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Weekly Essentials for Creative Minds
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Ismail B.
October 2, 2022

A designer’s ingredients (graphic design elements)

Key points

  • Like a cook, a visual designer has 5 ingredients at their disposal to fulfill the job of layout creation
  • These ingredients are: shapes & lines, text, images, icons, videos
  • Shapes & lines separate content and draw attention
  • Text is the foundation of all media
  • Images are highly engaging and humanize a brand
  • Convey things & ideas in a space-efficient manner
  • Videos are the clearest way of conveying ideas

Digital designers have 5 information-carrying content formats at their disposal. These are the true graphic design elements. Any other principles (like color) are mere attributes used to facilitate the consumption of these content formats.

Visual design can be boiled down to two things: Elements and strategies. The elements are the pieces of content that you place on a blank canvas to create a layout. Strategies (like visual hierarchy or colour contrast) are then applied to manipulate the way viewers consume these components. A good graphic designer is aware of both the elements and strategies at their disposal. Today we're talking about elements of which there are 5: Text, shapes & lines, icons, Images, and videos. Do you know the strengths, weaknesses and nuances of each content format? Let's talk about it.

A cook's most common ingredients

This is not a cooking blog but analogies are great when it comes to Facilitating comprehension:

A cook uses ingredients to fulfill the job of food preparation.

A cook’s most common ingredients consist of the following:

  • Salt & pepper: Enhances taste
  • Eggs: Adds tenderness
  • All-purpose flour: Holds ingredients together
  • Olive oil: Allows food to cook quicker (and enhances taste)

A visual designer has 5 ingredients to fulfill their job

Shapes & lines

Visual strength: 3/5

Pros

  • Great for separating content (e.g. sections on a webpage)
  • Can be used to direct attention (e.g. buttons and arrows)
  • Can be combined and manipulated to create visualizations (like charts and graphs)

Weaknesses

None that I can think of.

Tips

Combine shapes and lines with images to add visual interest.

Text

Visual strength: 2.5/5

Pros

Weaknesses

  • Difficult to make visually engaging
  • Mostly information-carrying

Tips

Master typography to make text both an information-carrying and mood-carrying content format.

Images

Visual strength: 4.5/5

Pros

  • Highly engaging
  • Humanizes a brand
  • Can be used to direct user attention (e.g. using a face to direct a user's attention towards a form or button)
  • Carries tons of information

Weaknesses

Cheapens a brand if poorly executed

Tips

  • Users ignore decorative images or generic stock photos
  • Images should show an offer or inspire

Icons

Visual strength: 3.5/5

Pros

Convey real life things & ideas in a space-efficient manner

Weaknesses

  • Universal icons are rare
  • Needs a text label most of the time

Tips

  • Keep the design simple. Details defeat the purpose of an icon
  • Use the 3-second test: The icons needs to be recognizable within 3 seconds

Videos

Visual strength: 5/5

Pros

  • Highly engaging
  • Motion draws attention like no other
  • Clearest way of conveying ideas

Weaknesses

Difficult to execute (well)

Tips

  • Give users control over video content (e.g. pausing or muting)
  • Tell users what to expect (through the use of a thumbnail)
  • Keep it short