If you are reading this, odds are you are not a graphic designer. Maybe you fancy yourself an advanced Microsoft Word pro, or able to do things with PowerPoint animation that will blow your mind, but at the end of the day…you are not a graphic designer! The moment you are able to come to terms with this fact, the work you produce, and maybe even your life, will drastically improve.

Everyone knows that when you pretend to be good at something you are not good at, you always try a little too hard, and in the end, the truth is always brutally obvious. Much like me, and all forms of organized sports.

With all this being said, I understand that in today’s economy, not everyone will have the luxury of a full-time graphic designer on staff to help with your day-to-day design needs. I get that. On the other hand, that doesn’t give you get a free pass for your work to look terrible. The reader won’t know, or care, that you don’t have a designer on staff.

When it comes down to it, sloppy work always equals lost credibility with your reader. In the world of public relations, it is much easier to lose your credibility than it is to get it back.

I know you may think that I am being overly harsh. Sitting on top of my gilded MacBook throne, looking judgingly down upon you, but that is not the case. I do it because I care.

Not to worry, hope is not lost. There are some really easy steps that you can take to ensure that your final product looks professional, and just as important, is easy and enjoyable to read. To help, I have compiled a list of steps to take when you are DIY designing.

If you follow these simple steps, I promise whatever you are working on will come out looking great. And I promise, none of these steps will require expensive design software or having take a summer school class at your local Junior College.

Step 1: Typographic Hierarchy

Don’t jump ship just yet. Don’t worry this isn’t Graphic Design Theory 101, but this is a really simple concept that many miss, but makes a huge difference not only to the appearance of your work, but also to the ease of reading your piece.

At its most basic core, it is using different font sizes and font emphasis to help better organize your material.

For example:

SUPER Creative Title

Exciting New Section

Interesting and exciting information about this section.

Interesting Sub-Section

More interesting and exciting information.

The key with your hierarchy is to plan this out ahead of time. If you do it on the fly, you most likely won’t stay consistent or will waste time having to go back and fix your mistakes.

For additional information about Typographic Hierarchy, this website goes into greater detail about hierarchy here.

Step 2: Font Selection, You’re Doing it Wrong.

Font selection can be an article all to itself, but there can be some very basic tips to keep in mind that will make your work look much, much, better.

Try to stick to one font. Pick something familiar and professional looking. There is nothing more distracting to a reader than having to switch from one font, to another, than to another.

I don’t want to confuse the situation by getting into theory about the differences between Serif and Sans-Serif fonts, so to keep it simple for you, here are a couple easy choices;

• Garamond
• Times New Roman
• Book Antigua
• Helvetica
• Arial

Do not, under any circumstances, use Comic Sans or any other font that you may think is cute or fun. You are designing a public relations piece, not a children’s book. If you at all worry about retaining credibility in your work, this will completely destroy it.

For more information about fonts to use in your work, check out this article Top 7 Fonts Used By Professionals In Graphic Design by Jacob Cass.

Step 3: Don’t Use ALL CAPS All the Time

One thing to keep in mind is that when someone reads, they are not actually reading out the entire word. Their brain recognizes words by their shape and size and connects theses shapes to their appropriate words. Don’t believe me? Read this below paragraph from Cambridge University:

“Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

So, what does this mean with all caps? When you do long sections on copy in all caps, it confuses the brain and makes it harder on the reader. If you must use all caps, they work best for short titles or paragraph headers.

Step 4: Consistent Text Alignment

Consistency is the key word here. Like I have said before, the key is to remember to keep the flow of your work as easy to follow for the reader. Don’t start mixing in different alignments. There is absolutely no reason for you to have one area to be aligned left, like this paragraph…

Then, the next to be aligned center.

It doesn’t look good, and it will only confuse your reader.

Step 5: Limit Your Use of Colors

Remember people are here to read your article, not look at a Salvador Dali painting. Stick to simple colors. Pick two that you feel complement each other. If you include your company’s logo in your work, pick one or two from that.

This doesn’t mean you should be coloring in everything. Use it in conjunction with your text hierarchy and maybe, if you feel brave enough, to add in some graphical elements and that’s it! For your body copy just keep it simple, black will do just fine.

If you need some help finding a nice palette, check out Kuler.com. Great website that helps you build your own color palettes.

That is it for now, but look forward to the conclusion in part 2.

Tags: Branding, Graphic Design, Tips