Think before & while you create – An overview of common mistakes made by Tumblr CCs and how to (theoretically) stop making them by thinking about them
So, you have created something. And now, looking at it, you can tell it’s not exactly it, but you fail to grasp why. As a graphic designer, I often see content creators here make a lot of mistakes that are easy to avoid once you know some theory behind design. So, I put together a list of things you should be thinking about while creating.
Disclaimer: I no longer do graphic design professionally, so I too sometimes misstep, but I believe this guide could be helpful for those willing to learn in order to get better.
This guide is aimed at grfx ccs, but gif makers can surely take away a thing or two as well! In case of any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me for a deeper dive into this.
Don’t forget to check out my beginner graphic designer guide.
1. BAD RESOLUTION
This sounds trivial, but a lot of people simply make their stuff tiny. Yes, the dashboard is only 540px wide. However, the recommended resolution for a basic Tumblr photo post is 1280 x 1920px and you really shouldn’t go any smaller if you are not creating a gif. Tumblr will ruin the quality for you, so why bother to do it yourself?
2. LACK OF CONTRAST
When I talk of contrast, I don’t mean only colours. I mean everything. Of course, you want to make sure your colours go together and complement each other nicely, but what about the rest of the design?
If you have a huge, attention-demanding element in your design, then you want to have some smaller ones to balance everything out. Otherwise, the design can come off as either overwhelming or plain. Honestly though, figuring contrast out is a thing of trial and error. Don't be afraid to experiment!
3. LACK OF ORDER
Let me ask you this: do you know what your main element is? What your supporting elements are? What about the distracting ones? If you can answer those questions, you are on a good way to understand that all these exist in a certain relationship, and you are the one who has to define it. This relationship should, of course, be a harmonic one for your design to work.
If you cannot answer the first three questions, allow me to explain the elements first:
Main element: the thing you want people to focus on the most, usually the bearer of the content
Supporting elements: the smaller details that are meant to support your main element
Distracting elements: everything that works against the main and supporting elements
Now, onto the relationship part.
The main element, as its name suggests, should always have a leading role, meaning nothing else in your design should overpower it. The supporting elements exist to balance the design out without dragging too much attention to themselves. They are often used to ensure the cohesiveness of a project. On Tumblr, that can be translated to making sure all your panels go together. The distracting elements are what you want to find and get rid of.
Remember, even in chaos there must be order. Aka even in designs that might look chaotic – if they are good – there is a certain order.
4. LACK OF BALANCE BETWEEN CONTEXT, CONTENT AND VISUAL
Now that you understand contrast and order, let’s define the context, the content and the visual.
Context: What are you creating your design for? Is it supposed to be a poster announcing a band’s tour? Is it some kind of birthday wish? The context of your design should be clearly implied in your design, no questions asked.
Content: This is what you are actually saying, not just implying. It could be simply having the title exclaim “Happy birthday”, but content is all you want the viewer to pick up on.
Visual: Well, your content has to look some way or another, but does it support your context? If your band’s tour is all about rock and roll and dark colours and all that, then shouldn’t your visual reflect that? If your context is an invitation to a kid’s birthday party, shouldn’t it reflect that? (Yes, it should. That’s what separates a good design from a bad one)
5. NOT ALIGNING ELEMENTS PROPERLY
I always say this and people always ignore this, but:
YOU DO NEED TO ALIGN ALL OF YOUR ELEMENTS. DON’T JUST THROW THEM IN THERE SOMEWHERE.
The question is, of course, how. Well, you have to ask that yourself, sadly, because there is no universal rule. Sucks, I know. Let’s say you have a title and a photo which are both on the left side of your design – then you probably want to make sure that their left edges are aligned together.
The basic advice for aligning is:
leave the same amount of space on the sides
leave a little more space (it doesn’t have to be a lot, only few pixels) on the bottom than on the top
figure out how much space you want between each element and stick to that amount, optionally double/triple it for large spaces or divide it by 2 for smaller spaces
6. NOT MATCHING TYPEFACES CORRECTLY
To quote myself: As you can see, serif is more fancy, decorative, while sans is plainer. Do not mix two fonts of the same type. Instead, if you choose to work with two different fonts in one design, you should combine one serif and one sans.
You can learn the difference between typeface and font here, but as most people don’t know the difference, those who do often play it safe and just say font)
A more in-depth explanation of font pairing by Clubgif here
7. NOT FOLLOWING THE BEGINNER RULE OF 2-3
What the hell is the rule of 2-3? Well, I call it that, but basically:
DO NOT EXCEED THE LIMIT OF TWO, MAX THREE.
Different fonts? No more than two, max three. Different sizes of font? No more than two, max three. Main elements? You know the answer.
