4 Tips For A More Professional Design
I'll start by saying I swear I'm not a "design snob!"
That being said though, there are a few important things I tend to notice most frequently in other people's designs that will either give me better faith in their knowledge of design, ...or not.
A lack of attention to these 4 details in any given design will help me decide what caliber of designer I'm looking at. Are they self-taught with good instincts? Are they a trained or college educated designer? Are they a trained designer or a self-taught with bad design instincts? These can be important factors in deciding:
from a client's perspective: who to hire
from a designer's perspective: who to get advice from
Here's that list! It's super short! These are the top 4 things to check as you design or before you wrap up your design, because it will leave a better impression on other designer's and your client, and help create better consistency.
KERNING
You've probably seen terrible examples on Buzzfeed or floating around Facebook, right?? What about the famous "Flickering Lights" box design, where the I is WAY too close to the L, which (in that font) happens to look like a lowercase "u" and really presents an offensive problem at a glance...
Yeah. YOU see it now, don’t you?!
Assuming the designer/company didn’t plan on it saying what it looks like it says, that’s a terrible problem for the buyability of the product, assuming at least a few people will be SO offended that they wouldn’t purchase it, even if that’s exactly what they came to the store to buy.
The simple space between letters in a word can make or break how people read the text, so it is always in your best interest to check this before you finalize the design, whenever possible.
Kerning should at least make the top 10 things to check before a design is finalized.
I typically check after I setup a block of text while designing the in progress file, but I notice a lot of newbies don’t necessarily do this at all, even when they're done.
I also keep an eye on it as I go, because I know that I can get wrapped up in a mental to-do list and may be too distracted with all the other details to remember that I haven’t kerned the text yet.
SPACE & ALIGNMENT
In this case, I don’t mean leading, though you should be checking that too.
History & Terminology:
For those of you not familiar with the term, leading is the space between lines of text & actually refers to the lead blocks for each letter that used to be set in rows to create sentences during the print process; the amount of lead in each block, above & below the letter on it, created space between the lines.
Here I’m referring more to the spacing throughout your design. People tend to like symmetry, so keeping the spacing even will most likely make viewers (and other designers) happy!
Want an example of what I’m talking about? Look at this section's circular text layout example and examine the amount of empty space between the letters and the gray lines in this circular layout. The grey lines are not part of this example "design," (though this kind of layout is done frequently & could be). They are primarily there, in this example, to show you how much out of alignment the text is; the arch on the top doesn’t match the arch on the bottom. One is more squished and pushed to the right (the top), and the other is more centered (bottom).
It might be a small complaint, but I see it in newbie designs all the time. It’s a careless mistake, and one that's SUPER easy to fix, so please don't let this one slide!
SPELLCHECK
This one may be obvious, but I’m listing it anyway. If you’re a new designer, or new to the Adobe programs, you may not realize that Spellcheck is built into some of those programs.
I LIVE in Adobe Illustrator, and finding out that Ai has a Spellcheck feature was really exciting! (it's the little things, am I right?)
One time I designed something for a local a school’s booster club during football season. I misspelled the client's football team name, just accidentally swapping 2 letters around! Typo!! The funny thing was (only after the fact, of course) no one caught the error until the printed product had already been delivered TO THE CUSTOMER! No one caught it on the proof, or on the press. They were (thankfully) very gracious, as they had missed the error on all the proofs, and of course the issue was fixed so they were happy in the end! But it was so embarrassing for me!
where to find the Spellcheck function in Adobe Illustrator
SAVE YOURSELF the stress, hassle, and mess, and check your spelling before you finalize the design! BEFORE you outline the text (if you're converting open text to paths). I know it doesn’t work with words the computer doesn’t recognize (like the name "Katelyn," for example), or words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly in the sentence (like: their, they’re, and there).
Take a break, and come back to it with fresh eyes or let someone else read over it too.
Whatever you do, don’t set it up and never read over it again, because you don’t know what mistakes you may be missing!
Check out this section's example image to find Illustrator's Spellcheck function!
GRID ALIGNMENT
What is Grid Alignment? It’s basically the visually implied lines, or sight-lines, which guides you where to place the elements in your design. You don’t draw the lines in, though you can use guides inside the program to help with alignment consistency as you design.
The example on the right was one submission for a Grid Alignment assignment I did back in college. As you can see, the boxes that make up the text in "Our Planet" are lined up perfectly with each other, and the boxes are also lined up with the edges of the piece of furniture in the image.
These invisible grid lines help make the design look clean, purposeful, professional and finished. They can also help you decide where to place elements in your design!
an example of good grid alignment within a design: the logo in top right is visually aligned with the title text beneath it
I mentioned it before, but people tend to like order and symmetry. Satisfy their need for that and "clean up" your designs!
Why are these things important? Again, for me, the first signs of a design done in a rush or a design done by someone with bad design instincts, is a clear lack of attention to small details like these.
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