Hierarchy in Graphic Design: The Complete Guide
Table Of Content
The same can sometimes be said of designs that use a color scheme that doesn’t adhere to color theory. But choosing the best palette involves so much more than randomly choosing a monochromatic, complementary or tetradic combination. The color combinations used in a design, and how they relate to one another, are known as its color scheme. A designer’s choice of color scheme can create unity, harmony, rhythm and balance within a creation, but it can also create contrast and emphasis.
Key takeaways
The more content there is on a webpage, the more of a need there is for a grid. Now that we have a basis for what good hierarchy looks like, let’s dive into examples of the main elements you can adjust and change within your design to create a strong hierarchy. You can use one or a combination of a few to enhance your designs. The large size and stark contrast of the lime green text on the vibrant purple background help us see the headline as the most important element first. We immediately read and understand this company solves eCommerce problems. Next, we notice the beautiful illustration of a team working on their commuters, reinforcing the idea that there is a team of professionals behind the eCommerce problem-solving company.
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After the hero section, the next place users typically look at is your navigation. This section typically includes a logo and links to the main pages of your website. The hero section is meant to be the biggest and most visually striking section above the fold.
Platforms for Graphic Design Portfolio
When breaking the grid, every choice still must be calculated and with purpose. Not only is it most common, but the modular grid is generally the most legible design. Still, sometimes the best way to create emphasis is to break the rules. For example, a group of one or three elements is more striking than a single pair.
When we’re designing websites, we can make use of a grid for achieving a sense of unity, since elements organised in a grid will follow an orderly arrangement. We do need, however, to introduce some variety in our work in order to strike a balance between a boring and a chaotic design. Unity has to do with creating a sense of harmony between all elements in a page. A page with elements that are visually or conceptually arranged together will likely create a sense of unity.
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Enhanced User Experience
Knowing these two patterns will help you place the most important objects accordingly. Now, let’s review nine key principles of visual hierarchy in design. This article opens a series of explanatory pieces on design basics.
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By strategically arranging elements, visual hierarchy improves content readability and accessibility, enhancing user interaction and engagement with the design. In this example, they are trying to call attention to the Important Announcement by locking it into a blue rectangular background. If the designer used an additional color, varied the type size, and opened up the spacing, then this design could be improved and we could better read the message.
Group Colors According to Color Wheel
Generally speaking, user interfaces are either text-heavy or visually engaging. While some UIs strike a good balance between both, we often find ourselves on pages that are more of one than the other. If your page is simple—and you want users to be drawn to a single call to action, for example on a landing page—design your content for the Z-pattern. This use of proximity and alignment of connected elements makes the content scannable and easy to understand. You’ll find examples of this principle of visual hierarchy in UIs everywhere, but let’s take a very quick look at an example from the NordVPN tool. A great way of focusing user attention, making things easy to follow, and creating simplicity is to use balance and symmetry.
Rule of space
In this first example, everything is green, there are too many styles of text, there are drop shadows on the phone number, and the text is difficult to read. The super large logo conflicts with the text version of the brand in the top left-hand corner so there is no sense of clear branding. This logical flow of information makes it easier for the viewer to understand and absorb the content, improving comprehension.
One of the primary benefits of a well-structured design hierarchy is improved readability. By organizing elements based on their importance, a design hierarchy guides the viewer's eye from the most critical parts of the design to the least. Apple's website is a great example of effective design hierarchy. The most important elements, such as the latest products, are placed prominently at the top of the page.
Scale is important because it determines the relative size of each element in your design. In design, visual hierarchy is the arrangement of elements in a way that establishes a pecking order. This is what determines what the viewer looks at first, second, third, and so on. Color is of particular importance in mobile app design, where a small screen size limits your ability to use other strategies like size differentiation and broad spacing. On Grainger Industrial Supply‘s app, the “proceed to checkout” button is colored red, making it stand out from any page where it appears.
Visual hierarchy places importance on presenting the most vital information at the top. By understanding and applying these principles, designers can create intuitive, aesthetically pleasing, and practical designs that cater to user needs and preferences. Properly implemented hierarchy ensures clarity and a seamless flow in design. Balance can be achieved symmetrically, where elements mirror each other on either side of a central axis, or asymmetrically, where elements provide equilibrium without mirroring. Achieving balance creates stability, harmony, and cohesion in a design. It ensures that viewers can engage with the content without feeling overwhelmed or distracted.
The type of UI pattern you choose (or create) will largely depend on the number and importance of actions the user can take. In its most basic form, typographic hierarchy is created with headings, followed by body text. If you’re familiar with HTML, you’ll know that there are six levels of headings that can be applied to content.
By using a similar pattern or object over and over, you increase its importance and draw more attention to it. Through repetition, you can emphasize certain specific elements of your design. As you put together your design, there are several key elements that you will want to consider. Keep in mind that many of these elements may depend on the overall structure of your piece and the elements you most want to draw attention to. But if you used yellow instead of red in your design, you would have designed a much lighter visual weight.
For this reason, you’ll often see another call-to-action button, giving it more visual weight to draw attention. As you’re developing your UX design skills, it’s important to have a blend of the fundamentals (such as visual hierarchy) along with an awareness of the current and future trends in the industry. All of these and more are included in CareerFoundry’s fully mentored UX Design Program, where you’ll be able to study at your own pace, with the support of a dedicated mentor and tutor. You can use this principle when you’re designing your visual hierarchy to direct attention to the most important part of your content. Sound is another tool impossible to use in print media, but yet to be developed within the principles of hierarchy.
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