Graphic design is the use of visual and textual elements to communicate an idea or message.
It’s a fundamental part of every business, from marketing copy, to company logos, websites and packaging. In fact, graphic design can be found all around us – from billboards on our streets and buses; through to magazine covers in our newsagents.
Graphic designers use a variety of different tools and techniques to create their work — everything from pencils and paintbrushes, through to computers and digital imagery.
Design is all around us, but have you ever stopped to think about how it impacts our daily lives?
Design is all around us, but have you ever stopped to think about how it impacts our daily lives?
Everything you see and touch in your day-to-day life has been designed. From the way a product is packaged to the layout of a website, everything from advertising campaigns to office decor—it’s all part of a larger design.
As we build our practices and websites, there are many ways that we can use design principles to improve our services and attract new patients. If you’re not sure where to start or what considerations should be made before choosing an aesthetic for your podiatry practice, this article will help you get started!
Good design can make a difference to your podiatry practice.
As a podiatrist, you want to make sure that your patients are getting the best care possible. You also want to make sure that your practice is providing a valuable service and creating happy customers. Good design can help you do both.
Good design can be used to help you stand out from the crowd when it comes to the marketing of your services and products, or simply as a way of communicating with customers in a more personal way.
Good design can help a business stand out from the crowd in a competitive marketplace.
A good graphic design can help you get more customers and more repeat customers.
Think about it: the average person spends about 4 hours a day staring at their smartphone or tablet. That’s a lot of time spent on screens, which means that when people are looking for something new to buy they’re likely to turn to their devices first. When they Google “pediatric podiatrist near me,” they see your website as one of the top results (if not THE top result). And if all of your competitors have websites that look exactly alike—or worse yet, ugly or confusing—you can bet that most people will choose to give THEIR money to YOUR practice instead!
Understanding the principles of graphic design will help you get better results when discussing your project with a designer.
Understanding the principles of graphic design will help you get better results when discussing your project with a designer. It will also help you to understand why some designs work and others don’t. You can use this knowledge to improve your own designs, which is especially helpful if you’re working on collateral materials for your practice (customers’ guides, marketing materials).
Some of the most important principles include:
- Balance – this refers to how elements are distributed on the page or screen; it helps create visual tension between different features in an image. In general, asymmetrical layouts tend to look more attractive than symmetrical ones because they have more “movement” that grabs the attention of the viewer
- Proportion – refers to how large or small different objects appear relative to each other within an image; larger objects generally appear closer while smaller ones appear further away from us (this is called depth perception)
When looking at an item of design, ask yourself: why did they make this decision? What are they trying to achieve with this piece and how are they doing it?
- What is the purpose of this piece?
- What does it communicate?
- How does the designer achieve their aim?
The main visual components of an image are line, shape, texture, colour and space.
The main visual components of an image are line, shape, texture, colour, and space.
Line is the path that’s created between two points. It can be straight or curved and can be thick or thin. Shape is any part of an illustration (or font) that has two dimensions — width and height. Texture relates to how something feels or how it may actually feel if it were touched. Colour refers to the wavelength of light reflected from a surface — for example, green leaves are reflecting different wavelengths than blue water. Space refers to the distance between objects in a scene; as an example: how far apart two people stand from each other shows how much space there is between them (i.e., staying close together conveys intimacy).
Line is the path that’s created between two points.
Lines are the paths that create the edges of shapes. They can be straight or curved, thick or thin, solid or dashed—and they can take many forms on top of all that.
The simplest way to understand line is by thinking of it as a path between two points. There’s no need to get overly scientific here; just think of lines like you’d think about roads when driving: they’re routes connecting one point to another!
Shape is any part of an illustration (or font) that has two dimensions — width and height.
Shape is any part of an illustration (or font) that has two dimensions — width and height. Shapes can be used in a graphic design to create visual hierarchy, contrast between elements, and/or to help define the look of your branding.
Texture relates to how something feels or how it may actually feel if it were touched.
The texture is a term that refers to how something feels or how it may actually feel if it were touched. Texture can be a tactile sensation, which is the texture of an object or surface as you feel it with your hands, for example, the rough surface of sandpaper. The other kind of texture is visual texturing, which consists of different materials and finishes used in graphic design elements.
Visual textures can be achieved by using different colours, patterns, and shapes together; this will create a certain pattern on your website or brochure that makes people want to touch the material because they think it’s cool-looking (even though there’s nothing soft about pixels!).
Colour is one of the most powerful visual elements around.
Colour is one of the most powerful visual elements around. When used correctly, it can be used to create a mood or emotion and make an object stand out. It can also be used to create patterns and hierarchy, which helps you convey information in an easy-to-understand way.
You can use colour to help create focal points within your design (like the logo), as well as draw attention to important areas on a page (like the phone number).
Space is what happens in between everything else. It helps determine proportion and scale.
Space is what happens in between everything else. It helps determine proportion and scale, but it can also be used to create texture and movement, contrast, or even balance. Space has been a big part of art for centuries; artists have always used space to create an image.
Space is the area that’s left blank between shapes and forms. When you look at a piece of art, you first notice the objects or shapes that are there because they’re filled with color and detail – those are called positive spaces. The negative space around them makes up their surroundings – this is where light bounces off surfaces, creating shadows or highlights depending on how much light hits them directly from your perspective (if any).
Typography involves the systematic use of type through structured arrangements to create a particular effect in communication.
Typography is the use of type to create effects, communicate messages, and tell a story. Typography involves the systematic use of type through structured arrangements to create a particular effect in communication. Its best-known use today is in print design, but it has been adapted for many other applications such as web design, signage, and product packaging.
Typography is often used to establish mood or tone. There are hundreds of different types of fonts available on computers today, each with its own unique characteristics that add visual interest and emotional impact to your printed material or website design.
Typography uses principles from the visual arts and applies them to the medium of communication through typefaces.
Typography, a subset of graphic design, uses principles from the visual arts and applies them to the medium of communication through typefaces.
The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces (also known as fonts), point size, line length and leading (the space between lines) as well as adjusting the margins and interline spacing. The choice of a suitable font is crucial to the overall design of a document because it affects not only how it looks but also how easy it is to read.
Typography can be described as both an art form and a science.
Typography, the art and science of type, can be described as both an art form and a science. The art of typography aims to make the text look good; whereas the science of typography aims to make your content readable. Most people would say that these two things are one in the same. However, it’s important to understand that they’re not exactly identical: readability is more important than aesthetics when we’re talking about legibility and readability on screen.
I’m sure you’ve seen many examples where type has been set in ways that seem pretty but don’t serve their purpose well. For example:
- A headline set in a decorative font with no contrast against its background colouring will be difficult to read and may look like this:
- If you want people who visit your website or use one of your services (like taking a webinar) to actually read what’s written on there then choosing a font that works well with all colours or backgrounds will help achieve this goal!
Conclusion
If you want to learn more about graphic design, check out our podiatry CPD course here https://www.osgolearning.co.uk/item/graphic-design-101/
