Most bad designs I’ve seen can be dramatically improved with some very basic design concepts that I think most developers can learn, at least towards getting the design looking relatively ‘clean’.
If you can’t apply a theme or make use of a designer, keep all your colors gray, and just focus on the shades. Darker shades to bring emphasis.
Secondly, make sure there is consistent padding, margins, and alignments. This is more tricky because it requires you to see the empty spaces and think of them as their own elements. Always be looking for areas of inconsistency and misalignment. This finicky because just two pixels offset here and there can have a big impact, but it is very much worth making thing look more consistent.
Lastly, look for opportunities to reduce the total number of visual elements in busy areas (within reason). Good examples of superfluous elements example might be outlines around icons, underlines, borders, two “empty space rectangles” that can become a single rectangle.
I’ve found 70% of my design methods are just applying these three concepts over and over again, and formulating somewhat logical principles to apply them. My designs aren’t as good as what a designer would produce, but are much higher quality than I didn’t apply any thought to design at all.
If you can’t apply a theme or make use of a designer, keep all your colors gray, and just focus on the shades. Darker shades to bring emphasis.
Secondly, make sure there is consistent padding, margins, and alignments. This is more tricky because it requires you to see the empty spaces and think of them as their own elements. Always be looking for areas of inconsistency and misalignment. This finicky because just two pixels offset here and there can have a big impact, but it is very much worth making thing look more consistent.
Lastly, look for opportunities to reduce the total number of visual elements in busy areas (within reason). Good examples of superfluous elements example might be outlines around icons, underlines, borders, two “empty space rectangles” that can become a single rectangle.
I’ve found 70% of my design methods are just applying these three concepts over and over again, and formulating somewhat logical principles to apply them. My designs aren’t as good as what a designer would produce, but are much higher quality than I didn’t apply any thought to design at all.