Graphic design touches everything we see from billboards to websites. It combines visual elements like words, pictures, and charts to create something distinctive. Good design focuses on practical aspects like functionality but also understands why designs work on emotional and psychological levels. There are basic design theories and principles that apply across different mediums like balance, scale, and emotion. Successful designs employ principles like balance, rhythm, proportion, dominance, and unity.

2. Design .. is to make a synthesis of
{Needs + Information + Colors}
in order to create
something greater than the sum of its parts

3. Introduction
Graphic design is everywhere, touching everything we
do, everything we see, everything we buy: we see it on
billboards and in Bibles, on taxi receipts and on websites, on
birth certificates and on gift certificates, on the folded
circulars inside jars of aspirin and on the thick pages of
children's chubby board books.
Graphic design is complex combinations of words and
pictures, numbers and charts, photographs and illustrations
that, in order to succeed, demands the clear thinking of a
particularly thoughtful individual who can orchestrate these
elements so they all add up to something distinctive, or
useful, or playful, or surprising, or subversive or somehow
memorable.

4. As designers, we often focus on the
practical aspects of design above all else. We
focus on what works, with little regard for why it
works. And in our day-to-day work, that outlook
serves us well. It let us get our work done in an
efficient, professional manner, and generally
present good results.

5. Design Theory
There are a lot of general design theories and
principles out there that apply to all forms of design,
whether in digital or print mediums. These include things
like balance and scale, as well as more abstract topics like
emotion and what makes for “good” design.
Starting with the Basics
Web design is a relatively new profession compared
to other forms of design, due to the youth of our medium.
As with any design discipline, there are aspects of the Web
design process that are unique to the medium, such as
screen resolution, additive color spaces and image
compression.

6. How Does Web Design Fit In?
I tend to define Web design as being one of many
disciplines within the larger field of design.
The point is that in order to start with a discussion
about the fundamentals of design as they relate to Web
design we need to understand that there is a good degree
of inheritance that design has received over the years
from other art forms. These art forms, such as lithography,
typography, painting/illustration and industrial design,
evolved over many centuries, and a number of basic ideas
have emerged as providing universal guidance to any
artistic endeavor.

7. The Principles of Design
There are many basic concepts that underly the
field of design. They are often categorized differently
depending on philosophy or teaching methodology. The
first thing we need to do is organize them, so that we
have a framework for this discussion.
Let’s begin by focusing on the principles of design,
the axioms of our profession. Specifically, we will be
looking at the following principles:
Balance Rhythm Proportion
Dominance Unity

8. Balance
It is the arrangement of the objects in a given design
as it relates to their visual weight within a composition.
Rhythm
Rhythm is the repetition or alternation of elements,
often with defined intervals between them. Rhythm can
create a sense of movement, and can establish pattern
and texture.

9. Proportion
Proportion is the comparison of dimensions or
distribution of forms. It is the relationship in scale between
one element and another, or between a whole object and
one of its parts.
Dominance
It determines the visual weight of a composition,
establishes space and perspective, and often resolves
where the eye goes first when looking at a design.

10. Unity
The concept of unity describes the relationship
between the individual parts and the whole of a
composition. It investigates the aspects of a given
design that are necessary to tie the composition
together, to give it a sense of wholeness, or to break it
apart and give it a sense of variety.

11. Simplicity
Simplicity in website design doesn’t necessarily
equate with a minimalist design aesthetic. Simple
designs just remove all unnecessary elements from the
content. While minimalist designs generally fit this
criteria, there are plenty of designs that wouldn’t, by any
stretch of the imagination, be considered “minimalist” that
still fit the definition of simple.

12. Advantages of Simple web designs:
1. Easier to Navigate
2. Simple Designs Load Faster
3. Content is More “Scanable”
4. Simple Sites are Quicker to Design and Build
5. Simple Code is Easier to Debug
5. Smaller File Sizes Mean Less Server Space

13. How to Simplify Your Websites
1- Remove unnecessary decorative elements
2- Ask yourself: “Is this element really important?”
3- Make sure the backend of your site is as simple as
the frontend

14. Color Theory
We often think of a good eye for color as
something innate rather than something learned. But in
fact, given the proper tools, and possibly a few electrical
shocks along the way, even a person who's colorblind
can pick color schemes that are pleasing to the eye.
First let's deal with the basic terminology of color
just to make sure we don't lose any of you along the way.
We all know that primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.
Then to get secondary colors, you add a primary color to
another primary color. But what then are tertiary colors?
simply a primary color added to one of the adjacent
secondary colors. That means there are six tertiary
colors.

15. Figure A: To understand how to pick the best color
schemes, it's first important to understand the three
different types of colors.

16. To fully understand the manner in which these
colors relate, it's best to imagine these hues organized
in a circle. This organization, shown in Figure B, is
known in the design world as the color wheel.

17. While the choice of color is one of the most
subjective decisions in the world of design, it's still
important to understand the theory behind why you should
choose one set of colors over another. The theory may not
let you instantly select a color scheme, but it will certainly
lead you along the right path.

18. Typography
Basic typographical principles
The computer is not a typewriter; it gives us access
to all of the same typographical resources that evolved over
centuries in the printing industry. However, many people
learned to type on a typewriter and haven’t gotten rid of
their “typewriter habits”. What follows is a guide to some
typographic principles for writing on the computer.

19. Proportional fonts
There are two kinds of fonts: “Fixed-Width” and
“Proportional”.
In a fixed-width font (such as Courier New), the characters
are all the same width: an “i” is the same width as an “m”.
This makes the font harder to read.
In a proportional font (such as Times or Arial), the
characters are different widths. Typesetters have always
used proportional fonts, and they look much more
professional. Always use proportional fonts unless you
have a specific reason not to!

20. Serifs
Fonts come in two styles: “serif” and “sans-serif”.
Times New Roman is a serif font; Arial is sans-serif. Serifs
are the little lines at the ends of strokes.
Serif fonts are easier to read on paper; for instance,
they distinguish capital I and small L, which are
confounded in many sans-serif fonts.
This text is probably in a sans-serif font
&
This text is probably in a serif font

21. Emphasis
You should never use ALL CAPS . If you want
something similar for a title or gloss use SMALL CAPS ,
automatically in Word: it’s under Format | Font
Paragraphs
To reiterate the point made under styles: always
use indenting (a paragraph format attribute) instead of
tabs to indent paragraphs, and paragraph spacing instead
of blank lines to separate paragraphs. This will make
reformatting your document much easier.

22. Punctuation
Another bit of “typewriter residue” is the use of
straight quotes (") instead of curly quotes (“,”), and a
“double dash” (--) instead of an “em dash” (-). The
characters you need for the elegant version aren't
available from the keyboard, but they are present in ANSI
fonts.

23. 15 tips to choose a good text type
Many people may asked me which text type is best
for a magazine, a newspaper, a poster, a newsletter, a
publication, etc. In general, I can tell them which to use,
but I know that this is not the best answer, because they
won't learn to do this by themselves.
Today, I want to take time to analyze how to
choose correct text typography design in different cases.
It is very important to understand that these tips are not
final word, but they can be good help at the moment of
choosing a text type. In any case, it depends on what do
you want to convey with this type, because many times
legibility is as important as the character of the type. Try
to be very careful and take in account the following
points.

24. 1. The Letterform
The ‘ductus’ represents the framework of a type. It
is very important. For legible text we need typographies
with a simple ductus without complex details. Those
details distract from the reading process and we need
the reader to pay attention to the content and not the
text.

25. 2. The Weight
When we discuss the ‘weight’ of a type, we refer
to a consistent relationship between the characters
themselves, and the light of the page that flows around
them. If you use a light version of a type for a lot of text,
reading of this text will probably become tiring and
nobody will want to read it.

26. 3. The Contrast
The contrast refers to the thickness difference
between vertical and horizontal strokes. The difference
between the thicker and the thinner part of the character.
Bodoni and Didot are very contrasted type designs. Try
to read the photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of
text layed out in Bodoni. You will probably see only
vertical strokes. Good type design should be able to
resist a lot of copies. It must be strong, solid, but not
coarse.

27. 4. The axis
In my view, the axis of a type design could affect
reading. Vertical strokes prevail in a text type and if the
axis is diagonal, the eye will have trouble following that
line of text. If the type uses more than one axis, a line of
text will appear as if dancing which makes is harder to
read. If we use an orthogonal axis, the characters can't
dance.

28. 5. x height
The area between baseline and x height contains
most of the readable information. It is a very important
area at the moment of reading text. Long ascenders and
descenders require a small x hight. If we compare two
types of designs, one with long ascenders and the other
with short ascenders, we can see that the x height of the
second one will be larger, so it will obviously be more
legible.

29. 6. Capital letters height
Older typefaces designs consider the same height
for the ascenders and the capital letters. In any cases
capitals are bigger… But the appearance of a word in
upper case between lower caps is usually ugly. When I
write the word ‘Garamond’ I feel the ‘G’ as a dinosaur
and the ‘a’ as its prey.

30. 7. Endings and details
When we use a font in a big size (for example in a
poster), we enlarge everything. All the small details of the
type design become evident, as well as the mistakes. A
lot of typographies are badly drawn. As designers, we
should not accept this.

31. 8. Text and texture
A block of text looks like a texture from a distance.
This texture must be uniform, without thicker characters
or spots that could attract the attention.

32. 9. Degree of the Counter Opening
In many type designs, the counters are too closed.
It could cause legibility problems, because somebody
could read 'o' instead of an 'c'. So, if the internal counter
is too opened, it will start to mingle with the external
counter, generating a lot of white.

33. 10. The Fish Effect
This effect becomes evident when the internal
counter is bigger than the space between characters. It
looks very strange where round and straight characters
join.

34. 11. External counter
There are small details that make a text type
design more legible. A carefully designed external
counter leads to better text understanding. Think about
the connection between the vertical stroke of the ‘n’ and
its curve, or the difference between ‘rn’ and ‘m’.

35. 12. Internal counter
A small eye in an ‘a’ or an ‘e’ character will
probably disappear, especially in small type sizes. These
are the most used characters in most of the languages,
that is why this becomes a very big problem.

36. 13. Is the set complete?
How many times do we note that the font we are
using lacks a character? It always happens when our
design is almost finished. Terrible! We must change the
type and check out the complete text again. Many type
designers don't design some characters such as ñ,
written accents, tildes, points, commas or numbers… It is
better to check the font out before using it.

37. 14. The family
It is important to verify that the type family is
plentiful, with variations in weight, black, whites and
italics… Check out that the italic is as legible as the
regular version. Sometimes they have a lot of rococo
details.

38. 15. Letter spacing
There are fonts with bad or non-existent letter
spacing and obviously, they don't work well. A good
designer will try to correct the letter spacing that he (she)
considers bad, but it is too much work when all the
spacing looks bad… There are software packages that
can help, but it is not the same as good typographer
work. Try to use fonts with correct letter spacing and
metrics.

39. Conclusion
In designing it is too easy to get engrossed in the
many unique constraints of the medium and completely
forget some of the underlying concepts that can
strengthen any design. To better discuss such concepts,
we need to step back from our specific discipline and look
to the history of the field. It is here we find the axioms of
our profession.
In this research we looked at half of those axioms,
the principles of design. The principles of design are the
guiding truths of our profession, the basic concepts of
balance, rhythm, proportion, dominance and unity.
Successful use of these core ideas insures a solid
foundation upon which any design can thrive.