Material Design Principles For Your Business Card
Featured Image: Freepik
Material design principles and business card design, both strive for simplicity, minimalism, and have definitive design boundaries to work in. Although business card designs provide a very limited canvas, they still showcase creativity. Since material design principles already work in restrictive settings, it becomes a fitting choice for business card designing.
The great thing about material design is that it looks as fabulous in print form as it does on the screen.
In today’s post, we are going to talk about the major material design principles that can be used for the next business card order, and have fun creating modern, cleaner, and sophisticated business card designs.
1. Paste The Logo
Any business card is incomplete without its brand logo. Material design concepts welcome the use of images, so use the company logo concept to design unique business card layouts. A logo can be used instead of an image or detailed graphic with solid coloring, or it could work as part of the card layout.
Here are a few other examples to use a logo in creative ways. Use the logo as a background, a watermark or a pattern. Notice how the logo is used in different ways to make business cards attractive.
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
2. Add Blocks of Color
The mantra of material design is bold, graphic, and intentional.
In material design, color is not a part of any design element, it is an element. So use colors to make a statement. Bright reds, blocks of green, big splashes of orange to wow clients. With these confident color choices, grab the viewer’s attention and retaining it.
Be sure to make yourself aware of the psychology behind colors to understand what each color means and how a hue will affect your design. With this activity, you’ll be able to pick the right color for your design. Also, make sure you don’t pick random colors just because you like what they mean – use the best color palette tools to create a befitting color scheme.
Take a look at this red and gray business card design. The large block of red is splashed there to make a statement, while the accompanying gray gives the design much depth.
Image Source: Aleksandra Bondarenko
Or how about this? A business card design urging viewers to take note of the big block of bright yellow. The wave pattern in front gives the design a playful texture, making the design even more exciting.
Image Source: Tandem.
Using colors in this bold fashion works extremely well in business card templates. It brings the user’s focus right where it’s needed: on the text.
Which brings us to our next point.
3. Paint Some White On
A meaningful and creative use of white space is as critical in a business card design as in any other type of design. In a business card one has to remember that the focus needs to stay on the information printed on the card.
Material design fully embraces the concept of white space to not only bind the design but to bring the message into focus, and to provide a clean background for the typography.
Image Source: Denys Zeldin
Image Source: Shuyue Gong
Image Source: Veronika DesignLoockStudio
White space can also be used to break a color monotony. Look at the examples below, a completely blue card suddenly pops out with that a bit of white to one side. The next example of the red business card also looks striking because it use white space to break a solid color.
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Simple, yet impactful use of white space. This makes the typography and the logo look even more prominent.
Understanding different concepts of material design helps to figure out that there’s a lot of room for creativity even within its confines.
4. Tile The Typography
Material Design encourages designers to use typography to the maximum effect. For this, it’s crucial to use a befitting font that’s compatible with both print and digital. Deliberate use of bolder colors and font styles make the type noticeable and readable.
Image Source: Freepik
Image Source: Freepik
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Since business cards are printed products, be careful in your font choices. Most popular ones are serif and sans serif. But feel free to experiment, of course, making sure that your creativity doesn’t mess up the hierarchy of the design.
5. Decorate With Hierarchy
It is another material design principle that’s handy when applied to printable designs.
Hierarchy is basically organizing the different elements of the design in such a way that the user’s attention travels from the most important to the lesser important areas of the design.
It provides order to the elements in the design and can be achieved in many different ways, including size, color, shape, positioning, and contrast etc.
Use blocks of colors to segregate information and use the technique of background and foreground to give an illusion of one on top of the other. Add some lines to divide information into sections.
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: wbhd
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
That’s how one can achieve hierarchy when focusing on text. Think about different ways in which certain information can be highlighted. Can designers increase the thickness, use a different font, experiment with font color, or the background color?
Slowly, an order will start to emerge, followed by true design hierarchy.
6. Plan With Grid Layout
Hierarchy is also achieved by using grid layouts in business cards. The grid layout fits perfectly to the conceptual sense of the business card: the card has a very utilitarian purpose and the grid layout fulfills that purpose.
Therefore, it makes complete sense that material design once again will be a natural design inspiration for business card templates.
Image Source: Easil
This card by Easil provides enough room for texts to display on the card efficiently. The vertical design also helps with this feat. By keeping the design simple, the text becomes the epicenter of action.
Let’s have a look at a few more.
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: Christiane Wallner-Haas
Image Source: Taras Vasilechko
Grids, bright splashes of colors, continuous merging of the design, all the while keeping the font color constant.
7. Furnish With Simplicity
If this doesn’t say everything about designing a business card template, we don’t know what does. Creating a simple design is far more difficult than creating a complicated design. A design novice or an expert in the field, you’ll know it’s true.
The following collection of simple card designs are classic examples of material design at work on business cards. Let’s see how many principles of material design principles you can spot!
Image Source: Sam Hall
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Image Source: Studio NinetyOne
Image Source: Sofia Belo
Image Source: ZillionDesigns
Material Design is a highly coveted design technique in today’s technological environment because it works both for print and digital designs. This makes it worth exploring, and finding out how it will suit the design needs. Start Your Business Card Contest today.
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The principles of design are the rules you must follow to create an effective and attractive design composition. The fundamental principles of design are: Emphasis, Balance and Alignment, Contrast, Repetition, Proportion, Movement and White Space.
Design differs from art in that it has to have a purpose. Visually, this functionality is interpreted by making sure an image has a center of attention, a point of focus. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘But wait! I thought design was all about creativity?’ If you’re a business owner, marketer or designer who’s just starting out, you might be tempted to go wild and combine the first five typefaces and colors that catch your eye, believing you’re creating something fresh and new. You will probably find yourself with a design that is muddled, unfinished, or well, just plain ugly.
Graphic design, like any discipline, adheres to strict rules that work beneath the surface to make the work stable and balanced. If the design is missing that balance, it will be weak and ineffective.
Learn more about the 7 basic principles of design by watching the video below or reading the rest of the article. Either way, knowing these principles and how to use them will make your next project stand out.
Jump to:
1. Emphasis
Poster design by miai313 for Handel’s Messiah Rocks via 99designs by Vista.
The first of the 7 design principles is emphasis, referring to the focal point of a design and the order of importance of each element within a design. Say you’re creating a poster for a concert. You should ask yourself: what is the first piece of information my audience needs to know? Is it the band? Or the concert venue? What about the day and the cost of attending?
Make a mental outline. Let your brain organize the information and then lay out your design in a way that communicates that order. If the band’s name is the most essential information, place it in the center or make it the biggest element on the poster. Or you could put it in the strongest, boldest type. Learn about color theory and use strong color combinations to make the band name pop.
Like writing without an outline or building without a blueprint, if you start your composition without a clear idea of what you’re trying to communicate, your design will not succeed.
2. Balance and alignment
Poster design by Shwin for Rumspringa via 99designs by Vista.
Never forget that every element you place on a page has a weight. The weight can come from color, size, or texture. Just like you wouldn’t put all your furniture in one corner of a room, you can’t crowd all your heavy elements in one area of your composition. Without balance, your audience will feel as if their eye is sliding off the page.
Symmetrical design creates balance through equally weighted elements aligned on either side of a center line. On the other hand, asymmetrical design uses opposite weights (like contrasting one large element with several smaller elements) to create a composition that is not even, but still has equilibrium.
Symmetrical designs are always pleasing, if not occasionally boring. Asymmetrical designs are bolder and can bring real visual interest and movement (more on that later!) to your composition.
3. Contrast
Poster design by Daria V. for Mama J via 99designs by Vista.
Contrast is what people mean when they say a design “pops.” It comes away from the page and sticks in your memory. Contrast creates space and difference between elements in your design. Your background needs to be significantly different from the color of your elements so they work harmoniously together and are readable.
If you plan to work with type, understanding contrast is incredibly essential because it means the weight and size of your type are balanced. How will your audience know what is most important if everything is in bold?
As you seek out examples of really strong, effective design, you’ll notice most designs only feature one or two typefaces. That’s because contrast can be effectively achieved with two strong fonts (or even one strong typeface in different weights). As you add fonts, you dilute and confuse the purpose of your design.
4. Repetition
Poster design by robbyprada for Zoom.de via 99designs by Vista.
If you limit yourself to two strong typefaces or three strong colors, you’ll soon find you’ll have to repeat some things. That’s ok! It’s often said that repetition unifies and strengthens a design. If only one thing on your band poster is in blue italic sans-serif, it can read like an error. If three things are in blue italic sans-serif, you’ve created a motif and are back in control of your design.
Repetition can be important beyond one printed product. Anyone thinking about a startup knows one of the first things you need is a strong logo to feature on your website, business cards, social media and more. Brand identity? Another term for repetition.
5. Proportion
Poster design by Mahuna via 99designs by Vista.
Proportion is the visual size and weight of elements in a composition and how they relate to each other. It often helps to approach your design in sections, instead of as a whole.
Grouping related items can give them importance at a smaller size—think of a box at the bottom of your poster for ticket information or a sidebar on a website for a search bar. Proportion can be achieved only if all elements of your design are well-sized and thoughtfully placed. Once you master alignment, balance, and contrast, proportion should emerge organically.
6. Movement
Poster design by Stefanosp for Great American Music Hall via 99designs by Vista.
Going back to our concert poster. If you decided the band was the most important piece of information on the page and the venue was the second, how would you communicate that with your audience?
Movement is controlling the elements in a composition so that the eye is led to move from one to the next and the information is properly communicated to your audience. Movement creates the story or the narrative of your work: a band is playing, it’s at this location, it’s at this time, here’s how you get tickets. The elements above—especially balance, alignment, and contrast—will work towards that goal, but without proper movement, your design will be DOA.
If you look at your design and feel your eye get “stuck” anywhere on it—an element is too big, too bold, slightly off-center, not a complimentary color—go back and adjust until everything is in harmony.
7. White space
Poster design for pmoretti
All of the other principles of design deal with what you add to your design. White space (or negative space) is the only one that specifically deals with what you don’t add. White space is exactly that—the empty page around the elements in your composition. For beginning designers it can be a perilous zone. Often simply giving a composition more room to breathe can upgrade it from mediocre to successful.
White space isn’t sitting there doing nothing—it’s creating hierarchy and organization. Our brains naturally associate ample white space around an element with importance and luxury. It’s telling our eyes that objects in one region are grouped separately from objects elsewhere.
Even more exciting, it can communicate an entirely different image or idea from your main design that will reward your audience for engaging with it. The logo above uses active negative space to communicate multiple ideas in one fun, creative design.
How to use the principles of design
A design doesn’t have to strictly follow these rules to be “good.” Some absolutely mind-blowing designs ignore one or more of the principles of design in order to create an eye-catching and effective work.
The Bed Moved by Rebecca Schiff. Designed by Janet Hansen for Knopf
Consider the cover of “The Bed Moved” by Rebecca Schiff, designed by Janet Hansen. This was one of the most lauded book covers of 2016.
But did you immediately read the first line as “Theeb?” Did your eye jump to the bottom line where the M from “Moved” is isolated on a different line than the rest of the word? The design is clearly breaking the two rules of movement and alignment. But! Because of the designer’s confident use of a bold contrasting color scheme and a repetitive structure, your eye is easily guided to the title and author of the book.
The important information is communicated. That jarring moment of slight confusion is what makes this design so revolutionary and rewarding.
The elements of a design should be viewed as moving parts that combine to tell a story. As you approach your design project you must first familiarize yourself with these principles of design. Only then will you be able to break these graphic design rules to create your own signature style.
Author: Meg Reid
Material Design Principles For Your Business Card
The 7 principles of design and how to use them
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