The Original Design

This is a promotion from Dropbox’s Facebook page. I’m talking about how five main design principles were used to make it a more attractive and engaging post.

1. Contrast

This design has a strong contrast using the deep maroon against the light blue and cream colors.

2. Repetition

The maroon and light blue colors are repeated across the design as shown in orange and pink draw overs. I think the image of blocks also relate in a way to the company name and logo: Dropbox, as shown in yellow.

3. Alignment

The Dropbox logo is left aligned with the cream box. The text seems left aligned but is close enough it may be justified. The cream box is centered between the maroon and light blue sections. The text is top aligned on the center of the Dropbox logo. The top of the cream box also seems to be aligned with the middle of the first row of text. The bottom of the text is aligned with the bottom of the image of the blocks.

4. Proximity

The design is very simple, but the principle of proximity still applies. The text is close together indicating that it is all one topic and phrase. The logo, image and text are all relatively close together indicating the relationship between the whole design.

5. Color

The 3 main colors in this design, light blue, cream, and maroon appear to be split complementary. The cream color, coming from the yellow family, has blue as a complementary color. Light blue and maroon are analogous to blue.

Conclusion

This design is very simple, but still involves all of the main design principles. Though they are subtle, they greatly impact the design by controlling the white space, clarifying the organization of the design, and improving the visual appeal, among others.