Graphic Design Tips – A good set of graphic design tips always comes in handy when you are a beginner graphic designer, or even a non-designers on the journey to teach yourself some practical graphic design skills.
In this article, we share 15 of the most practical graphic design tips for beginners and non-designers.
Let’s get started.
15 Graphic Design Tips for Beginners & Non-Designers
As a non-designer, you might find your designs don’t look as polished and professional as you’d hope for. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back.
Below, we’ve put together a list of the best graphic design tips and tricks to help you create better-looking designs in no time — even without any design experience.
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.
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. Visme has a color theme picker as part of your editing tools. Simply browse through the color themes and try them out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 an HTML5 file with animation and interactivity. Analyze what you’ll need before you start so you can design accordingly.
Then, download what you need plus any options you might also need. An interactive infographic will look great in a blog post but you’ll need a static JPEG version for Pinterest.
With Visme you have many download options. From regular JPEGs to printable PDFs, animated GIFs and video.
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
The new Visme dashboard helps you stay organized with better folder arrangement and labeling.
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. What we mean by this is: Don’t jump hoops or cut corners when designing something.
Below is a design process we created for you to follow. When you trust the design process, you have a better chance of creating a successful design.
