Design Guideline: Create Better Designed Work with Double and Half
Want a quick gut check method to ensure the work your producing looks and works great? A lot of design comes down to simple concepts, and the Double and Half method helps to simplify the ideas.
The idea has it's foundation in Drama, or Contrast. An idea that things need to be different enough from one another to have the desired effect.
By thinking of Double and Half and the ideas behind them, you can quickly check your own work and make it better.
Double and Half
In truth much of the application isn't a literal halving or doubling. But the idea stands to reduce elements, create impact, and achieve simplicity. This in turn will strengthen the content, the effectiveness, and the beauty of the design.
Half
"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This beloved quote helps frame the first part of our process. We can start by reviewing what we can reduce or remove to strengthen the work.
There are three items to consider, 2 being very simple and the 3rd being quite difficult.
Half the Fonts:
As stated the idea here to reduce the number of fonts you're using in your work. An even clearer rule is to never use more than 1 or 2 fonts. This ensures that there is a clear and consistent voice throughout the work.
(Click here for a guide on how to choose great free fonts for your work.)
Half the Colors:
Choosing colors and applying them well can be a difficult part of design. To make the process simpler and to make the colors more impactful, strive to have no more than 2 to 3 colors in your work.
With this we are talking colors though, not including dark grays, blacks, and white etc.
You can also consider tints and shades by adding black or white to your chosen colors. This can provide more options without straying from the few core colors.
(Click here for a guide on how to choose colors for your work.)
Half the Content:
This will be the most difficult to achieve. We have a tenancy to want to include as much information as we can in our work. What about this promotion? What about these other features?
Picture holding 6 balls in your hands and throwing them at someone. It's hard to imagine them catching even 1, let alone all 6. Now, picture winding up and softly throwing only 1 ball at a person: chances are they'll catch that.
This is how to picture your content. You need to narrow it down and only focus on what is necessary and impactful. Reducing the information clutter will have the same great impact as the rest of the steps, if not more so.
Double
"There are three responses to a piece of design - yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for."
- Milton Glaser
This next set of guidelines helps ensure we're making decisions with impact. They help ensure everything stands out from one another and achieves their purpose. All the while helping organize and make clear our message and content.
Double the Title Size
As a general rule, your titles text size should be double your body text size. So if your body text has a font size of 16, your main titles should be 32.
This idea helps ensure that titles are bold and noticeable. If the title isn't large enough it can blend into the body copy and not provide the call out it's intended for.
Double the White Space
Also known as blank or empty space. It can be counter intuitive to improve your work's design by increase the "nothing" around it. But this is exactly what happens.
By giving text, images, and elements in your design room to breath you'll allow them to demand focus. It helps ensure nothing becomes too cluttered and hard to read, while also helping the flow.
This goes for the space near the edges, between text and titles, and between all other elements and images.
It's not a matter of doubling the white space around every element. Rather trying to include double the white space in total to achieve the desired effect.
Double the Scale
This is one to test and see what the results are.
If you have a photo included in your work, what would happen if it took up a third of the page? Half the page? What would happen if it took up the entire background?
Though the previous rule only states to double the title size, what if the title took up an entire page? Could the scale of the element double to provide a 'wow' moment within your work?
In trying to have impact, playing with the scale of your elements can have incredible effects.
In Conclusion
Two simple ideas we can boil the purpose of design down to is Clarity and Impact. Has what we produced get noticed, and when noticed is it understood.
The purpose of "Doubling and Halving" is to reframe how you approach your work and it's layout. It tries and forces hard decisions about what to remove and what to add to help the work achieve it's goals.
Cheers to your next Doubled & Halved work!
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