Design Tips: Visual Heirarchy

Anyone can make a flyer, right? But it takes some design sense to create a layout that actually helps the reader to make sense of all the visual chaos. A layout is a combination of text and images. It is the way you place those words and images on a page that makes the difference between a good design and a bad design. A good design is a layout that communicates your message as best as possible. In order to do that, you need a visual hierarchy.

What is visual hierarchy?
It is when you prioritize the information on the layout so that a reader knows what to read first, second third, etc. It helps to move the reader through the page in a natural way so that they get the information and they get a sense of what is important to read first. It makes it easier for the reader to digest the information, therefore they will stay with the page longer and actually read it. 

How to create visual hierarchy?
You can use principles of design to create this flow in your layout. The elements of color and scale/size can help indicate the focal points in your layout. Also, your choice of fonts can help distinguish headlines, block quotes, and subheadlines from body copy,.  And of course, your actual layout matters. You want to give your information in organized chunks rather than one large block of text. This allows the reader to take it one chunk at a time rather than overwhelm them with too much all at once. 

As you can see in the example flyer I created, I have used layout, color, size, and fonts to organize the text in a way that makes it easy to read by creating a visual hierarchy. Think about those elements when creating your next flyer!