Designer’s Block? Return to the Basics
Creative block is not an uncommon phenomenon among designers. We are constantly asking ourselves questions such as, “Where do I take the design from here?” and “Is this a finished product?”. We’ll even catch ourselves saying things like “I don’t like this design. This is hopeless!”
So what can we do then? In my experience, it is good practice to return to the basics. Ask yourself, what are the most common design principles that I take for granted? Consistency and Alignment are two principles that stand out to me.
Consistency
Consistency in design allows the user to quickly learn and understand different parts of the design. Although there may be a movement encouraging designers to avoid it, we are all familiar with the famous hamburger menu often seen in mobile apps and websites.
The principle of consistency means that the average user will not have to consider what this icon means. Because it has been used for so long, most users will know exactly what it means and what to do with it.
Alignment
Alignment is placing elements in a design so that the edges line up in a nice, consistent, and cohesive way. Aligning these elements gives the user a sense of clean aesthetic and makes your design look more stable.
You may have heard of the “F Pattern”, which is one of many patterns in which a user scans a design with their eyes.
As we can observe, the user tends to scan the left side of the page. If the elements on the left side are not aligned, it may be more difficult for the reader to discern where to look next. Using this type of research helps us tidy up our designs.
While aligning elements in a design helps us show unity between the elements, there is also a reason to not align elements. Not aligning elements helps us showcase objects that aren’t related.
This is a landing page design I worked on for a pretend social media marketing company. It’s easy to observe that there is clear alignment along the left edge of the text. The call-to-action button is also aligned with the rest of the content.
In the 2nd version of the design, I chose not to align the call-to-action button with the paragraph. This makes it stand out a bit more and makes the goal of the design clear. Centering the line of text above the button also makes it clear that the 2 elements are related.
There are many other basic design principles that should be studied and remembered over and over again. Hopefully this case study of the principles of Consistency and Alignment will inspire you to look into what design basics you need to remind yourself of.
Ben Dixon is a student in the Web Design and Development program at Utah Valley University. The above article relates to the Final Project in the DGM 270R class and is representative of the skills learned therein. The entire project can be seen here.
