Typography

Typography

Typography is what brings the text to life, the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes the copy readable, and friendly.  Typography includes font style, look, and structure.

Why is typography important?

  1. Typography gets the reader’s attention – The audience needs to understand what message you are trying to send and the best way in doing so is getting their attention through appealing typography
  2. It is user-friendly – Clean and easy to read font is the most important thing in any presentation. Using the appropriate size will be very appealing to the readers.
  3. Information hierarchy – The easiest way to portray information is through the use of different fonts. Larger font sizes for more important things (as well as brighter colors), and smaller font sizes for less important things. 

Different elements of typography are hierarchy, fonts, and typefaces, color, white space, consistency, alignment.

Next week I will expand on typography elements and their impact on designs.

Thank you for reading!

If you have any suggestions/questions please feel free to comment down below.


Logo Design Process

Logo Design Process

A logo is an emblem, symbol or graphic mark that will represent your brand. It is important to use the right elements and express your creativity when making logos.

  • Get to know clients’ needs, business, and goals.
  • Exploration – It is recommended to know how colors and typography effect logos. Color theory is especially helpful for logo design. Different colors evoke different emotions and behaviors. 
  • Brainstorming  – Brainstorm and generate ideas.
  • Paper sketches – My favorite part: sketches with paper and pencil. This is the phase in which you can express your creativity to its fullest and it is important to just transfer it to paper. 
  • Design – In this phase, it is important to select a logo and design it to fit the brand. 
  • Presentation – It is crucial to know your customers and their demands. These are the 3 applications that could drag customers to your brand: business card, promotional item, and stationery design. 
  • Delivery – You will need at least one logo ready for the delivery phase. I prefer making at least three logos and deciding which one fits the best. 

Thank you for reading!

If you have any comments or thoughts please comment down below.

3 Common UI design mistakes

3 Common UI design mistakes

Just like I said last week, today I will talk about UI Design Mistakes and how to avoid them. Down below you can see the three most common mistakes and I will go into detail on how to avoid them. 

1 – Organizing the Text

Text is the most important element in informational content. Using properly formatted text helps the users and makes their experience with the app better. 

It is crucial to organize our Designs in the most comprehensible way possible: 

  • Different styles and variety of colors, fonts and text weight
  • To separate crucial information from the less important one use different sizes of texts (titles, subtitles, etc.)
  • Proper spacing
  • Separate informational blocks with large gaps. 

2 – Alignment Mistakes

Alignments make the design look clean and sharp. Aligning things gives out a sense of professionalism. 

Two crucial ways to organize your interface are a 12 column grid and a baseline grid. Although many designers believe grids restrict creativity, they are very helpful for beginners and those who aren’t confident with their designing skills yet. If you decide to use grids make sure to align elements on the same side to connect them visually

Here’s my top tip for alignment in UI design:

  • Don’t align related items to different sides. Always try to aligning related elements to the same side because it connects them visually.

3- Mixed Forms

Forms are extremely important. They are used in many different windows such as logins, sign-outs, settings, etc. It is very important to make them clear and concise. 

Here are the most important things about forms:

  • Give feedback on how something can be improved/corrected
  • Avoid using too much color to indicate an error 
  • Break long guidelines into shorter, logical segments
    • Use bars to help indicate the progress

If you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to leave a comment down below.

Thank you for reading!


5 Common UI design mistakes

5 Common UI design mistakes

Even before I got into UI Designing I used to notice small details between apps that make designing better or worse. The fun in UI Design is just that, using apps you like and creating designs you like. To make your experience better, here are some things you should avoid:

1- Unresnsponsive Design

Customers need to enjoy the best features of your website on their small screens. Responsive design makes your website flexible and efficient across all of your users’ screen resolutions and devices. Before publishing the design check how it functions on different devices eg. computer, phone…

2- Pointless inconsistency in UI elements

To make your app sharp and concise be consistent with the font you use. It is not recommended to mix fonts. A consistent design can help you build a better relationship and trust with your customers. Another bonus for apps with consistent fonts is that they help your customers get around easier. 

Things to be consistent with

  •  use of colors for elements like text, links, header, footer, etc.
  •  font styles for titles, paragraphs, links, etc.
  • rounded or squared font, bold and “strong colors”

Note: all elements have to relate to the theme of your app.

3- Drop shadow 

  • Drop shadows are a nice touch, but make sure not to overdo them. 
  • Colors should be lighter and try to avoid black shadows.

4- Buttons 

The difference between the primary and secondary buttons should be visible and easily accessible. 

  • Different visuals for primary and secondary buttons. The primary button is a button with the strongest visual which is bound to get more attention.
  • Use strong colors, bold text, and large-sized fonts to give visual weight to primary buttons. 

For the secondary buttons use lighter colors and font size/boldness.

5- Iconography 

Icons are very important UI elements and therefore it is crucial to be careful when picking the right one.

  • SVG/vectors should be used for icons. It’s the easiest and most efficient way to make your icons look sharp on every device. 
  • Styles should be consistent: 
  • Use your icons to represent your app in the best way possible.

Next week I will continue talking and expanding on this topic. Until then I want to hear your opinion on Mistakes You Must Avoid While Designing. 


Thank you for reading.




Paper Sketches

Paper Sketches

Importance of Paper Sketches

Almost every project begins with a sketch or several sketches. As a person who likes the classic “pen and paper,” I believe that doing sketches is very important.

Here are my reasons why?

  1. There are absolutely no limitations

You can make your sketches big or small, erase and use as many sheets of paper until you get the right design.

Drawing and just moving the pen on paper makes your brain work and come up with new ideas and you might not even realize it. The main difference between sketching on paper and with software design tools is that picking the right shape, color, and other tools takes time and it draws the mind away from the main idea, which is coming up with the best sketch possible, of course. On paper, there are no restrictions.

2. Sketching on paper stimulates the brain

When you sketch on a paper your brain works better. More and better ideas come to your mind when drawing, which could lead to great sketches.

3. Sketches sometimes validate your idea

When you start working with software design tools many issues will already be solved by the sketches on paper and everything will run faster and smoother. 

Another thing that is very effective is sketching all ideas that come to your mind rather than just sketching on a project to project basis. 

Drawing and planning affect the part of our brain responsible for creativity and art which could potentially lead to greater ideas or designs.

Thank you for reading.

Feel free to leave comments below.


Figma vs. Sketch

Figma vs. Sketch

  • PRICE

SKETCH- $99 for one year. Your subscription will also come with all updates available before and throughout the purchase. When the subscription expires, you can carry on using Sketch forever, but no new updates will be available (if you don’t renew the subscription).

FIGMA’s pricing plan: Strarter – free up to 2 editors and 3 projects. Professional – $12 per editor/month. Organization – $45 per editor/month.

Figma and Sketch offer free trials that are very helpful in picking the designing tools that suit your style.

  • OWNER

FIGMA- co-founded by now 26-year old Thiel Fellow Dylan Field in 2013.

SKETCH- developed by the Dutch company Bohemian Coding. SKETCH was first released on 7 September 2010 for macOS. It was very popular and in 2012 it won the Apple Design Award. SKETCH is only available on Apple.

  • HOW TO START …

FIGMA is very similar to SKETCH when it comes to tools and how they are used.

There aren’t many significant differences between FIGMA/SKETCH and making a switch between the two should be fairly easy. One difference is the terminology used. There are different terms used in Tools sections but that shouldn’t be a problem. 

  • FUNCTIONALITY AND FEATURES

1) FIGMA, unlike SKETCH, has the teamwork component to it which is huge for UI/UX design. Teamwork is extremely important and the fact that multiple people can work on a project simultaneously makes a big difference in efficiency and time management.

2) FIGMA is browser-based making it easier for people/developers/ designers to view projects without downloading the app. 

3) There are also some design tools in FIGMA that may be considered better than the ones in SKETCH.  Grids and constraints are easy to use and allow the designs to fit on the desired platform and FIGMA offer more and better options than SKETCH.

4) FIGMA is also a very useful tool when it comes to vectors. They improve the accuracy of drawings and designs more efficiently than SKETCH although SKETCH offers this as well.

5) Although it may seem that SIGMA is miles better than SKETCH, the variety of third-party plugins that SKETCH offers makes up for it. The vast variety of third-party plugins make SKETCH a very good design tool.

So, is FIGMA better than SKETCH or does it still need time to grow? Here are my final thoughts…

FIGMA is cheaper than SKETCH and available for Mac and Windows as well, meaning it has a broader spectrum of people who are using it. 

The two are very similar when it comes to tool options and are both fairly easy to use.

Personally, SKETCH is a great design tool, but I believe FIGMA has the edge over it. Both of these are constantly improving and the differences are minor, but FIGMA has that special something that makes it more enjoyable to use. 

What do you prefer, FIGMA or SKETCH?

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts down below.

Thank you for reading.






UI Trends

UI Trends for 2020

Due to the rapid changes in UI Trends, it is very important for UI designers to stay up to date with those trends. Here is my list of five trends that should be on the lookout for 2020.

1. Illustrations

Illustrations change and develop every year. They are becoming a huge part of design elements, and also add the natural feel and interactiveness to them.

An illustration is a functional element, rather than a decoration. It should make the message and interactions easier and clearer.
Illustrations lay a solid foundation for originality and artistic harmony and they add a touch of style and creativity to an interface.

2. Asymmetrical Layouts

Although symmetrical designs were very popular in the past, one of the most used designs nowadays is asymmetrical layouts. They add unique looks and personalities to designs.

During the design process, it’s important to consider the function and feelings our designs portray. Asymmetry gives us control over where eyes focus and show movement.

3. Storytelling

A great way to improve designs and a trend that will almost surely dominate this year just like it did in the past years is storytelling. Storytelling adds a certain sense of organization and “fun” to designs. It helps tell a story to the user and therefore makes your design better. 

4. Responsive Colors

Although it’s been around for long, responsive colors are becoming very popular and used by many huge brands. Adopting colors that relate to the brand is what many companies are starting to look into nowadays.

5. Oversized Typography

Oversized typography can send messages and point out the main/most important themes fairly easily. It is very eye-catching, and in my opinion, oversized typography will keep doing well for a long time.

Do you agree with my list? What do you think will be the most popular trend this year?

If you have any questions/thoughts please feel free to leave a comment down below.

Thank you for reading!