Archive for the ‘Graphic Design’ Category

10 Graphic Design Rules To Never Break

April 13th, 2022

Graphic design plays an important role in the modern marketing environment and has created a competitive edge for various companies all over the world. We researched some relevant graphic design rules that can be used for creatives.

Graphic design is the art of planning and projecting your ideas into the visual or textual form of content. It helps to communicate messages or ideas in a visual way that attracts the attention of customers and conveys the message of your product, event, project, or campaign.

Graphic designing is used by different companies to promote their products and services and sell them through advertisements on websites or social media platforms. It conveys complicated information through a well-designed format using infographics and helps the brand to develop its own identity and stand out in the competitive market. 

Importance of graphic design

Today, every business needs a professional graphic designer to create marketing materials such as website designs, social media designs, travel brochures, logo designing, and many more to convey the message effectively to the target audience. 

Graphic design rules are a set of principles that are followed by the graphic designer to create an impressive design and leave a powerful impact on the audience. The importance of graphic design can be summed up as.

  • An impressive graphic design creates a powerful first impression in the minds of your prospective customers. 
  • A well-planned strategy in graphic design establishes a brand image and identity that remains consistent in the competitive marketing environment.
  • Graphic designs communicate the story of your brand to new and potential audiences in the form of images, charts, and reports and grab their attention towards your product offerings.
  • A brand that can be seen by people helps to build trust and credibility.
  • Effective visualization of your brand builds a long-term relationship with customers.
  • A good graphic design will gain more visibility and thus lead to an increase in sales. Attractive visuals, higher visibility, and effective communication of ideas generate more traffic and build credibility.

10 Graphic design rules to never break

Graphic design makes your brand visually appealing and gives value to your content. Here’s a list of rules that you can follow while developing your brand in the online market.

1. Design with consistency

  • Color Palette – It’s best to use not more than 5 colors in your design
  • Font – You should never use more than 3 fonts in your design. This will also give uniformity to your text and thus it will maintain the consistency of your brand.

2. Avoid more legibility and readability

The primary purpose of your design is to communicate with your audience and thus legibility and readability become your top priority.

E.g.

  • To use low contrast between your text and your background, so always keep your contrast high
  • Overuse of capital letters – By using more caps, readers feel like they are being YELLED AT. This is because all the letters in caps have the same height and block-like shape but in lower case, letterforms are uniquely shaped and each letter can be easily identified and read by users. 

 So avoid these mistakes and improve the readability and legibility of your design.

3. Have a purposeful hierarchy

Hierarchy is the arrangement of visual elements to inform the importance of your design. More elements are given more attention such as color, scale, types, etc. and the least important elements are given the least attention. Even by making the smallest adjustments in your design such as weight, color, or size, the information becomes much easier and more meaningful. 

4. Use short text lines

A body copy line should contain a minimum of 6 words in each line and about 30-40 characters (including spaces) in each line. You should always use only a few words and maintain the word limit in your design by using only those keywords that describe your design. 

5. Maintain your alignment

A messy design will always look unprofessional and will hurt your brand. A simple rule that can be applied here is to pick a line on your page and try to align your text and graphics with it. Your line could be vertical or horizontal and always make sure that your graphics or text don’t appear just randomly. One method to do this is to simply add a left alignment on your page as it will give it an order. 

6. Choose a logical color palette

Color is one of the most powerful tools for all designers, thus a properly chosen consistent palette would be an important step in doing graphic designing. When you compile your color palette, you should always check your past uses of colors and color theory. Your color theory can greatly impact your customers. For example – the Orange color stimulates appetite, so the orange color is commonly used in food designs. Always follow certain conventions and codes in choosing a color to convey attractive and punchy designs that convey your message.

7. Embrace your whitespace

Whitespace is a perfectly normal and most desirable part of graphic design. Whitespace is called a negative space of your page that contains nothing on it such as no words, no pictures, or no graphic design. Whitespace makes your page look clean and professional. Due to clear spacing on your page, it becomes easy for your audience to navigate through your webpage. 

8. Check for your grammar mistakes

Too many punctuations, grammar, or spelling mistakes can quickly disappoint your audience. It’s a sign that you just created a design but didn’t take time to completely go through it and screaming unprofessionally to your readers. You should always take a few minutes to check your work completely after making your design. Grammarly and Hemingway are great software tools that check your grammatical errors.

9. Use the right tools

It is one of the important rules of graphic design as a good graphic designer should know what tools can be used in different situations. Different tools come up with various formats and options which you can choose from and create designs for different purposes. Some of the tools for graphic design such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator are used widely by designers. 

10. Design for your audience

Every design is created for your specific audience who will be viewing and engaging with them. Creating a colorful and bright design will always be more eye-catching and attractive.

Conclusion

If you add poor graphics on your page, you will lose your customer as they may find you unworthy of what you are offering to them. But if you follow all the above rules of graphic design carefully, you will never lose your target audience and build engagement and trust in your competence. Rules are meant to be broken but if you carefully abide by all the above rules, you will build your brand digitally that will reach more people. 

Clap Creative offers a great graphic design service to its clients such as banner design, logo design, and brochure design that are created by professional graphic designers who are consistent and deliver optimal performance. We know how to grab the attention of the audience through high-quality designs and by following the rules of graphic design.

Top Graphic Design Trends that will rule in 2020

April 7th, 2020

We all know that content is of utmost importance whether it is in the form of articles, newsletters, mailers and so much more but do you know what adds life to these content variations? Of course, the style and design it is presented in. The colorful graphics, animations, and illustrations highlight the content to stand bold in logos, brochures, and websites’ banners. Graphic designing has a vital role to play in this modern competitive business environment especially in eCommerce web development.

Businesses need the services of efficient and creative graphic designers to create something unique and that makes them different from other businesses. We can say that graphic designs enable a great way to shape our virtual markets. A reason for businesses’ increasingly demanding more graphic design-based items is to enhance engagement with the audience. Since more and more young start-ups and innovative minds are entering markets, it is generating more competition among all industry leaders. To cope up with the competition like this, it is obvious for businesses to communicate with their targeted audience effectively. And this is where the glaring graphic design trends would help them to do the same. So, first read some benefits of how graphic designing is important for your business:

Boost Sales

Uniquely created graphic design can certainly help in enhancing sales. Audiences feel more connected and attracted to what pleases them aesthetically and visually. This means once they come to check your website and also like what you offer, it increases the chances of conversion.

Establish Brand name and Goodwill

Graphic designs help establish a company’s name in their niche market. When people see an attractive logo with eye-catching colors and texts, it starts appealing to them. Similarly, ads, websites, business cards are the designs we see daily. These designs help you to maintain your brand’s recognition.

Convey Brand’s Message

Graphical designs are a great way of conveying a specific brand message to targeted customers. A professional designer first would understand the depth of a brand’s message and put it in its design so that customers would understand. The designer picks up specific colors and typefaces to evoke an intended emotion for the brand and customers. A perfectly-created design has the potential to build a sense of connection to a brand.

Now without doing any delay let’s head to check out the graphic design trends of 2020 that will rule the business world and beyond!

3D Depth and Realism

The 3D trend has already won many hearts in 2019 and it certainly won’t fade away so quickly. Moreover, to be more creative, designers will often combine it with other realities, such as bold images and 2D objects. The 3D design will be widely used in many industries because it is great at conveying information and considered to be enticing like watching a well-designed lava lamp with mesmerizing bubble shapes moving elegantly across the screen, instantly catches your attention and draws you into the information piece.

Metallics

For product design and branding, shiny metallic designs are already established as a trend to use in graphic design. Being a little smart makes you a pro because this trend only falls on the metallic effect itself. Nowadays, designers mostly use gold and silver, as it conveys class and good taste. Metallic shades bring that lustrous and royal feel to the canvas. Using metallic materials in graphics has established an authentic trend for branding identity and product design. To make the effect even more impressive, branding specialists can combine this trend with relief engraving for brand identity materials such as business cards.

Typography

Decorated with various shapes, and more creative elements, artistic typography is certainly giving graphic designers a great hope to continue this trend in 2020. This trend has certainly proved as a stable one and we’ll keep seeing it even in 2020. When it comes to thickness, the rule is to have the thicker, the better. We can already see such designs in logos, posters, on web designs, as well as on package design. In maxi typography, the letters will be huge, and may even go beyond the composition’s edges.

Illustrations

Using illustrations in graphic design is not anything new. Designers often incorporate illustrations to convey concepts and ideas better. If we talk about graphic design trends 2020, simple or minimalistic illustrations will be a top choice. The lack of detailing allows designers to focus not on the art itself but the message it conveys. More detailed illustrations are emerging in various places where a story needs to be conveyed. Doodling is also an effective and interesting form of drawing that’s getting popular.

Line Art

A new evolving trend into fully illustrated and animated line art patterns and designs are also in the queue. In its essence, line art is a simplified illustration style. As such, it is great for conveying ideas. It looks clean, elegant, and considerable. Line art is one of the preferred decoration styles in graphic design trends of 2020.

Summing Up:

An effective graphic design completes the message of a brand to customers through visualization. From multiple color pallets to many design variations, search what suits your brand and product the best. So, don’t wait anymore and be up-to-date with the latest graphic design trends of 2020.

Logo Designing – Why It Is Valuable For Your Business

March 20th, 2019

Creating a logo might not your first priority if you are a small or mid-sized business. Sometimes, your business logo might not be created with strategic thought or planning. However, a logo is what really matters in branding your business. This influence your brand success as well as control the perception of your company. That’s why you need to take care of your brand image which emanates all of the things you want to represent your company.

A logo leaves the first impression by creating a visual connection between your customer and the company. So, your logo design must be impactful. See below the reasons why good logo design is important?

Make Your Brand Memorable

Logos act like symbols that your customers use to recognize your brand. A nice blend of simplicity and creativity instantly connect the people with your brand with the memory of what your company does. Your audience might forget your business name but not your brand image.

Grab Audience Attention

A well-designed logo is effective to quickly grab your viewers’ attention. It helps to convey the company’s core perspectives to its target audience within a short span of time. If you own a solid design that well predicts the motive of your business than it surely grabs good attention of the customers.

Make Different Brand Identity

Your logo design will be the foundation of your company’s brand that narrates the whole perspective on which the brand is built. A different identity keeps you unique out of your market competition. Colors, fonts, tones, all set the stage of your brand story and make a marketable and concrete identity.

Makes Brand Loyalty

Solid and meaningful logo design will help to create brand loyalty among your customers. As your brand grows, your competitors will set to tempt your customers away. If your logo is familiar to a big number of customers, they will think twice to go for another brand instead of yours. So, a logo makes brand loyalty.

How does a good logo design look like?

Have you seen the brand images of some of the world’s famous companies like Starbucks, Walmart, Sony, Disney, etc. that holds a strong customer base. All because of their logo designs that tell the inner story of their potential customers. Go with every single aspect and details of the logo. The sharp angles, colors, fonts, and that weird spacing, all are hiding a meaning that relates to your business. So must take care of different features while creating a logo for your company. Let’s check how it looks like?…

Colors: Pick-up the color that best suits your business out of blue, green, red black or yellow. Consider the fact that your logo color tends to indicate the qualities with your organization deals.

Shapes: Circular or angular – shapes must is to define the customer’s needs and durability. Go with the business type to choose your logo shape, if it’s tough and synonymous or indicating softness.

Simplicity: A simple and clear design is more effective to be recognizable in all forms of media. Use lucid lettering and imagery to become the best achievable brand among your customers.

Endurability: if you will go with the same branding you several years may you not last in the competition. Your logo must be stand in times which also help to make it memorable or endurable in your customers.

Symbolism: Sometimes your logo is more than the colors, letters, and shapes. Symbolism accompanying a message that shown through an image to convey more powerful meaning than words.

Conclusion

When you are in the early stage of your business, every move is sensitive. A wrong move could spell doom for your organization’s growth. If you have no idea and understanding of the factors relating to logo designing, look out for some best web designers. Search in your locality for example: “Web Designing Los Angeles” or “Best Logo Designer Near Me” to get a quote.

Logo design must worth your business’s marketing efforts. It is a vital part of your brand identity. So keep it in mind while creating a new logo that it should cater to all your company needs and goals. Try to go with the design that you wish and soothes your eyes. If it satisfies you, your customers definitely impacted with it.

How the Future of User Interface (UI) will Redefine your Life

April 30th, 2018

There has always been a connection between the user and the thing in use regardless of it being simple, a mechanical handle or something with complex, digital display, in short, for every technology there’s always been an interface. And these interfaces are created with the help of user-centered designs which is currently the best practice for shaping technology to support people based on the understanding of their goals, needs, and capabilities.

In other simple words, a User Interface (UI) should be something of a conduit between human and computer interaction in order to complete certain tasks effectively. Not only that, but a successful UI is also expected to be –

  • Efficient so as not to create any additional or unnecessary friction.
  • Intuitive so that it doesn’t require any training to operate.
  • And above all, be enjoyable to use i.e. user-friendly.

Abraham Lincoln once said that the best way to predict the future is to create it. So, what is this future the User Interface Designers are so keen on creating? Well, imagine a time when the user interfaces will be integrated into your everyday life instead of being trapped within a screen when you can hold actually hold conversations with your computer rather than poking fingers in your screen.

Can you imagine this future where user interfaces will be personalized to your needs and can appear anywhere you want? Well, these technologies are still in their developmental phases but at least we can have a look at what the future of User Interface holds for us.

Voice User Interface (VUI)

Currently, Voice Interaction is mostly used for setting appointments and browsing the internet but in the upcoming years, the adoption rate of speech recognition will be sky-high and it seems plausible as well considering the size of screens which are getting smaller day by day. Apart from this, other benefits of VUI includes,

  • Drastically reduce the size of devices.
  • Provide a better option for the handicapped.
  • Helps in creating portable devices.
  • Help those who are slow in typing.

There is no denying that ‘touch’ will continue to dominate our mobiles for a long time to come, however, interacting with our devices through voice commands will eventually overtake ‘touch’ in the long run.

Gesture Interface

Have you seen ‘Iron Man’ series or ‘Minority Report’ by Tom Cruise? Remember how both our protagonists manipulated images, videos, and datasheets just by performing various gestures through their hands? In that case, you are already well aware of what Gesture Interface is all about.

Gesture recognition is basically the practice of interpreting human gestures by computers through mathematical algorithms.  Put in simple words, it helps humans to communicate with the machines via gestures that are originated from any bodily movement, most preferably with the help of face and hands.

Gesture Interface comes in two types i.e. Offline (gestures are processed after User Interaction with the object) and Online (involved in direct manipulation such as scaling or rotating a tangible object) and can be used in a number of ways from sign language recognition to affective computing to alternative computer interfaces.

VR/AR User Interface

There is certainly a lot going on in the field of Augmented and Virtual Reality based technologies, it won’t be an overstatement to claim that the next decade is going to be an exciting one for the User Interface designers. And you, in turn, shouldn’t be surprised if in a few years you come across Google Map directions projected on the roads right in front of your eyes or walking into a restaurant and seeing the menu floating in the air.

Yes, it may sound like a plot from a science fiction movie but the way these AR/VR technologies are giving rise to so many unique interactions, using our natural environment to create user interfaces with the help of projections that can be displayed on almost anything, the day is not far when these interfaces will be free from being trapped in tiny screens to take the place beside ourselves in our three-dimensional world. seoPaslaugos.com SEO paslaugos Vilniuje ir visoje Lietuvoje, reklama internete, pardavimų skatinimas

Tangible User Interface (TUI)

TUI is the interaction between a person and the digital system with the help of physical objects that are directly linked to the said system. In other words, it enables the recognition of real-world objects by fusing the physical environment with the digital realm. The most common example is the mouse, yes, the one you’re currently scrolling this blog post with. Another example is Microsoft PixelSense that can identify objects on its own that is placed on its screen. Seeing this, its safe to assume that the future of TUI is bright and shining.

Conclusion:

The more these technologies become natural and intuitive for our next generation, the better we will be treated to a more immersive computing experience. The future User Interfaces are definitely in for some overwhelming and exciting changes and it will be something worth looking forward to when some of these ground-breaking technologies hit the market.

Web Design Disciplines for the Modernist Designer

December 17th, 2015

Web designers these days misunderstand the word design in all its clarity. Often, web design is perceived as something that merely allows certain functions to be performed on devices. The real matrimony between design, functionality and performance. Overly simplified web design usually gets a thumbs down from the audience. Real web designers are hard to come by and are actually a rare breed now. So, what is it that makes web design so vital. Here are some principles of web design that should redefine your organization’s digital design aesthetics.

  1. Graphic Design

In case of digital interfaces, apps and websites, this visual communication with the design has to be very coherent with the theme. A visually arresting design speaks volumes about a company’s commitment to its customers. However, it is imperative that good design is followed by good programming underneath that actually power the interactive elements. Graphic designers has to interact with other designers and programmers to achieve a working design.

  1. Programming

Software engineering or coding is the essence of the web design. It is as much an art as it is a technical prowess. How we interact with the web is determined by the programming that powers the technologies we use. Programmers are known to be technical and often cannot interpret the right responses from the people using the technology. Interfaces are powered by intelligent code that bridges the human machine gap. The discipline of UX, UI and programming must coincide to create the right sense of design to the users.

  1. UX

When users interact with the device or software, the understood experiences of the user with respect to the design is called User Experience (UX). The primary element of UX is to create a consistent and appealing design for the app or software that users come to praise. Creating custom user experiences that are perceived in a positive note by the users is a challenge for today’s designers considering the dynamic environment of the web. The UX must have the capability to understand and empathize with the user in case of back end programming failures or design shortcomings.

  1. Usability

The clarity and simplicity of design is defined as the usability. The more intuitive a design is, the more interactive it will be in terms of usage. This is the ultimate test of any design that defines the elegance and efficiency of a system. This component of the user experience determines the success since the number of user or time spent is a significant metric.

  1. Behavioral Economics

Behavioral Economics is the science of deciphering what the users want and expect from your design. In terms of web design, it may refer to the words, elements and positioning of buttons on the payout. This is a complex part since you have to extract the behavioral data from the user experience and put solid research into the information in the data. Different emotional responses have to be studied, perception of users defined and product responses noted. All these have to be studied and relevant changes made to the design interface.

  1. Branding

Brands speak for themselves even in a crowd. That’s how they should always be. Designer should incorporate a language that completely defines a brand on its own in a slew of other brands. In order to differentiate a brand, they can take inspiration from the brand’s history, values, goals and mission. Both offline and online branding should be in sync with each other. Digitization of a brand is a crucial component of the user experience. Unfortunately, most big brands fail to carry over the brand’s real world legacy onto the digital arena.

  1. Marketing

Web design often ignores the amount of users that have to be bought to call it a success. A mere handful of users during the testing phase do not define the complete picture. Offline marketing efforts have to be synchronized with online marketing. SEO, SEM and paid search must be used to deliver home results. Simply building a design and expecting people to like it is an adage that’s dead long ago. Now you have to constantly improve on your design.

Disciplines of web design have to incorporate new elements with changing technologies. From smartphone to desktop, interfaces have to be crafted with an artistic sense. Delivering a comprehensive user satisfaction should always be a goal to strive for in any web design.

Cricket All Stars 2015 – One of our best pieces of work!

October 14th, 2015

At Clap Creative, our designers and developers are always committed to delivering world-class website designs along with cutting-edge web applications. So far, we have created various amazing websites, exceeding our clients’ expectations.

Another feather in our cap is the cricket All Stars website and we have just fallen in love with this website. It’s not just because we are hardcore cricket fans, but there are amazing features integrated into the website, making it our best portfolio website of 2015.

And Its Best for a Reason

First of all, we are really proud to say that our client, Leverage Agency, were really impressed with our work. And for good reason! Cricket All Stars is a tremendous showcase of the new web dynamics, be it designing, ticketing, responsive site to name a few. It allows people to book their tickets online for the upcoming cricket series in the United States. This site is developed on Bootstrap 3, PHP and the shop (upcoming) is based on Magento and provides utmost convenience to the people who are die-hard cricket fans.

Cricket All Stars 2015 - Sachin Blasters V/s Warne Warriors - ClapCreative


Fast, Feature Rich and Intuitive – That’s Cricket All Stars for You!

We make sure our websites have fast loading time so that the users don’t switch to other websites. All the icons, content and graphics are clear and understandable to make the perfect first impression. Navigations are clear and accessible. All the necessary details are mentioned on the homepage, including the teams playing, player information, venues, timing, and everything one is looking for.

If you want to get more information about the players, you just need to click on the picture of your favorite player and there you get a sneak peek into the life of your idol. Also, there is a yellow color icon placed ‘Book Tickets Now‘ that allows the user to book the tickets with just a few clicks. The website is completely responsive so it looks good on each and every screen in the world. There is a signup form at the bottom, users can either sign up through their emails or through social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, etc. With these features, we just aim to provide a wonderful experience to the users.

Get Immersive Cricketing Experience

Twitter Wall of Cricket All Stars 2015 - Sachin Blasters V/s Warne Warriors - ClapCreative

We understand that people are always eager to know about what their favorite cricketers are up to. That’s why we have added a section where users can read the latest tweets of the players. This can be called a ‘cricket encyclopedia’, since we have made every best effort to add all the necessary features and icons that can help people stay up-to-date about the latest cricket events.

For newbies, we have added a section Cricket 101, where all the relevant and necessary information about cricket techniques are mentioned. Facebook, Twitter and Email icons are placed on the right side so that people can share the videos, tweets or any other information with their friends.

In short, it is a fully functional, accessible, interactive, search-engine friendly website with flexible grids and creative styling. Just visit the website and feel the difference.
So, you see, we have a great contender for our ‘Best Website in Our Portfolio 2015’.

What are the secrets of creating award-winning design?

August 17th, 2015

When it comes to conversions, the design of your website plays a far more crucial role than you think. You can utilize any strategy in the world to boost conversions, but if your website design looks like crap, all your efforts will go wasted.

Design is not just art. It is also marketing. Here are the secrets of creating an award-winning website design.

Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is the order in which the eye perceives what it sees and is very important for creating a great web design.

Some parts of your website – calls to actions, forms, etc – hold more importance than others and you want these parts to get more attention than less important ones.

Are all the 10 items in your website menu equally important? Where do you want your site visitors to click? Put the important links under spotlight.

Your business objective decides how the elements will rank on your website. Without a specific goal, it’s hard to know what to prioritize.

Hick’s Law

Hick’s law says that as the choices increase, so does the time it takes to make a decision.

The more choices you give to your website user, the more difficult it will be to choose one, or worse choose anything at all. So in order to deliver a more enjoyable user experience, we need to first remove choices.

To create an award-winning web design, the process of removing distracting options has to remain consistent throughout the entire design process.

In the era of countless choices, consumers need better filters. If you sell a wide variety of products, add better filters to allow easier decision making.

Fitt’s Law

Fitt’s law says that the time required to reach a target area (for instance, call to action) depends on the distance to the target and the size of the target.

Meaning, it is easy to reach an object which is bigger and closer to us.

But it doesn’t mean that a button should be designed so big that it takes half the screen. It will become much easier to click a tiny button when it is given a 20% size increase.

The size of a button should depend on its expected use. You can analyze your stats to find out the buttons people use the most, and make such buttons bigger (easier to click).

For instance, there’s a form on your website you want visitors to fill. At the bottom of the form, there are two buttons: “Submit” and “Reset.” Most users will hit ‘submit’. Hence, this button should be kept bigger than ‘reset’.

White Space & Neat design

White space is the portion of a web page left “blank”. It’s the space between graphics, visuals or margins.

This “empty” space is an important element of website design. It allows the elements in it to exist at all. White space defines the implementation of hierarchy. The hierarchy of color, images and information.

A web page without white space, stuffed with graphics or text, is at the risk of appearing cluttered, and is typically hard to read.

Adequate white space makes a website look ‘neat’. While simple and neat design is important for sending across a clear message, it doesn’t mean fewer content.

A neat website design makes the best use of the white space in it.

Conclusion

It is important to design a website for the user and have clear business objective in mind. Using these web design secrets you can achieve award-winning results.