With ever-changing trends and increasingly-short viewer attention spans, creating visually impactful work is so important. Whether you’re running a business, creating a marketing campaign, or simply trying to get your message out there, the way you present your information is crucial to its success. That’s where the graphic design comes in. By understanding bread and butter key principles — such as balance, contrast, spacing, color, and typography — you can create timeless work that is visually appealing, clear, and effective.
In this series of blog posts, we’ll explore design principles and show you how they can help you take your communication to the next level.
Introducing Typography
Today’s article is about our personal favorite — typography. Here at Night Owl Design Studio, we consider typography to be the unsung hero of graphic design. It’s not flashy, and it may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of great design, but without it, a piece can fall flat.
By including consistent typography standards as a component of a comprehensive branding system, you can establish a sense of competence, dependability, and credibility in your work. Let’s explore some key considerations to produce clean and effective typography:
When Setting up a Brand Style, Consider Hierarchy and Scale
Hierarchy refers to the visual organization of different typographic elements to guide readers through the content. By using varying font sizes, weights, and styles, you can establish a clear hierarchy that directs attention and emphasizes key information.
For instance, in a magazine article, the headline might be set in a bold, larger font to grab attention, while the subheadings are slightly smaller but still bold to create a visual distinction. The body text would be set in a regular, readable font to ensure ease of reading. Trends change, and every brand is different — perhaps an enlarged, light weight font will stand out more for your headline. The trick is to keep the treatment consistent throughout projects.
At NODS, something we’ve been using lately as a technique for creating visual hierarchy is to incorporate eyebrow text. Eyebrow text, also known as display text or secondary headline, is a smaller text element placed above or below the main headline. It serves as a supporting element to provide additional context or emphasize a specific aspect of the main headline. By incorporating a significantly smaller line of text, you naturally draw attention to the headline.
Create Paragraph/Text Styles — and Stick to Them
The Paragraph/Text Styles function in Adobe InDesign is an incredibly powerful tool, however, initially setting it up can be time-consuming, which deters some designers when dealing with tight-turnaround times and high workloads.
By defining styles with consistent spacing and formatting, you create a harmonious visual experience for your readers. Gone are the days of manual adjustments and worrying about inconsistencies. Simply update the style, and every paragraph assigned to it will automatically follow suit.
But the advantages of styles go beyond visual consistency. They empower you to handle changes with ease. Imagine a client requesting a tweak to the font size or spacing of specific text elements. With styles, making such adjustments becomes a breeze. Update the style once, and all instances throughout the document conform to the new specifications.
Moreover, styles facilitate collaboration and boost productivity. When working in a team, a unified system of styles ensures everyone is on the same page, eliminating discrepancies and simplifying the sharing of design files. Once you’ve established a library of styles, subsequent projects become faster and more efficient as you apply consistent formatting with just a few clicks.
Follow the Grid System
When it comes to typography, incorporating grid systems can make a significant difference in the visual impact and readability of your designs. By aligning text elements to a grid, you create a sense of order and ensure that the content flows seamlessly.
When designing with grids in InDesign, it’s essential to consider the natural eye flow patterns of readers. Research has shown that readers tend to follow an “F” or “Z” pattern when scanning and reading content. In the “Z” pattern, readers start at the top left corner, move horizontally to the right, then diagonally down to the bottom left corner before moving horizontally again. Understanding this eye flow can guide you in positioning important text elements strategically, capturing and retaining your readers’ attention.
Typography is more than (our personal) favorite in the world of graphic design; it possesses the remarkable ability to transform written words into something that feels harmonic. It is the perfect blend of artistic expression and scientific precision, making it our personal favorite tool to elevate a good piece into something truly extraordinary.