Good design rules: how to use stock photos and videos wisely

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-13 00:26

The Depositphotos content department accepts about 300 thousand files a week from authors. Almost 1,100,000 images are selected and appear in the photo bank per month. But what makes a photo, drawing or video a design product? Compliance with 10 rules.

These guidelines can serve you well if you are in the web design, visual style for a brand, or if your position involves dealing with marketing and PR departments.

1. Don't design, create a message

Don't let yourself be distracted by the external aesthetics of an object or image. If you are not reading the story, or the user has doubts about what the designer wanted to say, this is not design. Colors, shapes, fonts should reinforce each other and create a single message.

2. Form is your language

The first rule brings us to the second: package your idea into the right form. Less experimentation with details, effects. As the English say, "A little goes a long way". The cleanliness of the form tells us that you know exactly what you want to tell us.

3. Test your design with minimalism

One of the main skills of a designer is to cut the excess. We advise you to look at every detail of your composition in terms of how it supports all other parts of the work. Doubt about something? Remove this element. Remember that we test all forms of visual expression: color, typography, graphics, and geometry.

4. Use the pyramid principle

It is known that the human eye moves from the largest, brightest and most complex forms to simpler and less saturated in color elements. Act as a guide for your viewer - set the desired sequence of movement along your visual story.

5. Color serves as glue

Returning to the message that design is all about message, think about what colors mean in different cultures, in different occasions, and in different combinations. Color is responsible for the consumer's perception of different parts of the composition and for what semantic nuances he gives them.

6. Halftones set the tone

The image should be well balanced in dark, medium and light tones. Do not be afraid of the contrast of elements of different saturation and color temperature. Pay more attention to the midtones that lead the attention from one color spot to the next.

7. Font is primarily a form

If you're a good designer, the typefaces in your design balance the composition and counterbalance the rest of the objects. Pay attention to the free space: can it be used? We clarify. It is not necessary to fill in the empty space unnecessarily, but it is worth considering whether the space around the font can be turned into a counterform.

8. Design should sound

Thinking over the composition and its elements, test the sketch for the purity of the sound of your idea. Limit yourself to a minimum of detail and ask yourself if the message is being read. If so, then you can try to play with accents and optical anchors.

9. Treat trends with respect, but don't depend on them

Use stock photos, illustrations or videos, but fill them with your own content. Leverage ready-made solutions as a foundation to build your messages from. Start from the style of your market segment, but remember to experiment with new ways of presenting your visual story.

10. Be an artist storyteller

It doesn't matter if you plan to make money with Depositphotos or design the first music CD for your friends. The main thing is to tell the audience a story. And you already know how to do this.