Free Download: Visual Hierarchy Principles with Examples

Learn visual hierarchy principles, boost your graphic design pieces, and help the audience understand your message.

If you look around, you will see visual content everywhere: in the dashboard of your car, the street signs, magazines, apps, and even on your electricity bill. According to the presentation and data designer, Katya Kovalenko (@katyakovalenko), ¨As our society is becoming more global, so does our language. Well-crafted designs —such as images, icons, charts, maps, and graphs— are more international than words and can explain, illustrate, and communicate ideas almost instantly, keeping the audience engaged¨.

That's why knowing how to create graphic content is so important. To do so, visual hierarchy principles help us make almost any design piece so clear that we understand its meaning without even trying. They are fundamentals of size, scale, color, and contrast that guide viewers' eyes through information and ensure they navigate the content quickly and easily.

Katya Kovalenjo —who has created graphic designs for Meom, Article Group, Interesting Development, and Chelsea & Co— offers you a guide document with visual examples of how to apply each one of these fundamentals. Next, we tell you what each consists of and how to download this guide.

What you should know before starting a graphic design journey: visual hierarchy principles

Size

The size is an effective tool for guiding a viewer's eye to a specific element of a graphic design piece. ¨Larger objects attract more attention than smaller objects, as our mind associates size with importance¨, explains Katia. That's why the largest objects of a visual project should be the most important ones, and the smallest ones should be the least relevant.

Scale

Another essential principle is scale, which is the size of an object compared to another. No matter how large or small, a single object has no scale until it is next to another. ¨Using this principle allows us to create balance in a design and focus on dominant elements. The greater the difference in scale between objects, the greater the emphasis¨, says Katia.

Color

Color is another visual organization tool to draw attention to particular design elements. It helps viewers easily understand what they are looking at and where to go next.

Show differences and similarities

¨As humans, we notice patterns and differences within them. That's why color should be used consistently¨, affirms Katia. An interesting way to highlight the distinction between elements is to use opposite colors, such as red and green or orange and blue. For similar content, it's almost always better to apply the same color, the ones next to it on the color wheel, or even different tones of the same color.

Convey meaning

Color can also convey meaning. For example, the water taps with red and blue —red indicates hot water, and blue suggests cold. ¨That is a natural choice because we associate red with fire and blue with ice¨, explains Katia. Other examples are the city maps, in which green symbolizes parks and woods; blue represents lakes and seas; brick color is assigned to buildings, and yellow for sand.

Contrast

Changing from a light color to a dark one or from a thin serif font to a heavy sans serif font signal that something is different, making it easier to digest and understand what we see. For this reason, contrast is a reliable tool to communicate visually without words. During your design process, you can explore it in shapes, sizes, colors, or using different alignments.

Similarity

¨It's human nature to group similar things together¨, says Katia. We can put together elements exploring color, shape, or size. Similarity ties together objects that might not be right next to each other in a design.

Proximity

Proximity refers to how close elements are to one another. Grouping objects into a single area can also have a strong proximity effect. In the following example, the only thing differentiating the group on the left from those on the right is the proximity of the lines. Yet, our brain interprets the image on the right as three separate groups.

Download: Visual Hierarchy Principles

In the download Visual Hierarchy Principles, you will find a PDF file in which Katia shows many examples to understand the principles of the visual hierarchy over 32 pages.

Download the file below:

More about Katya Kovalenko

Katya Kovalenko worked in advertising for nearly a decade before she embarked on what she calls “a quiet revolution.” After reading “Quiet” by Susan Cain, her notion of communication completely shifted. It led her to create Quiet Studio, which focuses on communicating in a more subtle and personal way.

As a presentation and data designer at Quiet Studio, she creates presentations, infographics, and brand identities for businesses. She has worked with numerous brands and organizations like Meom, Article Group, Interesting Development, and Chelsea & Co.

If you want to learn more with Katia, sign up for the online course Graphic Visualization: Telling Complex Stories through Simple Images. Along the lessons, Katia will teach you basic design and hierarchy principles to present ideas and projects simply and compellingly through visuals and infographics.

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