Although it is true that the best designs could take a lot of practice and inspiration. however, to even get there it is necessary to be well educated on the fundamentals of design.

A good design is often explained as a marriage between elements and principles of design. While principles are the rules, elements of a design are what is implemented by the principles. A lot of elements go behind a design and some basic principles need to be adhered to as well.

While this may sound tedious, it actually is rather a basic nut that, if cracked, will make your job so much easier.

Element of design

An element of a design is the part of a design that makes it stand out in the noise.

It is the part of the design that defines the visuals, the tools, and components that a person uses to create a composition. Consider is the base of graphic design.

Elements and Principles of Design In Combination

The elements and principles of design, if understood and infused well, could generate some extra-ordinary designs for your business purposes.

The difference between elements and principles of design is that principles are the “rules.” Elements, however, are freer and the principles are used for the application of the elements in a design.

The elements of design constitute the design, for example, the shapes, lines, and colors; while, the principles offer the framework to aesthetically and attractively apply the elements.

So let’s talk about the elements of a design to get you started off on your DIY eCommerce business designing needs!

10 Elements of Design: A Basic Understanding for Longing, Sure-Shot Successful and Engaging Designs

1. Lines

The very basic of any and every design is a line. Lines eventually combine to make up shapes and hence, they could be referred to as linear marks that make up pretty much everything in your design. Lines, in themselves, are an endless pit of possibilities.

They can be bold, thin, thick, dotted, dashed, vertical, diagonal, horizontal, or even textured. A line in itself can evoke feelings, for example, imagine a line slashed on a number like it is often done when symbolizing a price drop in grocery stores. A straight line may feel like order and neatness while a wavy line can be used by a designer to bring in the movement to a design.

Lines can also be used to draw the attention or path of the movement of the eye of a person who is looking at your design. By using Glorify for your eCommerce design needs, you are also saved from the hassle of making straight lines from scratch. Just search for “Lines” in the “elements” tabs and find yourself looking at various end-to-end scaleable lines to experiment with for implementation in the visual materials.

2. Color

Colors, the most versatile elements of all times, are the most fun and also the riskiest elements, to begin with. Each color induces an emotion in the viewer. Hence, if the cue is not taken appropriately, you may end up using the wrong colors for the promotion of your eCommerce business and find yourself losing more than winning. For example, the color yellow, the color of fun, positivity, and happiness, might not work very well for an e-commerce business that sells premium jewelry.

It is also important to be very neutral with the color choice while not being boring. Ceratin colors can mean something to one community while those same colors might mean something else in a different culture. For example, the color white is supposed to be worn for funerals in the Indian culture while it is worn for weddings in the Western culture.

3. Shapes

Shapes can be easily defined as the by-product of thoughtfully used lines. This can be geometrical, like the shape of a diamond or a cube. It can be abstract like icons and even realistic like the shape of an animal or a fish.  Shapes are mostly 2-D, comprising height and width.

It is important for you as a business to understand the application of shapes as they cannot really be used just randomly. For example, while curvy shapes are used for feminine images, angular images are preferred for a muscular image portrayal.  With Glorify, you can fulfill the design needs for your e-commerce business under minutes! We offer perfectly-sized templates for all social media platforms as well as thousands of shapes to experiment with – all in one place. Abstract, animals, flowers, arrows, lines, whatever you need, we have you covered!

4. Space

You might have heard your designer friends use terms like negative space and positive space in a design. Space is basically the free area between shapes, icons, and the text of your design. Positive space refers to the main focus of a picture, while negative space refers to the supporting background. Both the spaces are supposed to be used strategically and intelligently to produce a visual that can tell a story on itself.

You could use the understanding of space, especially when attempting to design advertisements for your brand. Advertisements need to be taken special care of as if they are too populated or too free, they might risk not drawing enough attention and that could be a bad sign.  It is often recommended to integrate shapes or text in the negative image and to never leave it blank as its very purpose is to support the foreground of the picture.

5. Symmetry (Balance)

Oh, the joy of symmetry! Symmetry is loved by human beings and why should it not be? Designs with symmetry come across extremely appealing and satisfying which is because humans love familiarity and when they look at a design with symmetry, the design automatically becomes easy to recognize. Consider incorporating symmetry a hack for quicker brand recognition and a shortcut to your logos making more sense than not.

However, when striving for symmetry, it is also important to remember that copying the right side of the design and pasting it on the left can never be the solution as we are not all Starbucks here! It is more viable when you play with the elements to suggest the idea of symmetry. For example, look at the logo of Adidas. It might not be your typical example of perfect symmetry but the element of color is played with beautifully to make it seem so.

6. Scale (Size)

The scale on a design is the size of elements on the design in relation to the other elements of the design. Scale helps bring proportion, hierarchy, and balance in a design. Scaling is the path to take if your aim is to draw attention to one subject of the design as compared to the others.

However, except for some cases like Mc Donald’s when they scale their burgers into a huge size to make you want to eat it just by looking at it, the best practice is to always scale the elements to the actual size.  Elements or the objects of your product should always be scaled in the visuals just as they would look in real life. If you make them look too big or too small as compared tot hey really look in reality, it could work against your brand’s image and reputation.

7. Typography

Arguably the most important element in visual and graphic designing is typography. The color, font, texture, and the styling of the text of your design speak a lot with the customers.
For example, when you see the typography of ‘Tiffany & Co,’ you automatically know you are looking at a premium brand that would be perhaps selling something premium. Likewise, when you see the typography of ‘Instagram,’ you know where’s something playful being offered. Words in your design are important but so is how the words are written down. Glorify offers hundreds of templates with hundreds of font designs to let you crack the typography that suits your brand the best.

8. Texture

The texture is the surface quality of the design. A texture could be crumpled, glossy, neat, rough, physical, or visual. Talking about the visual structure for your e-commerce business designing needs, though a neat texture is almost always preferred, you might want to experiment with others too depending on your product.

Usually, a neat texture is preferred by brands that are classic but adding some texture could work for new-age brands to have them pop out and be remembered by all Texturing particularly works well for the business web pages or application interface.

9. Direction  

The direction of a design subtly commands the viewers and tells them where to look at in the design. It makes them have their eyes scroll across the visual and even gives the illusion of movement if played well. In general, an audience would start to look at your image from left to write, in the sequence of reading most texts. The eyes then gravitate to the bottom and the corners. By intelligently playing with direction, you can draw attention of the viewer to the pattern of your choice in the design.

10. Harmony

Harmony is “The main goal of graphic design,” according to Alex White, author of “The Elements of Graphic Design.” Harmony is basically the desired end result of any design. It is when you want to see all the elements well settles and interacting positively with the viewer.  A great design could be where nothing is too much, nothing is too less – everything works just well with everything in the design and the ultimate product is in fact an ultimate design!

All said and done-

Graphic design has its principles and rules that designers generally refer to in order to set a foundation. However, in the end, it all boils down to your personal practice, research, and learning. Trust your designing instincts and do not feel restricted by any rule if it does not make sense to you.

Practice, fail, and re-practice. Eventually, Glorify will always be there to help your e-commerce business boom with its professionally designed tools and templates for your help!