1. Robin Williams and
C.R.A.P.
This is Robin Williams. She’s not Mork, of
course.
She is responsible for a great many
awesome design texts that are reader-
friendly. She write the non-designer’s
design handbook. It’s worth owning a
copy, if you’re interested in design.
3. As funny as it is…
… making CRAP jokes, it really is a foundational
premise of design, and it’s deeply important (and
thanks to our sense of humor usually quite
memorable). The letters, of course, stand for:
Contrast
Repetition
Alignment
Proximity
5. Contrast
Basically stated, contrast means that things that are
similar look similar but things that are different look
clearly different. This keeps your reader from
becoming confused and creating relationships that
aren’t present.
It comes, of course, from literal contrast, the light-to-
dark or black-to-white of an image. In design it often
ends up being about color values.
6. This image is a
great example,
and it is also a
hyperlink to a
great blog entry
on contrast, if
you want to learn
more.
8. Repetition
Maybe the easiest of these four concepts to
define, repetition is, just as you’d guess,
repeating something– a color, a logo, a
typeface, a type style.
It unifies and organizes.
11. Alignment
Alignment is about positioning on a page.
Nothing should be put on haphazardly.
There should be a reason and a
measurement that guides where things are
placed in relation to each other.
12. The image to the right links
to a post that has some cool
reflection on alignment.
And there’s all
kinds of
alignment
going on with
the new
Windows 8
start page.
14. Proximity
Proximity is very similar in theory to
alignment, but it’s more about grouping and
use of white space.
Basically: similar things are grouped together,
different things require space.
