C.R.A.P.:The Four Principles of Sound Design |

C.R.A.P.:The Four Principles of Sound Design

As a graphic designer, I could tell you if your website design is C.R.A.P. Not crap as in crap crap, but I mean C.R.A.P as in the underlying principles of good design.

C.R.A.P stands for contrast, repeitition, alignment and proximity and these are the four principles of design that a blog design should adhere to.

The four basic principles

So now you’re going to learn the names of four of the main design principles that can be applied to any design piece at all. You are going to be in control of your pages and website as a whole.

The following is a brief overview of the principles. Although these are discussed separately, keep in mind they are really interconnected, rarely will you apply only one principle.

1. Contrast
The idea behind contrast is to avoid elements on the page that are merely similar. If the elements (type, color, size, line thickness, shape, space, etc.) are not the same, then make them very different. Contrast is often the most important visual attraction on a page.

Can you see the difference between your content, ads, headings, body copy and comments?

2. Repetition
Repeat visual elements of the design throughout the piece. You can repeat color, shape, texture, spatial relationships, line thicknesses, sizes, etc. This helps develop the organization and strengthens the unity.

Do you have a consistent theme or brand throughout your site? Do you reuse the same colour, shapes, blockquotes, formatting for all of your articles?

3. Alignment
Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every element should have some visual connection with another element on the page. This creates a clean, sophisticated, fresh took,

Does everything line up or have you got things centred, left aligned or out of place?

4. Proximity
Items relating to each other should be grouped close together. When several items are in close proximity to each other, they become one visual unit rather than several separate units. This helps organize information and reduces clutter.

Can you find everything you need on your page easily? What is it that your visitors are looking for?

Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity = CRAP

When you gather these four principles of design theory, the appropriate and memorable acronym is CRAP. Sorry about that.

Tags: blog design

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 9:16 am and is filed under Make Money Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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C.R.A.P.:The Four Principles of Sound Design

The four basic principles

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