Journal 5

The four basic design principles are alignment, proximity, repetition and contrast. The first, alignment, is pretty basic. It means that all objects on the page are all aligned. It goes on to explain that mixing alignments is not good. If you choose to center the Headline, then proceed to center the rest of the text. If an individual were in fact to mix alignments it can come off as cluttered or messy which in turn looks unprofessional. The second principle is proximity. This is the idea that when two subjects are close together then the must have some sort of relationship. So, if they were far apart then they would have no relationship. A prime example of this would be a picture, with the caption far away from it. In cases like those, make sure they are close in proximity so the understanding is clear.
The third principle is repetition. This unifies all of the elements on a page together. This unification helps the viewer to tie everything together rather than disassociate certain elements. “Colors, style, illustrations, format, layout, typography, and so on can all be a part of the repetition that unifies the entire site.” Hence, having the same color scheme throughout the sight or the same font would be a factor in repetition. The last principle is contrast. This is the pull factor. You want something to pop out at the reader; this could be a bolding of text. However, you must be very strong with contrast, if taken too timidly it may be overlooked. Nevertheless, there are specific times for contrast. If you are simply trying to present a factual text, do not distract the reader with contrast. Also a factor that plays in too overdoing a page is color. You want a limited color scheme when designing. If you branch out into an unlimited color scheme it can become overkill, but when using the limited color scheme, the effect can be of sophistication and class.
For me personally, after reading this my font choice needs to be worked on. For my links the font the is still Times New Roman and it looks awful.