesive design. Below are 15 tips that I find most helpful:

Tip #1: Keep it simple

The no. 1 and most important design tip for non-designers and beginner designers is to keep it simple. There’s nothing worse than an overwhelming design that is difficult to understand.

To keep things simple, tap into your inner minimalist. Use the minimum amount of text and fonts, keep the colors under control and the visuals balanced.

Take a look at the flyer template below.

It’s simple, yet eye-catching. Even though there aren’t a ton of elements used, a cohesive color palette and clean fonts do the trick.

The secret to good design is not to stuff as many graphics and elements into your design as possible.

It’s achieving a balance between aesthetic appeal, and getting your message across clearly and effectively.

Tip #2: Use a cohesive color palette.

Color palettes and color schemes are as important as the message you want to relay with your design. Choosing the perfect color combination though isn’t always easy.

Thankfully, ready to use color palettes are easy to come by these days with so many resources available online for free.

A great way to create color palettes is to extract the colors from an image.

Adobe Color is a great website that gives you several color palettes from any image.

Tip #3: Keep the typography under control.

The art of selecting fonts has a bad rep in the world of design for non-designers. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the choice of different fonts available online.

Not only that, you have to know how to pair fonts together in a design to make it look cohesive and pleasing.

A great way to bypass the stress of trying out a million combinations is to use tried and tested pairings. Professional designers also love new and beautiful fonts but if you ask them, they’ll tell you that they only use a handful of classic fonts most of the time.

One easy to follow rule-of-thumb if you want to make your pairings with different fonts is to use one novelty font for headings and a regular classic one for all the text. Again, there are many free resources available online to help you with this process.

You can even use just one font family and create a pairing of its different weights. For example, above I have used a combination of Cormorant Garamond Bold & Light. A Montserrat bold for the heading, a Montserrat regular for text blocks and italics for subheadings is a great safe option that always works.

Tip #4: Consider the visual hierarchy.

Visual hierarchy is all about giving visual importance to some elements over others. In simple terms, it’s how headers are larger than subheadings, and these in turn are larger than a box of text.

The same applies to images, graphics, icons and even colors. When you use visual hierarchy rules, you bring attention to a focal point in the design. This creates a visual balance that then starts a visual flow of information for the viewer.

Visual hierarchy is a skill that comes easy for some people but for others, it needs to be learned.

Tip #5: Save time with social media templates.

Social media is one of the mediums where graphics need to be created constantly and regularly. There is no better way to save time than to use pre-designed templates.

Social media managers have to work on so many different channels with different required sizes. Thankfully there are templates available for every channel and every size.

Tip #6: Always use white space.

White space isn’t exactly “white”. What white space means is that there is an empty space without text or elements on it.

It’s the area of the design where it “breathes”. This is one of the design techniques that is harder to master than others.

A good way to learn how to use white space is to study minimalist design. This is a movement that centers on the idea that “less is more” and you only need the bare necessities on a graphic.

Another use of white space is called negative space. This is a technique in which empty spaces tell more of a story than they would in the background or between other elements.

Tip #7: Use cohesive design elements.

When you add design elements to your project, they must have a cohesive style between them. This applies to all graphic elements; from icons to data widgets, illustrations, animations and even font styles.

For example, use all solid icons instead of a mix of line and solid.

Mix squares with rounded corners with other curved elements. Straight angled shapes with straight lines. Alternatively, break the rules and mix curves with straight lines as long as you keep a cohesive texture and color palette.

Tip #8: Optimize readability.

Another great tip is to always make your text easy to read. This applies to how you overlay text on backgrounds, the colors and fonts you use for headings and how elements relate to text and flow of the design.

Choose the best typeface for your project, one that not only matches your message but is also easy to read. It needs to be easy to read over a background image or texture.

Do everything in your power to make the context in your design easy to read and understand. This applies to both the actual text and visualizations like charts and data widgets.

Tip #9: Make good use of spacing.

Good spacing is one of the most important tools when it comes to creating balanced compositions. You find spaces in margins, between shapes, paragraphs, lines, words and even between letters.

Space is essentially white space, as we mentioned above. The difference is that in this case, it acts as a rule to help you align elements, keep them balanced and complement each other.

Grids, for example, use specific spacing measures to create a base for any design. You can learn more about grids and spacing in the article below.

Tip #10: An infographic can be of any size.

At some point along your journey in design, you’ll come across the need to create an infographic.

Most infographics on social media are long and vertical, thanks to Pinterest and blog with infographics. But what this tip is about is that not all infographics need to have those dimensions.

Infographics can be square, horizontal, printed, interactive or big as a wall. The choice depends on what type of content you need to visualize and where it will be published.

A long vertical infographic for a blog post can even be cut into blocks and placed throughout the content.

Tip #11: Consider the psychology of color.

Further up in the list, we talked about color palettes and color themes. But that’s not all you need to know about color. When you choose the colors for your designs, consider what each color represents in an emotional and cultural sense.

Designs with strong bold colors compared to soft pastel colors inspire different emotional reactions in the viewer. Think of the emotion you want to portray and use colors that reflect that.

The colors on the color wheel can be combined in different ways with color harmonies. Finding the perfect color harmony for your project will help you design better.

Psychology of color is an important skill if you plan to use designs in marketing and sales.

Tip #12: Know the dimensions you need beforehand.

Never start a project without knowing exactly what size it needs to be. Even though you can change the size later, you’ll have to readjust everything to fit into the new size.

For example, if you need to create a presentation don’t start with a vertical infographic size. Likewise, when creating a set of Instagram posts, make sure they are square, landscape or portrait with the following optimal dimensions.

Dimensions are measured in two ways; the length and width in pixels and the aspect ratio. Both are important to know when designing.

The aspect ratio is the relationship of the size to the width of a design, it can have different numerical values but will always have the same shape.

Social media graphics, for example, need to be created in specific aspect ratios but the dimensions can be different according to how detailed your design is.

Tip #13: Know what type of file you need when downloading.

Just how you need to know the size of your graphics beforehand, you also need to know the type of file to download when you’re done. For example, do you need a JPEG for a web image, a PNG for a cut-out design with a transparent background?

Or maybe you need a PDF file for printing purposes. Analyze what you’ll need before you start so you can design accordingly.

Tip #14: Stay organized.

Staying organized while you design is as important as choosing the right fonts and colors. When you have all your assets ready to use, you save time and can concentrate more on creativity.

If you need to bring images, icons or visuals into your design tools make sure you do the following:

• Name the files so they are easier to recognize

• Create a main folder for your project

• If possible create subfolders with types of assets

Tip #15: Trust the design process.

Lastly, in the list of graphic design tips for beginner and non-designers, is to trust the design process.

Below is a design process that I look up to. When you trust the design process, you have a better chance of creating a successful design.

Contact me for any other queries or book a design tutorial with me!