Design plays a key role in communicating your brand’s message. Creating beautiful and functional assets to support your marketing efforts can increase engagement, create a consistent brand image and drive results. So it’s an important piece to get right. These four basic principles can help you make sure that your designs hit the mark every time.

Hierarchy

The placement and size of the content you include in any collateral will impact how effective your messaging is. You can make content easier to read and more digestible by changing up the sizing & visual order depending on the importance of the information. The more important it is the more visible it should be.

Balance

Balance is key when creating content that is easy to understand and effective. It is all about how content is arranged and what visual weight each piece carries. It is also about whitespace, the “empty” spaces around your content. Leaving visual breathing room is also important in making content easy to digest.

Color

Making sure to choose a limited color palette can help make your collateral feel more intentional and put together. Choose a dark, a medium, and a light color to give yourself more flexibility and be able to implement hierarchy and contrast using color.

Contrast

Light & Dark, Large & Small, contrast is a key component to effective design. This helps to make sure the elements you want to be seen first are easily identified at a quick glance.