Design principles in marketing

Why read this? : We look at the role of design principles in marketing. Learn how basic principles like contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity can increase your brand’s visual appeal. Plus, learn how advanced principles like the rule of thirds and the Golden Ratio improve the impact of designs. Read this to learn where and when design principles matter in marketing.

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Design principles for non-designers

But 125 principles is a lot to take in. For non-designers, a better place to start is Robin Williams The Non-Designer’s Design book. This easy to follow book focusses on just 4 key design principles. It’s designed for anyone to use. You can use these principles to improve the layout of most designs.

This guide gives our take on these 4 principles – contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. And that take focusses on how you use these design principles in marketing contexts.

We then also look at some of our favourite more advanced design principles. These include the rule of thirds and the Golden Ratio. These design principles also have uses in marketing.

We finish with a look at which types of marketing activities make best use of these design principles.

The objective of design principles in marketing

The objective of most designs in marketing is to organise relevant information in a clear and consistent way. It helps you show the target audience what’s important and how to prioritise the information they see. Your aim is to reduce the amount of “work” they have to do to understand the intent, and use the information.

When this works, your visual design helps drive more impactful communications and customer experiences. Customers understand and engage better with strong visual design.

And of course, all designs have space limits to how much information you can fit. So design principles in marketing help you deliver your message in the most efficient way given the space you’ve got.

The 4 basic design principles

As we said, the 4 most common and easy to understand design principles in marketing are contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity.

These form the easy to remember acronym C-R-A-P.

We’ll work though examples of each in turn.

But to start, let’s look at a simple example where we use all 4 principles to change the design of some words.

An undesigned text block

So, look at the example here where see we start on the left with a block of undesigned text.

It’s the 4 words of the design principles without no design principles applied to how they look. Viewed this way, they’re just 4 random forgettable words.

Add contrast and repetition

But when we apply contrast to the first letter of each word as we do in step 2, we create more visual impact. We increase the font size. We add colour and change the font style to bold.

The contrast helps us highlight the C-R-A-P of the first letters. Not clear in the step 1 version. We also remove the bold from the rest of the letters to make it even clearer.

Also, the repetition of the formatting across each word helps reinforce that your eye is supposed to scan down the bold letters to get the acronym.

However, you can see in the step 2 example, it still needs some work. When we increase the font size, it also increases the jagged edge alignment which centre aligned text suffers from. It also increases the spacing (leading) between each line. Now the words look quite distant from each other.

Add alignment and proximity

So, in the step 3 example, we align all the capital letters to the left. And we adjust the leading (line spacing) to create more proximity between the individual words. This makes it seem more like the words sit together as a single item.

If you look closer, you can also see in the middle version of the word, the large font capital letter and the small font of the rest of the copy, creates gaps between the letters. This makes them look separated. So, between the “P” and the “r” in Proximity for example, there’s too much white space.

In the final version of the layout, we manually adjust the kerning (spacing between the letters) so the small font “fits” better with its large first letter. For example, see hw that changes the word Proximity between the Step 2 and 3 examples above.

(see our marketing typography guide for more on leading and kerning).

Let’s now go through each of these principles in more detail.

Contrast

Contrast is one of the most common design principles used in marketing. It helps draw attention to the most important parts of any message or visual communication.

When you scan a piece of information, such as text on a written page or website, or an advertising visual, your brain doesn’t scan every element. It tries to pick out only the key elements. And it uses these to translates them into the “whole” so you understand enough of the meaning and move on.

Contrast example - text

In this example, we have 2 paragraphs, where the text is exactly the same.

But, in the first paragraph, no contrast is used. When that’s the case, as a reader you see all the text as the same. Your eyes don’t know where to look first.

But, in the second paragraph, with a few elements of contrast, such as colour or font style, it’s much easier to scan the text, and pick out the key elements to focus on.

It’s much easier to read, isn’t it?

When you look at the first paragraph, the key message isn’t clear. It’s a long uniform block of text.

But with the second paragraph, you quickly get the paragraph meaning. The colour and bold font draw your attention. Your eyes focus on what’s different.

You spot both first, and second are in italics. This helps you work out this text compares 2 things with each other.

And see what happens if you only read the bold text.

No contrast; all the text as the same; elements of contrast; colour; font style; easier for the consumer.

You quickly get the gist of the paragraph without needing to read the whole text. The contrast helps you as the reader understand faster.

Contrast example - visuals

Clearly, you can apply this when you have to write paragraphs of text such as website copy.

Use colour in headlines and bold for key points to make the page more visually appealing. Help the reader scan the page with contrast.

But contrast also works in visual elements beyond text. Look at the Contrast visuals example image we have here.

On the left, we’ve deliberately picked a very standard font (Helvetica Neue). It’s in the default font size of 24. And we made the colours grey on a light background.

It’s difficult to read, isn’t it? Nothing grabs your attention.

Apply contrast and see what happens

But look what happens when you apply contrast.You make all the boxes a more vibrant RED colour. You use a more unusual font (Black Ops One), with a bigger font size, and add drop shadow to each box.

It’s now a more visually pleasing design.

And then of course, you have the contrast of the black box in number 3. Why’s it black when the rest of the boxes are Red?

Well, we just wanted to show that when you deliberately contrast one thing against everything else, that’s where your eyes go first. And well, when your brand name starts with “three”, you tend to want to make that number stand out.

Contrast as a principle is especially important when you work with different typography and font styles. You can read more about how to pair font styles with contrast in our marketing typography guide.

Repetition

Repetition as a design principle is where you’re consistent in using specific design elements.

There’s 2 key benefits to this from a marketing point of view.

First, repetition helps reinforce your brand identity when you apply it to key assets like your logo, your typography choices and your colour palette.

It reinforces the association with those brand assets.

Through the repetition, the customer “learns” the visual cues which identify your brand.

Check out this example on our home and shop pages

You can see we repeat the size, colour and placement of our logo. We have a consistent page design layout, choice of colours and fonts. These are part of our brand identity.

And it’s not just the visuals. There are certain key phrases like “raise your game”, we repeat so they stand out, and are consistent. These are also part of our brand identity.

Useability

But repetition doesn’t just help your brand. It also helps the target audience. Particularly in areas where the need to interact with a design, like on websites.

So as you can see in this example from our online shop. See how we repeat the order of the information on the product page. It’s always image, style, product description.

This makes it easier for the shopper to scan each product and find the one they want.

But see also how key information is always put in the same place. Our price for each product always sits at the bottom of the description.

In the example, on the right hand side, our Find Out More and Contact Us box is always at the bottom of each page.

This means whichever page on the site you land on, you ‘learn’ where these key navigation tools are. This makes the design more useable because items are repeated and consistently in the same place.

And then finally, you can also see that all our action buttons on the site, are the same format of white font in a red box and in bold. So, you always know what is an action button and what is just text to read.

Alignment

Alignment is when you use the natural way that the eye scans information to make text or visuals appear in harmony with each other.

At a very simple level, most people are aware of how to left, centre, right or justify align from using Word Processing or Powerpoint / Keynote.

But in the vast majority of cases, you should use left alignment.

In particular, when you have large blocks of text, you should left align and never ever centre align.

Look at the example above, which is the same text centre aligned and left aligned.

When it’s centre aligned, your eye has to scan for the start of each line separately. Your eye line has to jump around to find the start of the line (shown by the red line). This slows down your reading. And over time, it’s more tiring to read centre aligned text because of the extra eye movement.

The left aligned example is much easier to read. Your eye knows where the start of each line is when it’s left aligned. It’s quicker and easier to scan. Your eye naturally returns to the straight eye line.

Right alignment

In the same way, right alignment shouldn’t be used for paragraphs of text. It makes the left alignment or the start of the line, even more jagged. As you can see from the only lines we have right justified on this entire site.

Justified alignment

You should generally also try to avoid justified alignment. While it does keep the left alignment, it often leads to unnatural spacing in words. This makes text more difficult to read. Your eyes have to adjust for the spaces between the words which aren’t consistent through the text. This is the only justified text paragraph we have on our website.

Grid design

Alignment doesn’t just apply to text, it also applies to visuals. Let’s now look at grid design, a useful tool when it comes to alignment of visual items.

Most graphic design tools will come with some sort of grid system. Grids help you visually align different elements of your designs.

If you look at this example, the set of boxes on the left haven’t been set using a grid, some of them are slightly off alignment. When you look at the overall image of all 9 boxes, the impression created is a messy one.

The boxes on the right hand side though have all been adjusted to fit on to a grid, so all the lines are aligned.

It’s a much more orderly, balanced and harmonious layout. The visual is better organised and structured, and the design feels cleaner and more efficient.

Grids help you align items in a much faster and more efficient way as you can ‘snap’ items to the grid lines and know they’re correctly aligned.

Grid terminology

Grids are used often by designers, and come with their own terminology. The most common terms are :-

Format – the full area of the design that will either be printed or viewed on a screen.
Margin – The space around the format.
Module – Grids are a combination of (horizontal) rows and (vertical) columns and modules are where a row and column come together.
Spacial zones – These are groups of modules either in horizontal or vertical formats. They are usually designed to hold specific design elements like an image, a video or a block of text.
Gutters – These are the spaces between rows and columns and should be kept equal in size in order to maintain good visual balance.

Proximity

The concept of proximity in visual design is used to help organise the information and items on the page so things which ‘belong’ together sit close to each other.

And by consequence, things which don’t belong together are separated.

When you have a lot of different information to convey, you want to make it as easy as possible for the reader to understand how it’s organised. Proximity helps you do this.

So, look at this example from our brand strategy page.

There are 4 different information groups on this page. The 3 content sections of marketing plan, brand activation and marketing innovation. And the credentials and call to action box for Three-Brains.

Note, the vertical gaps between the images and text on the top 3. You visually recognise the format of image – header – text – button. So you know if you want to learn more about marketing plan for example, you hit the button under the marketing plan text.

You can see the credentials and call to action isn’t a content section like the others, so there’s a clear horizontal white space gap left to show it’s separate.

Proximity and typography

You see the principle of proximity come up often when design is applied to typography.

For example, Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between 2 letters. You normally use it to make letters feel more like they “fit” better together.

Tracking is similar to leading. But you use it to apply to whole words or paragraphs of text.

Leading is the space between lines, and again, applies the principle of proximity.

It helps make things which belong together both visually and in terms of meaning, sit closer together on the page.

Design is closely linked with colour and typography

As we’ve gone through these basic C-R-A-P design principles, we’ve referred to how interconnected these principles are with typography and colour. If you haven’t checked out our separate guides on those topics, they’re helpful reads to give more context to the design principles.

More advanced principles of design

The C-R-A-P principles get you through many common design challenges. They help you avoid many common mistakes. You can use them to work out why some things look ‘right’ and other’s don’t.

As we said at the start, there are many more principles and theories in visual design you can also use. We’ve picked our 4 favourites to look at what more advanced design can look like. These are emphasis and balance; the rule of thirds; the golden ratio and Occam’s Razor.

(See also our design psychology article to learn how understanding how people influences designs).

Emphasis and balance

Consider the different elements in your creative design.

Which is the most important element you want the viewer or reader to remember? Is it a person, an icon, your company’s name or product?

This is the element you want to emphasise in your creative design and become the focal point of your design.

Making something bigger or adding more colour contrast against other design elements, draws attention to it.

You could even look at the other design elements and make them smaller or blurry. You could even remove them if you don’t think they help with the overall design.

Balance is another important consideration in your creativity and design.

When elements are balanced across an image, it creates a more natural sense of harmony.

How you keep different elements separate on the page with appropriate use of white space can also help with the relative balance of your composition.

The rule of thirds

The rule of thirds evolves from early uses of the grid system. It’s a way to divide up an image into a 3 x 3 grid and uses the natural “third” weights to create interesting visual layouts.

You place the primary element or focus of attention at one of the intersections to draw attention to it. This is generally agreed to present an interesting aesthetic.

If you look at the 2 images in our example, the focus point of the image on the left is the 2 runners.

Note how that part of the image aligns very closely to the intersection of the horizontal and vertical third lines.

You can also see how the sky / horizon line in this image aligns with the top third / middle third split.

This gives another nice balance to this image, rather than having the horizon line sit in the centre.

In the image on the right, the focal point is the hands of the woman writing. Again, it sits at an intersection of horizontal and vertical thirds, which gives an effect that’s quite different to if that part of the image had been in the centre. Note how her arm and leg essentially follow the bottom horizon third line.

Rule of thirds and composition

You can apply this rule to make more interesting composition and layouts.

For example in a landscape photography shot, have the horizon either one third from the bottom of the page or one third from the top. This is a natural line for the image to feel balanced.

For our images of the merchandise we sell though our online store for example, we always try to place the background horizon level at around a third of the way down.

Once you start to see it, you notice this rule of thirds crops up everywhere.

For example, check out TV news reports when the reporter is out in the field.

9 times out of 10, you see the cameraman naturally lines up one third from the left or right. So you see the background taking up two thirds of the image.

The Golden Ratio

The Golden Ratio has a long history in art design, architecture and many other fields.

It’s a ratio where when 2 objects are put together, the dimensions of the larger object are at a 1 : 0.618 scale.

Pinecones, seashells and the human body all famously exhibit the Golden Ratio.

Artists like Mondian and da Vinci used it in their paintings. You find it in famous historical landmarks like the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and Stonehenge.

As you can see from the example image above, if you start with a square of a 1:1 ratio, and then create a 0.618 : 0.618 ratio square next to it, you can then create a third square that is 0.618 : 0.618 compared to the second square. And so on, and so on, until you can’t make smaller squares.

But each of these squares if you were to use them in a design would be the exact 0.618 ratio from each other. So if you look at all those squares arranged and centred inside each other, they create a very harmonious effect.

Golden Ratio - Circles

You can take it a stage further and draw circles in each square as we have done. Then take all those circles out and you have the same effect, but with circles.

As long as you don’t then adjust any of the ratios, you can use these squares and circles to create shapes and designs that will always meet the golden ratio.

These naturally seem to be in perfect proportion to each other. You often see the Golden Ratio used in logo design when the aim is to create a visual design which looks harmonious and in balance.

Occam’s Razor

Our final design principle is the one which derives from Occam’s Razor.

The principle originally means the simplest explanation is most likely the right one. But when applied to design, it’s more taken as the view you should use the minimum and simplest amount of design to deliver the objective you need to.

In the words of famous designer, Dieter Rams, “less, is more”.

Designs and visuals are seen to be more efficient and aesthetically pleasing when they use less clutter. When they remove unnecessary elements to do the job intended. Designs based on this principle are much cleaner and simpler to understand.

This is particularly used in the area of minimalist design where the designer tries to convey the maximum impact with the minimum amount of design elements.

It’s particularly common in logo design. Think about logos from Apple or Nike for example. Those are instantly recognisable and rarely need to also include the actual name of the brand. They’re recognisable from the minimal logo / icon alone.

Conclusion - design principles in marketing

At a basic level, you can use all of these design principles in day to day communications. When you write an email, present something or do a social media post.

If you apply these design principles, you can make the visual more likely to be read and engaged with.

Beyond that, there are clear marketing applications.

When you work with marketing agencies, packaging designers, or photographers, apply these design principles when you evaluate their work. Ask them which design principles they’ve used to increase your own learning. And be a little worried if they don’t know or haven’t applied any of these principles.

With these principles in mind, when you evaluate advertising you’ve more tools to judge whether the advert will work or not. When your agency show you designs for website pages or digital media, check what they present fits with these principles.

And above all, keep looking at visual designs and apply the principles so you can articulate why they do or don’t work. It can help take your marketing and e-Commerce activities to another level.

Three-Brains and Graphic Design

We coach and consult business on how to best meet their graphic design needs. We can help you find a graphic designer, manage it in-house or help you build your own graphic design skills. Our goal is to help you develop the skills which will make your creative visual work have a bigger impact.

Get in touch to find out how we can support your graphic design needs to grow your business via our coaching and consulting services.