"What am I paying you for?" part3: Alignment

Alignment is probably the most over-looked and misunderstood design principle. The principle of alignment states that nothing should be placed in the design arbitrarily. Every item should have a visual connection with another element.

When items are aligned the design appears cohesive, organized and professional. Alignment can give certain elements more prominence than others and guide the viewer by creating an information hierarchy.

Let's look at an example*.








The elements here were just sort of thrown on the card. Not one of the elements has any connection with anything else and your eye just bounces all over the place. It's not pleasant or professional.

Compare with this.








Moving all of the elements flush right instantly make the information more organized. All the elements have a common boundary and this boundary connects them visually. The principle of proximity is also involved here but we'll discuss that in the next post.

A designer knows how to use alignment in a variety of ways to make your marketing tools appear very organized and professional.

Next, part 4: Proximity

*(Jordan Kelly is a fellow student at McKenzie. Jordan Kelly's Gourmet Jellies was the subject of his product packaging project. I loved that catchy name so much that I wanted to pay homage to it somehow.)