Design for Non-Designers: Part 1

The author suggests reducing clutter and then goes on to use four different type styles for a modal dialog. The header is italicised, in a different colour and different point size to the body text. The text in the button is uppercased and tracked out. Why? 90% of the time you only need one level of differentiation to create a sense of typographical heirarchy, otherwise you end up with exactly the opposite of what was intended in the article.

There is a huge disconnect between design thinking in the cultural and arts sector and design thinking in the technology sector. As a developer and designer working in the former, I find it both perplexing and frustrating to see the lack of consideration given to design as something that adds value rather than as something serving a purely functional purpose in the latter. I think the lack of modern design education in other, particularly more traditional formats for those focusing on digital design is partly to blame.

I would think it would be valuable for anyone with an interest in design to look at the work of many of the better graphic design studios practicing today who don't necessarily work in digital formats. There is a lot to be learnt about the subtleties of graphic design from a well typeset book for example. These blanket statements about things like white space are more often than not rehashed guidelines for producing at best mediocre design.

A long long time ago, I wrote up a really basic rules of thumb for novice designers[0] to help me be more aware of basic principles but I've always wanted someone to write a more comprehensive yet practical design guide. This is it!

I'm super excited about Tracy's work on this topic, everyone should follow it and get in on the Kickstarter[1] if you haven't already. :)

[0] https://shazow.net/everything/rules-of-thumb-for-novice-desi...

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1868398473/hello-web-de...

Nice to see this here! I'm the author, happy to answer any questions anyone has.