Create Compelling Designs by Using Design Principles and Color

Design is more than decoration. Design is visual communication. You don't need fancy equipment or apps. You need ideas and an understanding of design fundamentals. Learning principles like composition, scale, placement, repetition, and movement will help you become a better designer.

You can create compelling designs with the most simple elements by understanding design principles and combining them with color.

After having control of essential design principles, then you can move into working in color. Color is the most relative element in design, meaning it isn't constant or absolute. So many factors can affect our perception of color and the reality of the color itself.

Remember, excellent design can be reduced to its achromatic values and will still be as strong as it is in color. For this reason, I always start working in black and white, and I have my students test their designs in black and white to solve genuine design problems.

I drew this poster with a market on paper. I then scanned it to colorize it. You can see in the above image that understanding basic design principles make this poster work even in black and white.

If you want to learn more about working with color, then join me this year in Color Camp! It's a 10-day intensive course on color taught by yours truly, Xhico. Get on the Color Camp waitlist here.