5 Graphic Design Principles From the Most Respected Designer

I recently asked 5 of my favorite designers including Milton Glaser, David Airey, Erik Spiekermann, Jacob Cass and Pablo Impallari about their thought on basic design principles.

I receive very interesting answer from them and I can’t wait to share with you in this post, carry on reading.

Below is the question I asked.

“What basic design principles that you take priority to apply in every of your design?”

Milton Glaser

“Do no harm”

He is best known for I ❤ NY logo and DC bullet logo. My favourite quote I’ve read somewhere that say “ I ❤ NY logo more than Milton Glaser”.

Follow Milton in Twitter.

David Airey

“Curiosity — about my client, his or her product, the intended market, future aspirations, potential applications. If you’re curious enough, you’ll find the best answers.”

David Airey is an identity designer and author with a blog over 190k++ subscribers! You can also find him in ID and Logo Design Love.

Oh, and not to forget his book that I highly recommend, Work for Money, Design for Love and Logo Design Love.

If you are just starting out to be a brand identity designer or plan to run a design business, I believe both David Airey’s book is going to be your bible.

Follow David on Twitter.

Erik Spiekermann

“Make it work for the user”

He is a typography genius who own Fontshop where you can find the world best font there. Erik Spiekermann is also a founder of MetaDesign and Edenspiekermann

Follow Erik Spiekermann

Jacob Cass

“One key point to keep in mind when creating brand identities is to solve the businesses problem while ensuring that the brand identity is flexible enough for all mediums. Rather than just presenting a large variety of logos, you should see how they work in the real world of that business and how the identity can go past ‘rubber stamping’ of the logo”

Jacob Cass is an award winning designer who blog in Justcreative.com. He got a very interesting portfolio that you might want to have a look.

He also own Logo of the Day and Logo Designer Blog. His speak in Ted inspire me a lot.

Follow Jacob on Twitter.

Pablo Impallari

“to avoid massing when two lines cross or meet each other.” As you can see in this image ( http://www.impallari.com/ media/uploads/profotos/126- foto01-original.jpg ) there is an optical phenomenon that happens when 2 lines meets each others. They look bolder than they really are.So, for example, in the letter M, or W, you have to find a way to make the joins thinner, so that they looks similar to other letters instead of looking to dark.

Once of the more important things have to do to design a good typeface, is to balance the darkness of each letters, so that they all look the same color”

You probably know one of his famous font, Lobster. Pablo is a typographer where you can see all his font in his blog, Impallari Type.

In fact, both heading (Cabin) and body copy (Quattrocento Sans) in Refining Designers are designed by Pablo where you can get it for free in google webfont.

One of a generous typographer that I truly respect.

Now is your turn to share with me YOUR priority in terms of basic design principles. The comment box below is all yours.