Lesson 1

For lesson 1 of EGD, Essentials of Graphic Design, we learnt about the principles of design.

 Some of which are: proximity, which refers to the closeness of the objects, images, or texts to each other, rhythm, which refers to repetition that ultimately creates a pattern, contrast, which refers to the vast differences in colours to make certain areas stand out, and white spaces.

We were warned not to be intimidated or afraid of white spaces, as simplicity can be bliss. Most amateurs are afraid of white spaces. This can lead to over-cluttering the space, which clearly isn't pleasing to the eyes. An example that was shown was of a lawn mower ad, where white space was being used as an advantage.

The most interesting part for me was when we learnt how colours play a huge part in logos, characters, etc. Logos and characters can be identified by their colours, or combination of. We were shown a picture of barely evolved popular logos, which were made of circles of different sizes and colours. It was quite amazing how we could identify these logos easily due to the colours and overall shape. Next, we were shown several pictures of Lego pieces stacked on top of each other, which created popular TV show characters. They were also easily identified by their colours.

What I reckon the moral of this was that, design is about simple elements being taken out of the box.