Information Design Rules

When designing information, follow the rules! Below you’ll find the top ten rules for each of the ten categories of design, assembled in an easy-to-remember acronym, Color C.R.A.Y.O.N. T.I.P.

General Information Design Rules

Design for Humans

1. Know Your Audience
2. Design for How People Think
3. Design for How they See
4. Write for How People Read
5. Create for How People Feel

Think Like an Architect

1. Apply Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles
2. Construct an Experience (Hierarchy of Needs)
3. Help People Make Choices
4. Grab People’s Attention
5. Simplify Your Audience’s Life (and Yours)

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Basic Rules for Designing with Color

1. Learn Color Terminology
2. Use the Color Wheel to Create Moods and Experiences
3. Color Consciously to Affect the Mood
4. Know the Modes and Systems
5. Seek harmony, Avoid Discord
6. Meet Expectations
7. Establish an Ambiance: Use Lights, Brights, Darks, Pales, Warms, Cools, and Neutrals
8. Study (a little) Pyschology
9. Affect Moods and Behaviors
10. Create for the Culture

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Basic Rules for Designing with Contrast

1. Make Things Different
2. Use Highlighting Techniques
3. Contrast the Size
4. Contrast the Typefaces
5. Contrast the Tints and Shades
6. Contrast the Space and Position
7. Contrast with Strokes, Shadows, & Reverse
8. Consider Overlays and Watermarks
9. Control the Pace
10. Compare and Dichotomize

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Basic Rules for Designing with Repetition

1. Be Strategically Repetitious
2. Repeat within Documents
3. Repeat Across Suites
4. Repeat around Spaces
5. Repeat Universals
6. Repeat Similarity
7. Create Visual Cues
8. Establish Consistency
9. Mimic What’s Familiar
10. Follow the Guide

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Basic Rules for Designing with Arrangement

1. Align all Elements
2. Keep Related Items Close
3. Use Horizontals for Calm
4. Use Verticals for Energy
5. Use Diagonals for Tension
6. Know Top Versus Bottom
7. Use the Rule of Thirds
8. Use Space to Draw Focus
9. Use Space to Show Time
10. Bleed for Aesthetics

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Basic Rules for Designing with “Why”

1. Learn the Appeals
2. Provide Enough Details
3. Design Like Music
4. Empty to Show Value
5. Promote Propositions
6. Think Metaphorically
7. Make Advanced Yet Acceptable
8. Expose with a Purpose
9. Make Things Stick
10. Help Them Remember

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Basic Rules for Designing with Organization

1. Start with L.A.T.C.H.
2. Apply a Pattern
3. Know How Grids Work
4. Use Single Column for Text
5. Use Two Columns for Variation
6. Use Three Columns for Intrigue
7. Use Modulars for Complexity
8. Use Hierarchies for Emphasis
9. Organize Your Writing to Persuade
10. Organize Your Writing to Inform

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Basic Rules for Designing with Negative Space

1. Positive vs. Negative
2. Figure-Ground Relationship
3. Connect (or Don’t…) the Dots
4. Count ’em Up: 1+1=3
5. Make Things Stable
6. Look in the Margins
7. Consider the Bleeds
8. Turn off the Noise
9. Put Blood in the Gutter
10. Put the Whole Before the Parts

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Basic Rules for Designing with Typography

1. Learn Some Terms
2. Study Anatomy
3. Classify the Types
4. Use Two Fonts
5. Find Unusual Pairs
6. Increase Legibility & Readability
7. Justify Your Means
8. Save the Orphans
9. Apply Pull Quotes
10. Punctuate with Purpose

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Basic Rules for Designing with Iconography

1. Know the Signs of the Times
2. Separate Symbols from Signs
3. Use Metaphors as Signifiers
4. Think Similarity
5. Consider Examples
6. Ask What’s Symbolic
7. Be Careful with Arbitrary
8. Use Lines as Icons
9. Use Logos to Brand
10. Help Them with Signposts

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Basic Rules for Designing with Photography

1. Learn a Few Terms
2. Recognize Your Style
3. Know the Types
4. Crop for Closure
5. Know the Direction They’re Headed
6. Apply the Face-ism Ratio
7. Make Sides Equal (or Not)
8. Crop with a Purpose
9. Watch the Depth of Field
10. Obtain the Rights

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