A primary grasp of design ideas is helpful for any marketer — possibly you’re a part of a scrappy DIY staff and have to do your individual design, or possibly you simply need a greater understanding of what your in-house design staff is as much as.
I’ve labored with many graphic design groups over time, and in my expertise, understanding a few of these predefined tenets of design can enhance cross-team communication, since you’ll have a greater vocabulary to explain the issue(s) that have to be solved.
![Download Now: 150+ Content Creation Templates [Free Kit]](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/53/5478fa12-4cc3-4140-ba96-bc103eeb873e.png)
And should you’re utilizing a software like Canva to sort out advertising and marketing design by yourself, our professional designers have some ideas for you as properly.
Desk of Contents
What’s advertising and marketing design?
Advertising design is extra than simply — because the identify suggests — designing for advertising and marketing. It’s a artistic technique that makes use of visible and even interactive parts to drive a model’s advertising and marketing objectives and messages. And it’s not even restricted to 2 dimensions: Advertising design may also take the type of interactive experiences in model activations.
Former HubSpot designer Amanda Chong places it succinctly: “Design is about creating possible, useful options to a wide range of issues, and all the time occurs with a selected purpose in thoughts.”
Significance of Advertising Design
Good advertising and marketing design emphasizes the hierarchy of your message, enhances its readability, and even makes it extra welcoming to your audience.
I requested Nichol DeRosier, a senior visible designer at HubSpot, why advertising and marketing design was so essential. “On the finish of the day,” she says, “we’re visible communicators. And if [designers are] not speaking the message accurately to the consumer, we’re not doing our job.”
![“at the end of the day, we are visual communicators. and if [designers are] not communicating the message correctly to the user, we’re not doing our job.”—nichol derosier, senior visual designer, hubspot](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/hubfs/marketing-design-2-20250403-3189636.webp)
Even the best copywriters can’t overcome poor design — CTAs will get misplaced, clients will get confused, and your messaging received’t convert your viewers.
Ideas of Advertising Design
There are a lot of further phrases associated to those ideas: motion rhythm, symmetry, and white house. These design ideas fall beneath and/or are based mostly on the above tenets and due to this fact aren’t thought-about standalone ideas.
Let’s break down every precept of design and their related design ideas.
Stability
Stability is how objects in a composition are organized and what visible weight they carry. Stability may be achieved utilizing the next strategies.
- Symmetry (formal stability): When objects are organized evenly round a vertical or horizontal axis. When objects are organized round a central level (or a radius), it’s often called radial symmetry. The 4 logos under are all symmetrical:
- Asymmetry (casual stability): When objects are organized inconsistently round a vertical or horizontal axis. Usually, there’s one dominant facet or aspect in an asymmetrical composition. These 4 logos are asymmetrical:
Distinction
Distinction refers to how parts in a composition differ. This precept is commonly paired with the precept of similarity, which is how composition parts resemble one another. Distinction may be established utilizing design parts like colour, house, kind, dimension, and texture.
White house, or destructive house, can also be an essential aspect of distinction. These empty areas in a composition may help arrange the weather in a composition and emphasize an important ones. It additionally creates an aura of luxurious and minimalism, just like the Academy of Movement Image Arts & Sciences emblem (under left). NBC’s emblem (under proper) cleverly makes use of white house to create the silhouette of a peacock.
Dominance or Hierarchy
Dominance, or hierarchy, refers back to the various levels of emphasis inside a composition. Parts like dimension, font alternative, and contrasting colour combos can change the main target of a design. DeRosier explains hierarchy as “creating a transparent visible pathway on find out how to digest info.”
There are three most important levels of dominance in design:
- Dominant: The thing of major emphasis. It’s given essentially the most visible weight and is usually discovered within the foreground of a composition.
- Sub-dominant: The thing(s) of secondary emphasis, usually discovered within the center floor.
- Subordinate: The thing(s) of tertiary emphasis, usually discovered within the background.
The visible middle is the place we naturally give attention to a bit of visible design. It’s barely above and to the proper of the particular middle of a composition and is sometimes called “museum top.”
Motion
Motion is the visible path a viewer follows when viewing a composition. With correct motion, a composition can create a story and supply a high-quality consumer expertise (UX). Motion may be established utilizing design parts like traces, shapes, and colours.
Proportion or Scale
Proportion refers back to the visible weight and dimension of a composition’s parts and the way they relate to one another. This precept is also called scale.
The relative dimension of 1 object to a different may help create a focus or motion alongside the composition. Additionally, various sizes of objects may help talk the significance and dominance of 1 aspect over one other.
Within the graphic under, the orange circles are the identical dimension — the one on the proper simply seems to be larger as a result of it’s surrounded by smaller contrasting circles.
Unity
Visible unity is the usually most important purpose of design, though that opinion differs amongst designers and sure design communities. Unity, or concord, refers back to the relationship between the person elements and the entire of a composition. When a composition’s parts are in settlement, there’s unity; when the weather aren’t in settlement, a composition as an alternative has selection.
The next design ideas are related to unity.
- Alignment: When objects are lined up on a sure axis or cadence
- Continuation: When a line or sample extends
- Perspective: When there’s a distance between parts
- Proximity: When objects are positioned shut collectively
- Repetition: When objects are copied a number of occasions
- Rhythm: When objects recur with a slight change or interruption
Whereas the ideas of design are thought-about common, they give the impression of being a bit completely different as utilized to completely different design communities and practices. Under, we’ve reviewed the highest seven forms of design in advertising and marketing.
Sorts of Advertising Design
- Graphic Design
- Branding and Emblem Design
- UI and UX Design
- Internet (Entrance-Finish) Design
- Multimedia Design
- Environmental Design
Let’s break down every sort of design and the way they apply to the advertising and marketing business.
Graphic Design
Graphic design might be what you image once you consider design within the advertising and marketing discipline: social media pictures, e mail advertising and marketing headers, infographics, postcards, and rather more. This Canva template exhibits how an infographic could be designed:
Since visible content material is a extremely beneficial and interesting advertising and marketing medium, firms depend on graphic designers to create property that signify their model and talk with their viewers.
Branding and Emblem Design
Branding and emblem design is a subset of graphic design. It consists of the visible parts of a model and model id, reminiscent of logos, typography, colour palettes, fashion guides, and extra.
Branding and emblem designers create property that signify a model, illustrate the model’s mission, imaginative and prescient, and values, and promote model consciousness for the corporate.
If you happen to’re not a designer, don’t fear — instruments like HubSpot’s personal model equipment generator may help with logos, colour palettes, and extra.
UI and UX Design
Person interface (UI) and consumer expertise (UX) design give attention to bettering how web site, app, and software program customers work together with and expertise a product.
Whereas some roles mix UI and UX design, the 2 practices are fairly completely different. UI designers are accountable for making a visually pleasing, on-brand expertise for customers by means of net web page design, app design, and theme design on websites like WordPress and Shopify.
UX designers, then again, are accountable for ensuring a product solves an issue by means of usability testing, consumer flows, and digital prototypes.
Internet (Entrance-Finish) Design
Internet design applies to the front-end (public-facing) facet of a web site. Entrance-end designers are like UI designers geared up with coding information — they design static UI mockups for a web site after which translate them into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. (However don’t confuse this apply with front-end net improvement.)
Internet designers create property that produce a horny and totally useful web site, reminiscent of splash pages, navigational parts, sitemaps and pages, scrolling and clicking options, and content material administration programs.
HubSpot’s free software program features a drag-and-drop web site builder, should you’re seeking to create or refresh your web site however don’t have an internet design background.
Multimedia Design
Multimedia (or movement graphic) design makes use of a wide range of media, significantly video and animation. Due to its time and price necessities, this sort of design has traditionally been reserved for these in TV and movie. However with developments in expertise and a latest rise in video content material advertising and marketing, movement graphic design has turn out to be extra accessible than ever.
Multimedia designers are accountable for creating moveable property that talk and delight with an viewers, like animated logos, GIFs, animated movies, tutorial movies, and animated or interactive web sites.
Environmental Design
Environmental design, also called environmental graphic design or experiential design, is meant to enhance an individual’s expertise by furthering the aim of an atmosphere, whether or not that’s to be memorable, thrilling, informative, motivational, or simply navigable. The apply merges inside design, structure, graphic design, panorama design software program, and industrial design.
Environmental designers create property that join folks to their atmosphere, reminiscent of murals, workplace design and branding, retailer interiors, occasion house design, and signage and interactive promoting.
Advertising Design Ideas
We’ve coated the fundamentals of the most typical forms of design in advertising and marketing: graphic, branding, UI and UX, net, multimedia, and environmental. Now, we’ll dive into some ideas for the highest 4.
Be aware: Hold an eye fixed out for the ideas of design we mentioned above … they’ll make an look on this part, too.
Graphic Design Ideas
1. Begin with the aim.
What sort of content material are you designing — a social media advert, e mail template header, or e book? These are three completely different items of content material with three very completely different functions and objectives. Earlier than you create your design, jot down its objective. This may assist hold your design and content material objectives aligned as you create your piece of artwork.
2. Apply your fashion information.
When deciding on what design parts to incorporate, take into account your organization’s branding fashion information. (We’ll get into how and why to create a method information subsequent.) This information will instantly present you what colours, fonts, and different design parts to make use of when designing your content material. From there, you may make small tweaks relying on what sort of content material you’re creating.
3. Create order with traces and alignment.
Traces and alignment in your graphic design can create motion and order. Align the textual content in your graphic to information your viewer as they learn, or incorporate horizontal traces to part off your textual content and imagery. Just like the way you format lengthy weblog posts in small paragraphs, traces and alignment make items of graphic design simpler to digest.
4. Pepper in some icons and illustrations.
Colours, textual content, and pictures make for beautiful graphics, however don’t restrict your parts to these three. Icons and illustrations may also boost an in any other case textual content or image-heavy piece of content material. Icons may additionally be capable of illustrate ideas that photographs can’t, they usually function artistic bullet factors for lengthy lists.
Right here’s a Canva template by Lythcreative that makes use of easy illustrations to interrupt up a cleansing checklist, making it extra visually interesting:
Branding and Emblem Design Ideas
1. Design the aesthetic of your character.
How do you visually current the character of your model and firm? In case your model was an individual, what would they be like? Your branding design ought to replicate the solutions to those questions.
Earlier than beginning your design, make an inventory of adjectives that describe your model, firm, and tradition. This may enable you to select colour combos, pictures, fonts, and different design parts and produce out the important thing factors of your character. Additionally, utilizing your model adjectives as steerage, construct a set of pictures, graphics, colour samples, and comparable logos that signify the “temper” of your model — aka a temper board.
2. Get a bit funky.
Your emblem and model property don’t should be an easy illustration of what your organization does.
HubSpot’s orange sprocket isn’t particularly about our software program, nevertheless it was designed to signify advertising and marketing, gross sales, and repair, which is what our software program began with. DeRosier additionally notes that “it’s easy — you desire a emblem mark to be easy sufficient to be actually small or actually huge.”
As you design your model’s visible id, don’t be afraid to get a bit funky and incorporate some distinctive design elements. Doing so could assist your model stand out from the remainder.
3. Hold it easy.
Your branding ought to talk your aesthetic in beneath a second. Impressions are made within the blink of an eye fixed, and your emblem and model id are not any exception.
Customers will kind an opinion in your model in a cut up second, so hold your design easy and to the purpose.
DeRosier says it’s tempting in design to “throw so many [design elements in a logo] that it will get overcomplicated.” Whether or not you’re designing a emblem or one other aspect, she says to be sure to’re not including so many parts that the design dilutes or loses its that means.
4. Prioritize consistency.
That is maybe an important tip relating to branding and emblem design: Be constant. You possibly can spend a whole lot of hours and hundreds of {dollars} creating a stunning visible id in your model — but when it’s not mirrored on every bit of print and digital content material, your assets have gone to waste.
Consistency applies on a pair completely different axes — horizontally alongside your content material parts, like fonts, spacing, and colour combos, and vertically throughout your content material shops, like your social media accounts, e mail, web site, and print supplies.
Create a method information to encourage everybody to stick to your new branding. Right here’s HubSpot’s Type Information for instance.
UI and UX Design Ideas
Be aware: UI and UX are two several types of design, however as a result of they’re so comparable, we’ve collected a number of ideas that may apply to each practices.
1. Adapt a consumer’s perspective.
Whether or not you’re designing the interface or the expertise of an app, web site, or on-line software, all the time adapt the angle of a consumer. Why would somebody use your web site? What would they hope to realize? What may their challenges be?
It’s essential to analysis your consumer base and higher perceive how they’d method your web site or utility. Take into account doing first-hand consumer analysis by means of a spotlight group or by speaking to present clients.
2. Anticipate errors.
No matter how a lot you speak to your viewers, there’ll all the time be a number of stumbles amongst customers.
Anticipate these by incorporating fool-proof mechanisms, reminiscent of not letting somebody submit an internet kind in the event that they’ve skipped a field or having a consumer verify they’d prefer to exit in case they by accident clicked off the display. These mechanisms may help forestall errors earlier than they occur and let your customers know you’ve bought their backs.
3. Don’t neglect requirements and developments.
Many designers love paving a brand new path and reinventing the wheel with their designs. Whereas this will create one thing distinctive and memorable for the consumer, it could additionally create confusion.
Take into account sticking with recognized design patterns, requirements, and developments, reminiscent of a navigation bar within the high proper nook or contact info alongside the underside of the web page. This may help your customers already subconsciously know find out how to navigate your web site with out rationalization.
4. Be mobile-friendly.
Responsive design is non-negotiable for web sites and purposes, however is your design additionally mobile-friendly?
Take into account the spacing of your buttons, the dimensions of the textual content, and another navigational or organizational parts that could be inconvenient in a responsive design.
Additionally, take a look at how your web site could change when considered on a desktop, pill, and varied forms of smartphones.
Internet (Entrance-Finish) Design Ideas
1. Take into account the fold.
On a web site, the fold is taken into account the underside of the display — the place your web page would “fold” if it had been a bodily merchandise, like a newspaper. Crucial info on a web site ought to all the time be positioned “above the fold” (like in newspapers) so a customer doesn’t should scroll all the way down to see it.
2. Use white house to attract focus.
Within the case of net design, much less is commonly extra.
With a number of info to share with guests, it may be tempting to litter all of it above the fold, so of us see it straight away. However much less cluttered web sites are simpler to learn, navigate, and digest.
Hold guests in your web site by including loads of white house round your content material; it’ll be simpler for them to focus.
3. Use colour to information motion.
Shade psychology performs a giant function in advertising and marketing. With out us even understanding it, sure colours can encourage us to do sure issues, reminiscent of click on a button or proceed on to the following web page of an internet kind.
Use colours to information the identical forms of motion in your web site. Make your entire CTAs a daring colour to assist them stand out.
4. Keep away from generic inventory pictures.
There are many methods to make use of pictures in your advertising and marketing, however the one technique to keep away from is utilizing generic inventory pictures, which may make a model appear disengaged with its purchaser persona.
The photographs in your web site ought to signify your viewers, and should you can’t seize your precise viewers, it’s best to work exhausting to seek out inventory pictures that do.
Professional tip: One nice strategy to gather viewers pictures is by operating a user-generated content material (UGC) marketing campaign.
Time to Design
Design is available in all sizes and shapes — actually. From web sites to print graphics to workplace house design, design performs a significant function in advertising and marketing our companies and types.
Even should you don’t take into account your self a designer, we encourage you to turn out to be extra accustomed to the weather and forms of design. You by no means know when you’ll have to seek the advice of on a venture or whip up a design of your individual.
Editor’s word: This publish was initially revealed in February 2019 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
