These three design tips are part of the fundamentals any designer first learns when they enter art school. They are so easy though that they often are forgotten. If you apply these three basic design elements, your work will be more effective.

3 Easy Tips for More Effective Design

Use a maximum of 3 different fonts

You’ll need a font for your headers, sub-headers, and a font for your body copy. The header can be a script or more decorative font. The more text you use with the font, the easier legible it needs to be. Subheaders can have some personality but need to be easier to read than headers because the font size is typically smaller. Long bodies of text should always be in a non-script font. If you aren’t comfortable playing around with different fonts, you can always use a font family. A typeface, otherwise known as a font family, share a common design element and usually have different styles of weight, condensation, or slant. For example, you can use a bolded font for your subheader than use a regular font on the same family for your body copy.

Don’t forget about hierarchy

Hierarchy in design terms refers to the arrangement or presentation of elements in your design. Hierarchy shows the reader what’s important and makes their eye follow the way you want them to.

Keep your color palette simple

Much like using a maximum of 3 different fonts you should keep your color palette limited as well. You can utilize three different colors; one for the background, one for your base color, and one for your accent color. Your accent color is comparable to your header. It is typically brighter, full of personality and used sparingly. Your base color is much like your subheaders. The base color should be a bit calmer and used more than your accent color. Lastly, the background color is seen most and is comparable to your body of text. It should be more of a neutral or the calmest color out of your palette.

You may not have even realized it, but the preview image for this post follows all these rules. If you are trying to brand your blog or business, you should try to stick to the same colors, fonts, and layout for all of your marketing material. That way you are memorable and people will recognize your posts before they even click on the images. A couple of bloggers and businesses who do an exceptional job of this are:

Melyssa Griffin

The Crown Fox

White Oak Creative

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