The interesting thing with graphic and web design is that people think it’s subjective and therefore doable. At times it is (subjective), but like any other discipline – there are also rules.

As competition increases, it is important to define the criteria of good graphic design in order to know how to recognize good graphic design or even improve our own DIY skills.
Many people believe that the only task of design is to provide styling to the visual appearance of products in either print or online. This is a misconception as a crucial aspect of graphic design is effective communication. This can be done by putting these fundamental principles into practice:

1. Web Layout

Layout is the organization of elements on a web page. Firstly you need to start with basic design issues like alignment or hierarchy.
Everything in a design should be aligned with one or more elements. This creates a sense of unity and order and helps to guide the reader through the page. By aligning the text we can create a specific mood relative to specific requirements.

A strong, consistent visual hierarchy in which important elements is emphasized and where the content is organized logically and predictably is one of the most important aspects of web design and plays a key role in page navigation.
Good hierarchy leads the visitor through the page step by step, so that means that it’s up to the designer to decide where the eyes should land first.

2. Use of Colour

There’s no doubt that an aesthetically pleasing colour scheme can improve the browsing experience.  Colour coordination and colour coding can help in the navigation, make the website look professional and strengthen your brand. There is nothing more repelling than being bombarded on the homepage with gaudy colours and images.

3. Use beautiful and carefully chosen images

One beautiful image is worth a Thousand words. Full stop(If you are using stock imagery, research your competitor’s sites to make sure they use different photographs.)

4. Fonts

Like with the images choose your fonts carefully. You should stay away from using more than three typefaces (fonts) and if you decide to use three, two of them should be plain and the third – in contrast to the other two.

Oh yeah, and whatever you do, please please please stay away from “Comic sans”.

5. Use of white space

The term “white space” doesn’t literally mean white, you can call it breathing space. Allow your text to breath by increasing the space between the lines and by not overflowing the visitor with too much words and visuals. Using lots of white space creates a cleaner and a more sophisticated feel of your brand.

Credit: lovelifedesign.wordpress

Photo Credit: ladderconsulting