Today we have a very special guest with us. His name is Paul Chew. Paul is one of our lead designers here at Fast Forward. The reason I brought him on is because one thing I really struggled with when running my eCommerce business was design. Paul comes up with some really amazing stuff. If you’re creating your own banners or if you’re paying someone to do it I want you to know what to look for, how to make things look right and how to accomplish what you’re trying to do.
Typography: Typography is one of the more challenging aspects of design, even for a true designer. The possibilities are endless with typography. There are thousands of different fonts you can use so it can be overwhelming. One of the main things to consider is trying to represent the feel of either the brand or the message you’re trying to convey. If you have more of an elegant company and you’re trying to come across high end you want a sophisticated, lighter font. With typography, you want to match the different fonts you use and not use too many. There’s a lot of websites that will give you fonts that complement each other. The main thing is to keep it simple.
Font size: Whatever the main words that you want to highlight (such as adjectives in ads) you want to use bolder fonts and you want to minimize unnecessary words.
Too much font: There’s no rule of thumb about this but with design you want to speak to your audience without having to say anything. The whole point of design is to have minimal words, with minimal graphics. You want to get the message across right off the bat without having to do too much. Less is always more when you’re working with text. For example, on a Facebook ad, you don’t have to include a complete sentence. Instead of every word, you can just use the key points.
Number of fonts: Use two fonts at the most. Find a font that has multiple weights (weights are how thick the characters are). You can go to Google fonts and find free fonts that have up to ten different weights.
Color combinations: A lot of designers will pick a color and use different shades of that color. With colors, that’s a great way to keep it simple but show a lot of variety. Knowing what colors go together well is important.
Image elements: A lot of that depends on your product and service and the essence of the brand you’re using. A lot of times you might realize when you read that something doesn’t feel right. The juxtaposition is wrong. Juxtaposition is the way things fit on the page.
That’s the basics of design. Just remember colors and fonts and keeping it simple. If you do too much it’s bad. White space is your friend.