Design perspective: How to not let your design become tacky

Even if we are shouting the innovation economy every day, the design saves the nation, we in the life also everywhere sees each kind of design vulgar, makes the coarse poster, the storefront, the outdoor advertisement, the big chest beauty and the muscular macho each other, red bottom yellow word and the brain remnants propaganda cartoon to be further. For example, a government transport Department to introduce the representative of the traffic police cartoon image, enough to thunder the vast number of drivers outside the Coke, if met in the streets, I am afraid will be unable to extricate themselves into the crash.

With various design forums, design lectures, design training inside the teachers and students installed very elegant, or not elegant, those rough, tacky design works (some even do not call the works) or flooding in all corners of the urban countryside-the reason, I guess not because the people like, and not just businessmen are wishful thinking, It is most likely because those who are attached to the XXX plane crash, 21-day change Design Master, such as training courses and toilet books. Some ready-made experience or hard work skills, I feel that the end of the direct said, selling the theory we are not good.

So what I'm going to talk about today is "How not to make your design tacky," and how to be good is a big problem, it's a lot of things, but it's a sign of how not to be wrong. Since as a small white you, do not have so much accumulation and experience, then make sure that their work is not a joke, but also a raise it.

To avoid the original authors of certain biased designs (to illustrate the problem, I have to quote your works, of course, in my celestial land, these works are not the worst of the scene of the idea of the mob, in this blog to pull the banner of the protection of the situation occurs, I will do a comparison of each link, the left is a common practice, the right is in the " This "relatively good" approach (rather than a good design) proves that the article is a case in point, not a 3.15 exposure.

1. Too many fonts

Whether you are doing a plane, doing a book, or doing a website, visual Gestalt theory tells us that the same property of a lot of things, people's heart is nervous, for example: You see 20 ants at your feet, you will squat down to see what they are busy, if 200,000 ants are rushing towards you, you besides screaming can have a better way?

The idea of using too many fonts in a limited space is the psychological response. In the use of fonts, the first key is to minimize the type of font, you can use your own font control within 3, if the font must exceed three kinds of how to do? Highlight the most important information by diluting the font of unimportant parts of information by size, spacing, perspective, angle, contrast, and color.

Another technique is the difference between the horizontal and vertical lines of text, according to the different reading habits, in our country horizontal text recognition rate is relatively high, but in the layout of a bit stiff, and vertical effect is more likely to graphic graphics, vertical row of the impact of the number and the letter of the direction of the problem-therefore, not the last resort, Do not use Chinese + English in the text of the mixed way, that is really disgusting.

But is it really bad to have a lot of fonts? Not necessarily, the font itself can be graphical, they also have the discipline of beauty, a large number of character modelling constitutes an "element", at this level, they are out of the image of the font itself. You can search for "typography" in Google, I do not map.

2. Color is too uniform

About the color of the clutter, a lot of articles have been heart-to-heart said, but I have to tell you, color this thing, you light to look at the color wheel, color spectrum, buy point Pantone put on the table is no use, the color is regular, and everyone's color feel no rules, to do color design, in addition to a lot of practice and observation, The most important thing is to trust your intuition, if you do not know how to grasp the color-you first remember the "black and white Gray + main color" way, that is, a main color, through black and white gray to coordinate the logic of the auxiliary color.

Rather than the color clutter, too uniform color is actually causing users more trouble, "use unified color easier to remember" this argument is not very rigorous, the premise is that the color design of this product should conform to the visual feelings of people, first of all, the feeling of harmony, then the possibility of memory, Otherwise the human brain will instinctively repel. The picture I sent above is common in the activities and propaganda of the major "official" bodies, not only the lack of focus, but also the glare-which has repeatedly proved that most of our leaders are blind, which is more frightening than illiteracy.

The difficulty of color unification lies in the distinction of color contrast, including lightness and saturation control, no matter how you want to unify the color, the key information must not be drowned by the color itself.

3. Unordered layout

In recent years has been the rise of a mixed art and free illustration of the atmosphere, first of all, we do not say that this is the international design circle to play the rest of the things, we single screen performance, this style is definitely not download a bunch of AI or psd source files, a little ctrl+u can be pieced together, A mess of overwhelmed and colorful visual platters, can you perceive a difference?

This problem, or in the layout of the problem, there are many designers have no layout design of the specialized training, lack of control of the elements, in the layout of the rhythm and arrangement of no control, which appeared on the map of the "stew" illustrations. As an exercise, it's understandable that, as a business design, this design may mislead consumers into blurring brand awareness.

So is there a slightly safer way of layout design? Yes, "a center, two basic points" to ensure that the overall layout has a focus, this focus is your strict selection of the painful decision-it must be the most important information. Of the two basic points, one is the auxiliary information, the second is the interesting part, the auxiliary information tells the user what clue you provide to the product question, the interesting part is the layout design must break through the traditional arrangement to give a bright spot, he may be the line, may be the illustration, may be one kind of printing craft, It can also be a special form.

4. PS Free effect

Well, on this issue, I can't even find a relatively good case, I've talked to friends more than once, I hate the default filter and the raw effect of PS, especially those "xxx kind of Photoshop special effects production" books. These things are no help to the quality of design, it is the best stumbling block.

Filters can be used, of course, but without the misuse of design purposes and experience, it will only make you feel that you are demonstrating a quick training effect on the 2000-dollar graphic design and trying to tell the user that your training fee is not white. While there are a lot of free crack filters on the web for you to use, I would say that most of them are for students and practice, with less than 10% of the effects you can use in business design. and similar to the image above the effect of tearing edge, what is the significance of it?

PS is a good tool, but it is only a tool, design should consider the concept and design purposes, if you rely on the computer effects of software design, your design will always be tacky. My advice is to not be in a hurry to open any design software until your sketches and ideas have not been completed.

5. Low-quality photos

For photography, this is a serious matter, do not use the street-bought gallery girls in your design, and this event has even sparked an international friend's search for "China's most famous female model"--the cause of which is that he can always see her in the outdoor advertisements of different companies in the big cities and towns.

More cup with IS, a bad quality of the photos = a poor quality of products, at least I have contacted the user is so think, more people have a very powerful folk customs directly pointed out: "I think it, if the company can not take photos of the best not to shoot." A customized photography program, an excellent photographer, a good idea, a beautiful picture, can bring you more users, at least the user's attention, this is a case repeatedly proved, as a designer you also need to advise customers to do so, to know if the violation of portrait, The price paid is much greater than that of a photographer.

Yes, most of the "bad photos" artifact, are downloaded from the Internet low pixel version (and even with a website watermark), and beauty is often the direct victim of this phenomenon.

6. Imitation of the material

The domestic web design circle to the Korean model of worship, it is this tacky synthesis. The root of this problem is the blind follow of "pop", when no one is willing to think, often some kind of wrong thinking is easy to form a culture, such as "The masses of the eyes are discerning" this low IQ, in the design circle there is no basis, the premise is that the masses discerning, some of the first sharp up, And the first discerning person has enough discourse power and leadership ability.

All the material is just material, provide a convenient way of composition, such as design prototype, as well as the initial demonstration of the use, regardless of the performance of graphics, as well as creative aspects of the material can not be applied to the product. Therefore, any direct imitation of the material, and visual plagiarism, the last seems to always feel "seems to have not done it", and some designers seem to be content with this status quo, happy to zcool such a site Taobao-so I said that the emergence of zcool to solve a lot of art of employment problems, it is not exaggerated.

If you still feel that your work is always some "dissatisfied" place, you should first reflect on whether you have too much of the material obsession, so that the impact of your independent thinking, in the face of too much visual bombing, you may want to consider a little more text, less to see some pictures.

Well, I'm just saying some cheesy words, some rough arguments, and the experience of more profound visual performance, I think there's a lot to talk about. Since we have been surrounded by tacky, can we actively improve the poor visual environment? This is nothing more than 1000 words can be clearly said, if the designer of a little bit of quality requirements, do not let your work become vulgar, than to make your work better, is our top priority.