www.makeuseof.com 3 Graphic Design Mistakes to Avoid (And What You Should Be Doing Instead)

Poor graphic design: it's easy to spot, but it sometimes might be difficult to rectify on one's own.

A graphic design faux pas isn't the end of the world, but there's no reason you shouldn't be optimizing this slipstream of interest for your audience. There are so many easy and simple graphic design tips and tricks that make every visual layout a pleasure to behold.

Where can you begin? Here are three broad principles that can be applied to pretty much any type of graphic design project.

1. Inconsistent Kerning

Kerning may be the bane of new graphic designers everywhere—it refers to the amount of space between individual characters, and badly-kerned glyphs can really throw off your look.

The kerning of any layout should be totally consistent between titles and text blocks, especially those of the same font families. Juxtaposing different fonts may give you some leeway, but you want the impression overall to be uniform, one that'll be comfortable to look at.

Letters too close together might be difficult to read. Too far apart, and you might distract from what they're trying to convey to your audience. Use your gut, and look at plenty examples of good kerning online.

2. Poor Choice in Color

Ugly color combinations are an immediate turn-off to your viewer. Boring color schemes will fail to engage their senses. Among the most common graphic design problems you'll face, however, this one is one of the easiest to address.

There's a fine line to toe between colors that clash and colors that complement each other extrinsically. While you can certainly use color families that don't stray far from one another, it always pays to have something different to break up the monotony, lest you risk losing your audience in a wash of blues, grays, greens, or whatever you're using.

Color is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal as a graphic designer. You can use color to guide the eye and to make your graphic presentation much easier to follow and to retain.

3. A Lack of Negative Space

A crowded, overly complicated layout is difficult to hunker down into, no matter how interesting the information you have to share happens to be.

Giving the eye room to breathe may sometimes be a matter of design purely, but you also might be able to lighten things up by breaking up large, dense blocks of text, or by replacing something wordy with an analogous visual representation.

When you give the viewer a place to rest and take pause over what they've just learned, you stand to make an impact that stays with them long after they're through with your presentation or website. If your goal is to move the audience, create a space that feels inviting and free of unnecessary distraction.

The Worst Graphic Design Mistakes to Make (And How to Avoid Them!)

With any luck, these tips and tricks will help you improve poor graphic design wherever you find it in your own work.

These are only three of the most common graphic design mistakes to avoid, however. For the most outlandish graphic design failures and other helpful examples, there's a lot that you can pull up on Google. A little research goes a long way.

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