A large part of UI design is graphic design. Many of the techniques in graphic design, such as the use of a grid, the CRAP principles (contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity), and color theory etc, are transferrable and can be applied to UI design as well. However, there are certain techniques that don’t work quite as well. I didn’t realize this until recently. Those techniques fell flat when I tried to use them to design the UI of a feature. I reflected on why it backfired and here are the two reasons.
Continue readingCategory: Visual Design
Sketch Plugin: Paste Paddings
This sketch plugin copies the paddings of one element to another. It can speed up your workflow when you’ve changed the spacing of one element that’s shared across different artboards and would like the new spacing to be applied to the same element in other artboards.
Continue readingThree Steps to Making Visual Designs Lively and Interesting
Whether we are designing an app, a website, or a presentation deck, creating visuals for multiple screens or pages can be a challenge. We seem to run out of inspirations quickly. We may have one or two interesting ideas in mind, but after we exhaust those ideas, our designs tend to be repetitive, dull and boring.
What’s the best way to tackle this challenge so that we can consistently produce visuals that are interesting and dynamic? Here’s a three-step approach that I found helpful.
The Secret to Nice Typeface Combinations
When I asked people what their biggest struggles related to typography were, one of the answers I often heard of was pairing typefaces. We want to use more than one typefaces to make our design more lively and interesting, but for a lot of us, we are not sure which ones go together. When it comes to matching typefaces, there is actually a secret. With this secret, you will be able to create nice typeface combinations.
3 Things You’ll Need to Do When Using a Large Font Size
We are used to working with small font sizes. Body text of most documents falls somewhere between 9pt to 14pt. Small font sizes have also dominated the web for a long time. Not until recent years did web designers try to use more and more bigger and bolder texts (36px+). Large font sizes are intended to stand out and draw attention, and working with them is slightly different from working with small body text. There are adjustments to be made in order for the big text to make our design bold and attractive. Today I’d like to talk about 3 things that you will need to do if you are using a large font size.