When something is important in a layout, be it for a brochure or a website, you want it to stand out. But how do you do that?

Contrast is the Key

Contrast can come in many forms. Most people think of contrast in terms of light and dark, white vs. black. But that’s only one way contrast can be used. Here are four ways to use contrast in your design:

Contrast in Color

We have talked previously about how warm colors—orange, red and yellow—come forward while cool colors—blue, green and purple—recede. You can use warm colors to accent various parts of a design and you can also make a certain element the only one of that color. A single red arrow in a layout that is mostly blue will stand out infinitely more than a blue arrow, both because it is a warm color and because it is the only element of that color.

Contrast in Space

If part of your design has a significant amount of space around it, it will look important; people’s eyes will be drawn to that part of the layout because the element is easy to see and they will be curious why it is set aside. Headlines are important and for this reason they are often set apart from the rest of the copy. To make it stand out even more, if it fits the design, you can make the other parts of it a little more crowded or busy, so that the eye is even more drawn to the contrast of the open space so that it can rest and breathe.

Contrast in Size

To illustrate a contrast in size, we can again use the headline example. Headlines are always larger than the body copy because they need to grab your attention and, in order to do that, they need to be easily identifiable. Maybe to give it even more attention, you want to make the element enormous; exaggerate its immenseness! Make the title go off the edges of the paper because it is so big (but keep in mind people may still need to read it, so don’t cut off too much!).

Contrast in Value

As we talked about at the beginning, value is probably the most obvious thing that comes to mind when thinking about contrast. White stands out against black, black stands out against white; the higher the difference in the value of the object vs. its background, the more attention will be drawn to it.

Combine Them!

To make contrast even more effective, combine several types: make the element a bright orange (value and color) or make it big and in the middle of the page with nothing around it (size and space). Or use all four together! Use your creativity to really make the main focus of your design prominent.

What other ways have you used contrast in a design?

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